Attorney reviewed by Mark Blair, a Washington criminal defense and protection order attorney and co-founder of Blair Kim Moeller, PLLC. Last updated September 29, 2026.
Entering a home that a court order forbids a person to enter can lead to two charges in Washington, and the second is a felony. A Division Two decision on September 9, 2026 upheld a residential burglary conviction in which the entry that violated a protection order also supplied the criminal intent the burglary statute requires.
Residential burglary requires an unlawful entry into a dwelling with intent to commit a crime inside. When a protection order or no-contact order bars a person from a residence, entering it can be the unlawful entry, and violating the order can be the crime the person intended to commit there. In State v. Hill, that combination produced a class B felony conviction in addition to eight counts of felony violation of a court order.
What Residential Burglary Requires
Residential burglary is entering or remaining unlawfully in a dwelling with intent to commit a crime against a person or property inside. Under RCW 9A.52.025, it is a class B felony, and the statute directs that it be treated as more serious than second degree burglary for sentencing purposes. A dwelling is any building or structure ordinarily used for lodging.
The intent element surprises many people. Burglary does not require that a theft or assault actually occurred inside. It requires that the person entered or remained unlawfully intending to commit some crime there. Where a court order prohibits the person from being in the home at all, the order can supply both the unlawful entry and the intended crime.
The criminal defense attorneys at Blair Kim Moeller regularly see burglary charges added to protection order cases in King and Pierce Counties, because an entry into a protected person's home can satisfy both elements of the offense.
How the Order Supplied the Burglary
The defendant in Hill was subject to court orders protecting two women, including one barring him from coming near a protected person's residence. His former wife called 911 to report that he was inside her house, and police arrested him nearby. The State charged residential burglary along with felony violation of a court order.
At trial, the protected person's statements on the 911 call that he was "inside" her home, together with his own testimony that he had entered the house earlier that day, were sufficient. Division Two affirmed the burglary conviction. His presence in a home he was ordered to avoid was the unlawful entry, and the order he violated by being there was the crime he intended to commit.
He was also convicted of eight counts of felony violation of a court order, seven of them for contacts made while he was in custody awaiting trial. An arrest does not end the exposure; each new contact from jail can become a separate charge.
If you have been served with a protection order or charged with violating one, it is important to understand this exposure early.
Why This Matters on Both Sides of an Order
For a restrained person, the warning is direct. Going to the home to collect belongings, to check on a child, or because the situation seems calmer is not a minor risk. If the order covers that residence, the entry can be charged as residential burglary even if nothing was taken and no one was harmed inside. A burglary conviction adds a separate felony to the offender score, on top of any conviction for the violation itself, and can substantially increase the potential sentence. The lawful way to retrieve property or change the terms of contact is through the court that issued the order.
An invitation does not change this. A protected person cannot waive or suspend the order by asking the restrained person to come over, because only the court can modify it, as we explained in an earlier post. An entry made at the protected person's request is still an unlawful entry under the order.
For a protected person, the same rule explains why an unwanted entry is treated so seriously and why reporting it promptly, as the caller in Hill did, matters. The distinction between a civil protection order and a criminal no-contact order can affect which charges follow, and both kinds of order often exist at the same time between the same people.
