Wake Up Little Susie

A criminal defendant was entitled to trial by jury on a charge of unlawful entry at the Library of Congress, according to a decision of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

In pertinent part, the evidence at trial was as follows. At about 6:30 a.m. on June 24, 2014, Ms. Frey was found asleep at an employee’s desk in a restricted area of the Library of Congress’s Adams Building. The Adams Building is generally open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. To get to the desk where she was sleeping, Ms. Frey had to pass through areas that are not at any time open to the public.

Ms. Frey testified that she entered the Adams Building at about 3:30 p.m. on June 23, 2014. She went to the reading room and read for a couple of hours, but then she fell asleep. When she woke up, the building was closed and the lights were out. Ms. Frey started walking around the building, at one point walking through an underground tunnel to another Library of Congress building, the Jefferson Building. Eventually, Ms. Frey made her way to the office in which she was later arrested. 

The trial judge found Ms. Frey guilty. Specifically, the trial judge found that Ms. Frey was in an area of the Library of Congress that was not open to the public at any time and that Ms. Frey knew that her presence there was against the will of the Library of Congress. The trial judge did not credit Ms. Frey‟s denial of an intent to remain in the building.

The defendant gets a new trial by jury.

The opinion is authored by Associate Judge McLeese.

I miss Phil Everly. (Mike Frisch)