Opinion ID: 1978998
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Is pointing a gun a lesser included offense of armed robbery?

Text: The principal question on this appeal is whether the crime of unlawfully pointing a firearm contrary to sec. 941.20 (1) (c), Stats., is a lesser included offense of armed robbery contrary to sec. 943.32. An included crime is defined in sec. 939.66, which provides, in relevant part: Upon prosecution for a crime, the actor may be convicted of either the crime charged or an included crime, but not both. An included crime may be any of the following: (1) A crime which does not require proof of any fact in addition to those which must be proved for the crime charged; . . . The precise question here is whether the crime of pointing a firearm requires the proof of any fact in addition to those required to be proved in the armed robbery prosecution. Sec. 941.20 (1) (c), Stats., makes a crime Intentionally point[ing] a firearm at or toward another. The armed robbery statute provides, in relevant part: (1) Whoever, with intent to steal, takes property from the person or presence of the owner by either of the following means may be imprisoned not more than 10 years: (a) By using force against the person of the owner with intent thereby to overcome his physical resistance or physical power of resistance to the taking or carrying away of the property; or (b) By threatening the imminent use of force against the person of the owner or of another who is present with intent thereby to compel the owner to acquiesce in the taking or carrying away of the property. (2) Whoever violates sub. (1) while armed with a dangerous weapon may be imprisoned not more than 30 years. These statutes disclose that pointing the weapon is not a fact necessary to prove armed robbery, while it is an element of the less serious crime. In fact, an armed robbery conviction does not require a visible weapon at all. [3] All that is required is the threat of using a weapon. Thus under the test of sec. 939.66, Stats., pointing a firearm is not an included offense within the armed robbery statute. Relying on Laev v. State [4] and State v. Melvin, [5] defendant attempts to argue that even if the statutory elements of pointing a firearm are not included within the elements of armed robbery, on the facts of this case the first offense is included in the latter. Quite clearly these cases do not support that proposition. In Laev this court found that one fraud statute was the lesser included of another fraud statute, while in Melvin the court declared the reckless use of a weapon under sec. 941.20 (1) (a) and (c), Stats., to be lesser included offenses within attempted first-degree murder. Defendant claims that on the facts of this case it would have been impossible for the defendant to have committed the greater offense without committing the lesser. While that is true, this is not the test for finding a lesser included offense. The correct test is to examine the required elements of the crime. If defendant's test were correct armed robbery would become a lesser included offense of homicide when a death was involved in an armed robbery and pointing a firearm would be a lesser included offense of rape should the assailant choose to use such a weapon. In short, the test for a lesser included offense is not the peculiar nature of a single defendant's crime, rather it is whether the lesser offense is statutorily within the greater. [6] Defendant asserts that Holesome v. State [7] states a different rule. A review of Holesome demonstrates, however, that the rule is that it is utterly impossible to commit the greater crime without committing the lesser crime. [8] That is the rule consistently applied by this court. Armed robbery does not require the pointing of a gun and thus the latter is not a lesser included offense. The fact that in the present case the defendant did actually point the gun is irrelevant. The requirement is those facts which are required to be proven, not those facts which might be proven in addition to those required by the statute. We are satisfied that in the present case the lesser offense contains an element not found in the greater and thus it is not a lesser included offense.