Introduction

Robbery as Aggravated Theft

Introduction

A pickpocket who lifts a wallet from a coat on a crowded train and a mugger who takes the same wallet at knifepoint have each stolen it, yet the criminal law sorts them into different offenses. The pickpocket has committed a theft. The mugger has committed robbery, which is a felony in every jurisdiction at common law.¹ What separates the two is the encounter. The mugger's taking happens in the victim's presence and is accomplished through force or fear, and that confrontation carries a risk of physical violence that a quiet theft does not. Robbery is graded above ordinary theft because it joins an invasion of property to that risk, and the elements of the offense are built to mark the point at which the confrontation begins.

The governing common-law definition lists five elements. Robbery consists of (i) a taking; (ii) of the personal property of another; (iii) from the other person's body or from an area within the other person's immediate presence; (iv) accomplished by force or by intimidation; and (v) carried out with the intent to permanently deprive that person of the property.² Those five divide into two groups. Elements (i), (ii), and (v) describe larceny, the ordinary theft of another's personal property, and elements (iii) and (iv) are the two aggravating features laid on top of it. Courts therefore describe robbery as a theft with two aggravating factors: a taking from the victim's person or immediate presence, and a taking accomplished by force or fear.³ Both aggravators must be present. The pickpocket's wallet comes from the victim's person, so element (iii) is met, but a taking that involves no force or intimidation stays on the larceny side of the line.

This chapter builds the offense in layers, in the order the definition invites. It begins with the larceny core that every robbery rests on, adds the requirement that the property come from the victim's person or immediate presence, and then takes up force or intimidation together with the rules on when that force or threat must be used. Only after the common-law offense is complete does the discussion turn to the Model Penal Code, which defines robbery with a different structure and therefore sorts some cases differently. Because everything else rests on the foundation, the next section examines the larceny elements and what each demands of the prosecution.