Robbery: Stealing Plus Force or Fear, Face to Face

⚡ 10-Second Rule

Robbery is stealing from a person, right there with them, using force or scary threats to get it.

🧒 ELI-10 Scene

Two kids lose their lunch money on the playground, but very differently. Nobody touched Ava — a sneaky classmate slid the five-dollar bill out of her open backpack while she watched the kickball game. Ben got cornered by a bigger kid who growled, "Hand it over or I'll shove you off the slide," so Ben handed it over, scared. Both lost five dollars. But Ben's money was taken with muscle and fear, right to his face. Playgrounds — and courts — treat the scary, forceful version as far worse.

⚖️ Actual Rule

Robbery at common law is larceny — a trespassory taking and carrying away of another's personal property with intent to permanently deprive — plus two aggravating elements: the property is taken from the victim's person or presence, and the taking is accomplished by force or by intimidation. "Presence" means an area within the victim's reach or control. Intimidation means putting the victim in fear of imminent harm to the victim, a family member, or someone present; a threat of future harm supports extortion, not robbery. The force or fear must be used to obtain or retain the property at the time of the taking. So a pickpocket who takes by stealth, with no force beyond the touch needed to lift the item, commits only larceny; and in most jurisdictions a sudden snatching is likewise mere larceny unless the victim resists or a struggle over the item occurs. Aggravated forms such as armed robbery — robbery committed with a deadly weapon — are statutory enhancements, not separate common-law crimes (compare Model Penal Code § 222.1, grading robbery by injury and weapon use, paraphrased).

[NJ-VARIANT: flagged for future Eli Explains NJ Law module]

ELI-10 translation: robbery is stealing done with muscle or scary right-now threats, close enough that the owner could have stopped you.

🔍 Ask These Questions

1. Is there a completed larceny underneath? (Did he take someone's stuff meaning to keep it? No stealing, no robbery.)
2. Was the property taken from the person or presence of the victim? (Was it on the victim, or close enough that she could have protected it?)
3. Was force used beyond the mere effort of taking? (Did he shove, hit, or wrestle the item away from a resisting owner?)
4. Or was there intimidation — fear of imminent harm to the victim or someone present? (Did a scary right-now threat make the owner give it up?)
5. Did the force or fear happen at the time of the taking, to get or keep the property? (Muscle used only later, or for some other reason, doesn't count.)
6. Is a threat of future harm doing the work instead? (A "pay me next week or else" threat is extortion, a different crime.)
7. Was a deadly weapon used? (A gun or knife upgrades it to armed robbery under modern statutes — but only if it's robbery first.)

⚠️ Bar Trap

Exam language: Examiners describe a stealthy pickpocketing or a sudden purse snatching from an unresisting victim and invite the conclusion that any taking "from the person" is robbery. It is not: the force element requires force or fear beyond the minimum effort needed to take the item, so the unnoticed pickpocket and the clean snatch are larceny only. The mirror trap gives you a victim who grips the purse and struggles — that resistance supplies the force, and the crime becomes robbery.

ELI-10: Taking from a person's body isn't automatically robbery. Ask if the thief needed muscle or fear to win the thing. A sneaky lift or a clean grab is just larceny. A tug-of-war turns it into robbery.

🧪 Question

During evening rush hour on a crowded subway platform, a thief spotted a commuter absorbed in her phone, her tote bag hanging open at her side. Standing close behind her, he gently slid her wallet out of the bag and walked away. The commuter felt nothing and discovered the wallet missing only when she got home. The thief was charged with robbery in a common-law jurisdiction.

Is the thief guilty of robbery?

(A) Yes, because he took property from the commuter's person and presence with intent to steal it. (B) Yes, because taking advantage of a distracted victim in a crowd constitutes intimidation. (C) No, because he used no force or fear beyond what was needed to lift the wallet. (D) No, because a wallet inside a bag is not on the victim's person.

Answer: (C). The taking was from the victim's person, but robbery also requires force or intimidation beyond the bare effort of the taking. A stealthy, unnoticed lift involves neither violence nor fear, so the thief committed larceny, not robbery.

💡 Why the Wrong Answers Are Wrong

• (A) proves only larceny from the person; it skips the independent force-or-fear element that separates robbery from larceny.
• (B) stretches intimidation past its meaning; the victim felt no fear because she never knew the taking was happening.
• (D) reaches the right result for a wrong reason; property in a carried bag is on the person or within her presence.
• ELI-10: The misconception is thinking closeness equals robbery. Robbery needs muscle or fear doing the winning, not just nearby fingers.