Wisconsin Burglary Statute 943.10: Elements, Penalties, and Defenses

Wisconsin’s burglary statute, section 943.10, makes it a felony to intentionally enter an enclosed space without permission when you already intend to commit a crime inside. A standard conviction is a Class F felony carrying up to 12 years and 6 months in prison and a $25,000 fine. If an aggravating factor is present, the charge becomes a Class E felony with a maximum of 15 years and a $50,000 fine.¹²

What the Prosecution Has to Prove

A burglary conviction requires the state to establish four elements beyond a reasonable doubt. You intentionally entered a protected space. You entered without the consent of the person in lawful control. You knew you did not have consent. And at the moment you crossed the threshold, you already intended to steal, commit a felony, commit a battery, or commit a battery against an unborn child inside.¹³

That timing element matters. The criminal intent has to exist when you enter. If you walked in lawfully or without any plan to commit a crime and only later decided to take something, the burglary charge does not hold, though the underlying theft or other offense still can.

There’s also a built-in exception: entering a place while it’s open to the general public counts as entry with consent. Walking into a store during business hours is not burglary even if you’re thinking about shoplifting. The charge only attaches when you enter outside public hours or go into a restricted area.¹

Places the Statute Covers

Burglary in Wisconsin reaches well beyond houses and apartments. The statute applies to:

Any building or dwelling, including homes, offices, warehouses, and sheds
Enclosed railroad cars
Enclosed portions of ships or vessels, and any boat with sleeping quarters
Locked cargo areas of trucks or trailers
Motor homes and trailer homes, whether or not anyone lives in them
Any room within one of the above, so a locked office inside an open building can qualify on its own

The common thread is enclosure. An open field or unfenced yard is not covered, but a locked tool shed on that property is.¹

What Turns It Into Aggravated Burglary

Five circumstances push a standard burglary up from a Class F to a Class E felony. Any one of them is enough:¹

You were armed with a dangerous weapon or certain chemical devices when you entered
You entered unarmed but armed yourself with a dangerous weapon while inside
You used an explosive to open a safe, vault, or other secure container while inside
You committed a battery against a person lawfully present
Someone else was lawfully present in the dwelling, boat, or motor home when you entered

The last factor catches people off guard. If you break into what you believe is an empty house and a resident happens to be home, the charge escalates automatically. Your knowledge of the person’s presence is not the test.

“Dangerous weapon” is defined broadly in Wisconsin. It includes any firearm loaded or not, any device designed as a weapon that could cause death or serious injury, electric weapons, ligatures used against someone’s throat or mouth, and any ordinary object used in a way likely to cause death or serious harm.⁴ A screwdriver or baseball bat can qualify when it’s used or intended as a weapon during the burglary.

Prison Time and Fines

Standard burglary as a Class F felony carries up to 12 years and 6 months in prison, up to a $25,000 fine, or both. Aggravated burglary as a Class E felony carries up to 15 years, up to a $50,000 fine, or both.²

Those maximum totals are split under Wisconsin’s bifurcated sentencing system. Every felony sentence has two parts: a term of confinement in prison, followed by a term of extended supervision in the community. The confinement portion of a Class F felony cannot exceed 7 years and 6 months. For a Class E felony, the confinement cap is 10 years. Whatever is left of the total sentence is served on supervision, which must run at least 25 percent of the confinement term.⁵

A practical example: a judge who sentences someone to 6 years of confinement on a standard burglary must add at least 1 year and 6 months of extended supervision, with the total sentence capped at 12 years and 6 months. Violating supervision terms can send you back to prison for the remainder of the supervision period.

How Burglary Differs From Trespass and Robbery

These three charges often get confused, and the differences matter.

Criminal trespass to a dwelling is a Class A misdemeanor. It covers intentionally entering or remaining in someone’s home without permission under circumstances tending to provoke a confrontation. The dividing line is intent: trespass does not require any plan to commit a crime inside.⁶ Wisconsin courts have held that trespass is not a lesser-included offense of burglary, so a jury cannot simply downgrade a burglary charge on its own.

Robbery is built around force or the threat of force against a person during a theft. Burglary does not require any interaction with a victim; you can commit it in an empty building. The two can overlap when someone breaks into an occupied space and uses force to take property, but the underlying conduct each statute targets is different.

Defenses That Attack the Elements

Because the prosecution has to prove both unauthorized entry and criminal intent at the moment of entry, the defense usually works by attacking one of those elements directly.

Consent, actual or believed. If you genuinely believed you had permission to enter, the state cannot establish the “without consent” element. This comes up frequently in disputes between roommates, estranged partners, and situations where permission was ambiguous or previously granted.
No intent at entry. If the decision to steal or commit a crime formed only after you were inside, the burglary charge does not hold. The underlying offense can still be charged, but it is not burglary.
Mistaken entry. Walking into the wrong apartment or building by genuine mistake negates the intentional-entry element.
Suppression of evidence. Evidence obtained through an unlawful search can be excluded. Warrantless searches inside a home are presumptively invalid, with limited exceptions for consent, searches incident to a lawful arrest, exigent circumstances, and items in plain view. A successful suppression motion can gut the state’s case.⁷

None of these are automatic. Prosecutors answer consent claims with evidence of forced entry, and they infer criminal intent from tools found on a person or from the circumstances of the entry itself. But each element is a potential weak point, and that is where defense attorneys apply pressure.

What a Conviction Costs Beyond the Sentence

The statutory penalties are only part of the picture. A felony burglary conviction carries lasting collateral consequences.

Under federal law, anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison is permanently barred from possessing firearms or ammunition. Both standard and aggravated burglary in Wisconsin clear that threshold, so a conviction triggers a lifetime federal ban.⁸ Violating that ban is itself a separate federal felony carrying up to 10 years.⁹

Wisconsin strips voting rights from anyone convicted of a felony, but those rights return automatically once the entire sentence is complete, including extended supervision. No pardon is required.¹⁰

Beyond that, a burglary conviction creates real barriers to employment, professional licensing, housing, and immigration status. Many licensing boards treat felonies involving theft or dishonesty as disqualifying, sometimes for years after a sentence is complete. These downstream effects often shape a person’s life more than the prison term itself, and they’re worth weighing at every stage of a case.

1
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 943.10 – Burglary
2
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 939.50 – Classification of Felonies
3
Wisconsin Court System. 1424 Wisconsin Court System – Burglary With Intent to Commit a Felony
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Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 939.22 – Words and Phrases Defined
5
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 973.01 – Bifurcated Sentences
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Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Code 943.14 – Criminal Trespass to Dwellings
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United States Courts. What Does the Fourth Amendment Mean?
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts
9
Department of Justice. Quick Reference to Federal Firearms Laws
10
ACLU of Wisconsin. Voting Rights for Persons With Criminal Convictions