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That is called robbery.Lets say he walks up and, as expected, demands your wallet, keys, & your watch. No sign of a weapon yet. What do you do?
I noticed it's your first post, welcome to the forum._packsaddle_ wrote:That is called robbery.Lets say he walks up and, as expected, demands your wallet, keys, & your watch. No sign of a weapon yet. What do you do?
There is no such thing as attempted robbery in Texas.
Once he demands money, deadly force is justified.
There is no such thing as attempted theft in Texas.If you aren't afraid of the non-threatening little girl and she causes no injury, that might be considered an attempted theft.
RPB wrote:Ok, what am I missing or not understanding?
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The Penal Code of 1974 included a general attempt statute which applies to all criminal offenses defined by the Penal Code. Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 15.01 (West Supp. 1994). This is a difficult statute to apply.
To prove the offense of attempted theft, the State must prove that an accused had a specific intent to steal a particular article of property and that the accused engaged in an act which amounted to more than mere preparation that tended to accomplish his intent to steal that particular article of property.
srothstein wrote:RPB wrote:Ok, what am I missing or not understanding?
{snip}
The Penal Code of 1974 included a general attempt statute which applies to all criminal offenses defined by the Penal Code. Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 15.01 (West Supp. 1994). This is a difficult statute to apply.
To prove the offense of attempted theft, the State must prove that an accused had a specific intent to steal a particular article of property and that the accused engaged in an act which amounted to more than mere preparation that tended to accomplish his intent to steal that particular article of property.
You are not missing much. There is an attempted theft crime in Texas, and it can be even more clearly by the exact reason why there is no such thing as attempted robbery.
PC 29.01 shows that the attempted theft is included in the robbery statute, so you cannot attempt robbery. By definition, there couldn't be .... it is robbery, not attempted robbery. Deadly force is justified to prevent it.
Sec. 29.01. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:
(1) "In the course of committing theft" means conduct that occurs in an attempt to commit, during the commission, or in immediate flight after the attempt or commission of theft.
We need to be careful about this, especially as we discuss the justification for using force or deadly force. As you clearly show by your example, the mere demand for money is not a robbery. There must be some other factor present that puts the victim in fear of injury. The victim MUST be able to articulate exactly why he was in fear.RPB wrote:That's right, a demand for property would be robbery, in my layman's opinion, unless it's a wheelchair bound, sickly, anorexic, unarmed, non-threatening dwarf, 4 year old girl in a pink dress, who is throwing a fit to get a quarter to call her parents because she is lost and needs to call for a ride home, who was doing the demanding.
So, in a nutshell (I love that legalese term ... in a nutshellsrothstein wrote:We need to be careful about this, especially as we discuss the justification for using force or deadly force. As you clearly show by your example, the mere demand for money is not a robbery. There must be some other factor present that puts the victim in fear of injury. The victim MUST be able to articulate exactly why he was in fear.RPB wrote:That's right, a demand for property would be robbery, in my layman's opinion, unless it's a wheelchair bound, sickly, anorexic, unarmed, non-threatening dwarf, 4 year old girl in a pink dress, who is throwing a fit to get a quarter to call her parents because she is lost and needs to call for a ride home, who was doing the demanding.
One of the interesting problems where this might be used is in bank robberies. Normally a bank robbery as a federal crime is also chargeable as a state crime of robbery or aggravated robbery. But if the actor stands in line and doesn't say anything or show any weapons he has not communicated the threat. If he just slides a note to the teller that says "Give me $10,000" and the teller complies, he has not committed a robbery. He has committed a theft by taking property without the owner's permission and he might have committed the federal crime of bank robbery, but he has not violated PC 29.02 since he has done nothing to put any reasonable person in any fear. This is a problem since everyone knows tellers are told to just cooperate.
) You are saying all material elements of the offense must be present, or something like that?Fact is, a person with criminal intent can often get right up to you without doing anything that would give you legal cause to defend yourself.I'm walking to my car. The parking lot is pretty empty and I see a gangster looking thug about 20' away walking directly at me. He has that "up to no good" look and is obviously fixated on me but no signs of a weapon. He could be coming out to help me load my groceries- or to rob me. What do you do?
True, the first time I had a loaded .38 at my head, I had been talking casually to the fairly well-dressed clean-shaven normal-looking man who was pretending that he wanted to buy a set of stereo speakers from the store where I was working, he turned slightly and his hand went to his waistband and he drew his mexican-carried .38 in one smooth relaxed non-hurried motion, nothing abrupt or alarming occurred prior to that.casingpoint wrote:The OP said:Fact is, a person with criminal intent can often get right up to you without doing anything that would give you legal cause to defend yourself.I'm walking to my car. The parking lot is pretty empty and I see a gangster looking thug about 20' away walking directly at me. He has that "up to no good" look and is obviously fixated on me but no signs of a weapon. He could be coming out to help me load my groceries- or to rob me. What do you do?