Opinion ID: 2274894
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Majority Misconstrues KRS 515.030(1) With Respect To the Phrase Threatens the Immediate Use of Physical Force

Text: The phrase threatens the immediate use of physical force is ambiguous. In one sense, threaten is an active verb. As so used, to threaten would require an act, in words or gestures, to express or imply a warning that physical force will be employed to achieve an objective, for example, to enforce the demand for money. In another sense, threaten can be used as a passive verb, to mean simply a presence that imparts to others concern for the possibility of some unpleasant consequence. The Majority applies the latter construction to the facts of this case to reach its conclusion that Appellant's aggressive demands were threatening to those present and instilled in them a fear of physical harm, even if Appellant never expressed or implied with words or gestures that physical force might be employed. I believe that interpretation is inconsistent with the legislative intent implicit in KRS 515.030, and therefore dissent. Prior to the 1974 enactment of the Kentucky Penal Code (KRS Chapters 500 through 534), robbery was defined by our common law as the act of feloniously and forcibly taking from the person of another, goods or money by violence or by putting him in fear.  Correll v. Commonwealth, 317 S.W.2d 886 (Ky.1958) (Citations omitted; Emphasis added). Our pre-penal code law was consistent with the interpretation the Majority now reads into the Kentucky Penal Code. In Williams v. Commonwealth, 721 S.W.2d 710, 712 (Ky. 1986), we noted that the sections of the Model Penal Code (Article 222.1), which informed the drafters of the Kentucky Penal Code, used the following phrase as an element of robbery: (b) threatens another with or purposely puts him in fear of immediate serious bodily injury.  (Emphasis added.) Thus, the Model Penal Code is consistent with our pre-penal code notion of robbery to the extent that both include among the elements of robbery, conduct putting someone in fear of injury. If, with conscious awareness of the Model Penal Code language and our common law definition, our legislature intended to retain within Robbery in the Second Degree (KRS 515.030) the element of putting another in fear, it would have used that essential language. By omitting that phrasing, and using the verb threatens in conjunction with another active verb, uses, the General Assembly intended threatens to mean the expressed or implied communication by the perpetrator of an intent to use force, not merely any conduct that puts another person in fear. Our criminal code attains fairness and justice because it attempts to establish objective criteria by which we must judge the conduct of others. It does so in the case of robbery second-degree by identifying the specific conduct that will subject one to punishment as a robber. The Majority conflates the objective act of making a threat to use physical force with the subjective effect that may be felt by others. An aggressive demand expressed under scary circumstances is not an objective substitute for the actual expression, by words or gestures, of threat to use immediate physical force. The Majority unhinges the conduct of the accused from objective requirements of our statute as it is now written, and binds it to the subjective response of others, contrary to the language of the statute. Where, along the sliding scale between a polite request for money to which one is not entitled and the aggressively hostile and frightening demand does theft or attempted theft become robbery? Does the vagrant in a dark street at night become a robber if, because of his scary countenance, a passerby is too frightened to deny his request for a handout? The Majority opinion cannot answer that question, and we are left with a case-by-case process to determine what circumstances may authorize a robbery prosecution. Prosecutors, judges, and juries, will differ in their respective views, and so we can have uneven or discriminatory prosecution. The answer can be found where it ought to be found, in the statute. If the vagrant, by words or gestures, expresses or implies an intention to use physical force if his request is denied, then he is a robber. The conduct qualifying him as such can be ascertained from the clear, concrete and objective evidence, and is not dependent upon the degree of fear that one might infer from his presence. Prior to our decision in Wilburn v. Commonwealth, 312 S.W.3d 321, (Ky.2010), we had allowed the objective element of deadly weapon for first-degree robbery to be satisfied by the victim's subjective fear that the robber had a weapon, even when there was no evidence that a weapon actually existed. After years of adhering to our common law conception of armed robbery despite clear statutory language to the contrary, in Wilburn we restored the objectivity to robbery first degree by requiring evidence that an actual, not imaginary, weapon was used. We recognized in Wilburn that no amount of intimidation by the robber can turn a finger in the pocket into a gun. By the same token, no amount of fear on the part of the victim can turn an aggressive demand for money into a specific threat of immediate force against a person. As we did in Wilburn with the deadly weapon element of robbery first degree, we should now remove the vestiges of our common law past from second-degree robbery, and recognize that the statutory language threaten[ing] the immediate use of physical force upon another person does not mean putting another in fear. It requires an expressed or implied threat, communicated by gestures or words, of force upon another person. A frightfully aggressive appearance from which one might infer the use of such force does not satisfy the requirement of our statute. For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent. MINTON, C.J., joins.