Opinion ID: 848860
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: transactional view

Text: Having established that the statute encompasses not merely an initial taking of property by force and violence or by assault, but rather, a robbing of the victim by assault, where property continues to be in the presence of the victim, the question next to be addressed is whether this Court should recognize the transactional view of robbery as it has hitherto been applied in Michigan.
While this Court has never expressly adopted the transactional view of robbery, Michigan jurisprudence on this issue is no tabula rasa. The Court of Appeals, including the panel in this case, has expressly applied this view to robbery for at least thirty years. [12] See, e.g., People v. Sanders, 28 Mich.App. 274, 277, 184 N.W.2d 269 (1970) (stating that, in the context of armed robbery, the incident of the taking must be viewed in its totality in order to ascertain the intent of the defendant when the assault occurs); People v. Beebe, 70 Mich.App. 154, 158, 245 N.W.2d 547 (1976) (stating that the view of the majority of other jurisdictions considers robbery as an ongoing transaction rather than one broken up into its component acts); LeFlore, supra at 562, 293 N.W.2d 628, (stating that the assault may follow the taking if that force is used to completely sever the victim's possession); Clark, supra at 480, 317 N.W.2d 664 (stating that Michigan employs the `transaction' test for armed robbery, which provides that a taking is not considered complete until the assailant has effected his escape because the victim is still considered in possession of his property); People v. Denny, 114 Mich.App. 320, 324, 319 N.W.2d 574 (1982); People v. Turner, 120 Mich.App. 23, 28, 328 N.W.2d 5 (1982); People v. Tinsley, 176 Mich.App. 119, 121, 439 N.W.2d 313 (1989); Newcomb, supra at 430-431, 476 N.W.2d 749; People v. Velasquez, 189 Mich.App. 14, 17, 472 N.W.2d 289 (1991). Thus, the Court of Appeals has consistently interpreted the statutes defining robbery and armed robbery as continuous offense[s], which [are] not complete until the perpetrator reaches a place of temporary safety. Tinsley, supra at 121, 439 N.W.2d 313. This line of precedent, with its attendant reasoning, provides considerable support for the proposition that the transactional view of robbery is consistent with Michigan jurisprudence. [13]
In addition to being consistent with the robbery statute, Michigan case law, and the common law, the transactional view of robbery has been implicitly accepted by this Court in other contexts. While the majority asserts, correctly, that this Court has never recognized the transactional approach in the specific context of robbery, op. at 541, 648 N.W.2d at 169, this Court has adopted a transactional view of robbery in the context of felony murder, where the murder occurs after commission of the robbery. People v. Podolski, 332 Mich. 508, 515-518, 52 N.W.2d 201 (1952). There, the Court stated that the robber may be said to be engaged in the commission of the crime while he is endeavoring to escape and make away with the goods taken. Id. at 518, 52 N.W.2d 201.In Podolski at 515-518, 52 N.W.2d 201, this Court expressly adopted the reasoning of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Moyer, 357 Pa. 181, 190-191, 53 A.2d 736 (1947), which stated: It is equally consistent with reason and sound public policy to hold that when a felon's attempt to commit robbery or burglary sets in motion a chain of events which were or should have been within his contemplation when the motion was initiated, he should be held responsible for any death which by direct and almost inevitable sequence results from the initial criminal act.... Every robber or burglar knows that a likely later act in the chain of events he inaugurates will be the use of deadly force against him on the part of the selected victim. For whatever results follow from that natural and legal use of retaliating force, the felon must be held responsible. Further, the Podolski Court at 517-518 agreed with the reasoning asserted by the prosecutor, quoting from Wharton, Homicide (3d ed.), p. 186: Where a homicide is committed within the res gestae of a felony, however, it is committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, a felony within the meaning of such statutes. That the attempt to commit the felony was not far advanced does not lessen the offense. And a burglar who breaks into a building, or who shoots a person who discovers him in an effort to escape, cannot avoid punishment for murder in the first degree, upon the theory that the burglary consisted in breaking in, and was consummated before the killing. A burglar may be said to be engaged in the commission of the crime of burglary while making away with the plunder, and while engaged in securing it. So, a robbery within the meaning of a rule that a homicide committed in the perpetration of a robbery is murder in the first degree is not necessarily concluded by the removal of the goods from the presence of the owner; and it is not necessary that the homicide should be committed at the precise time and place of the robbery. [14] In my judgment, it is altogether reasonable to extend, by analogy, this reasoning with respect to felony murder for a killing committed after a burglary or after a robbery, to the case of an assault committed after an initial taking, but before the perpetrator's escape. In People v. Gimotty, 216 Mich.App. 254, 257-259, 549 N.W.2d 39 (1996), the Court of Appeals held that the defendant had not reached a place of temporary safety in his escape from the scene of retail fraud, defined in the chapter on larceny, M.C.L. § 750.356, and, thus, that the death of a child in a vehicle struck by the defendant's vehicle during a high-speed police chase from the store was sufficiently connected to the underlying offense to support felony murder. See also People v. Oliver, 63 Mich.App. 509, 523, 234 N.W.2d 679 (1975); People v. Smith, 55 Mich.App. 184, 189, 222 N.W.2d 172 (1974). Again, by analogy, these cases support the view that an assault following an ordinary larceny elevates the crime to robbery and that a perpetrator who uses that force at any time before reaching a place of temporary safety in an effort to retain the property or escape with the property can be charged with robbery. [15] Finally, we would observe that the transactional view of robbery is also consistent with the premises that underlie the greater culpability of the perpetrator who resorts to violence in an attempt to steal property. [16] It is not the victim, but the perpetrator who should bear the full responsibility for his actions. `Every robber or burglar knows that a likely later act in the chain of events he inaugurates will be the [attempted] use of deadly force against him on the part of the selected victim. For whatever results follow from that natural and legal use of retaliating force, the felon must be held responsible.'  Podolski, supra at 516, 52 N.W.2d 201 (citations omitted). The use of force by the perpetrator against the owner of property who discovers his deed is an act, the need for which should not take the perpetrator by surprise. The use of force in such a circumstance should not be viewed as unusual or uncommon, but rather as a typical incident of the crime of larceny. [17]