Shoutbox

For those of you who are saying you are allowed to break into somebody's house because they are in danger you are actually incorrect. You will always need the person in possession of the land (be it through fee simple or lease) to grant you permission to enter the land (this is known as a fee simple).

Ambulance workers, firefighters, electrical board members and all other people who do legally enter your land actually have a statute granted easement onto your land which gives them permission to enter your land while performing their duty (to cut a long story short).

At least that is the case in Australia; the only thing which would change this in any common law (deriving from the British legal system) jurisdiction is statute which says otherwise. But on a side note, the person in possession would be pretty cruel to sue you for saving their life and in any case would probably receive only nominal damages of $1.

Oh yes, and the mere act of picking another person's lock is clearly illegal provided you don't have permission. This is because you would be commiting conversion. That is, performing an act to a chattel (a thing) which is adverse to the owner's possession of that chattel.

And if that wasn't clear enough, in the statute you quoted actually spells it out. Let me translate it to layman terms,
If you don't have a good legal excuse (which can be proved by anything you have on your person), This might allow you to break into somebody's house to save their life. But why pick the lock and waste precious time when you could smash the window and get in there quicker

have any object which is capable of breaking a lock on a house, vehicle, vault or safe; Yes, this includes say a screwdriver or even a paper clip

and it is reasonable to see that the object has previously been used, or is to be used to break into a lock This is probably the part of the test that would fail for say a screwdriver, but if there is proof that the screwdriver you are using was used to break into somebody's lock (I can't see how you reasonably can infer that somebody holding a screwdriver will in the future break into a lock)

then it is illegal and indictable offence for which you can be jailed for upto ten years although that would obviously depend on how serious the crime is. If the US/Canada is anything like Australia you would probably get a slap on the wrist punishment