Opinion ID: 1922714
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Failure to consummate the crime.

Text: ¶ 34. Property need not be taken for a robbery to occur. Spann, 771 So.2d at 891-92. In Greenwood, this Court affirmed a robbery conviction even though nothing was ever taken or demanded. Greenwood, 744 So.2d at 769-70. Greenwood told a co-indictee that he planned to rob a certain person and said that he planned to knock on this person's door and point a gun to the person's head. Id. at 770. Yet Greenwood failed to carry out his initial plan and asked for gas instead. Id. After the victim assumed that Greenwood and his companions had left, shots were fired and a concrete block was thrown through the victim's plate-glass, sliding door. Id. at 769. However, Greenwood and his cohorts fled when the victim retrieved his hunting rifle and returned gunfire. Id. This Court held that the jury was free to infer that the only reason no robbery was consummated was because the intended victim had returned gunfire. Id. at 770. ¶ 35. Hughes cites Anderson v. State, 168 Miss. 424, 151 So. 558 (1934) for support. In Anderson, two men went to the back door of a store and asked for a pack of cigarettes. Anderson, 151 So. at 558. After one of the store's owners returned with the cigarettes, the defendants proceeded to shoot all three men who were at the store. Id. at 559. After the shootings, both defendants simply left. Id. This Court held that the evidence was insufficient to support felonious intent to take personal property. Id. To infer any further intent would have been the merest speculation. Id. ¶ 36. We find Anderson distinguishable because felonious intent is not merely speculative in this case. A juror reasonably could infer that Webster and Hughes intended to rob the Warners, but abandoned their plan when Warner did not go down after being shot multiple times. ¶ 37. For the aforementioned reasons, we find that the state proved the essential elements of armed robbery.