Opinion ID: 1401242
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Expansion of the claim-of-right defense to robberies perpetrated to satisfy, settle or collect on a debt

Text: As noted above (ante, 90 Cal. Rptr.2d at pp. 148-149, 987 P.2d at pp. 173-174), Butler broadly held that a bona fide belief, even though mistakenly held, that one has a right or claim to the property [taken in a robbery] negates felonious intent [Citations.]. ( Butler, supra, 65 Cal.2d at p. 573, 55 Cal.Rptr. 511, 421 P.2d 703, fn. omitted.) Butler was a felony-murder case in which the defendant, a former employee of the victim, believed the victim owed him money, went armed with a gun to the victim's home to collect payment, shot and killed the victim (and also shot another person present in the victim's home) during an ensuing scuffle, searched the home for money and found none, and finally took a wallet and ran from the house. (Id. at p. 572, 55 Cal. Rptr. 511, 421 P.2d 703.) The Butler court reversed defendant's murder conviction, concluding a claim-of-right defense could negate the felonious intent required for robbery on those facts. In furtherance of the public policy of discouraging the use of forcible self-help, a majority of cases from other jurisdictions decided after Butler that have addressed the question whether claim of right should be available as a defense to robbery have rejected Butler 's expansive holding that a good faith belief by a defendant that he was entitled to the money or possessions of the victim to satisfy or collect on a debt is a defense to robbery. (See Whitescarver v. State (Alaska Ct.App.1998) 962 P.2d 192, 194-196; State v. Self (1986) 42 Wash. App. 654, 713 P.2d 142 [rejecting majority rationale in Butler]; Hamby v. State (1992) 206 Ga.App. 791, 426 S.E.2d 670, 671-672; State v. Mejia (1995) 141 N.J. 475, 662 A.2d 308, 320; State v. Schaefer (App.1990) 163 Ariz. 626, 790 P.2d 281, 283-285; In re Hammer (N.Y.Sup.Ct. 1988) 139 Misc.2d 782, 528 N.Y.S.2d 784, 785; People v. Reid (1987) 69 N.Y.2d 469, 515 N.Y.S.2d 750, 508 N.E.2d 661, 663-665; People v. Hodges (1985) 113 A.D.2d 514, 496 N.Y.S.2d 771, 774 [rejecting majority rationale in Butler]; Com. v. Sleighter (1981) 495 Pa. 262, 433 A.2d 469, 471-472 (plur.opn.); State v. Brighter (1980) 62 Haw. 25, 608 P.2d 855, 858-860; Com. v. Dombrauskas (1980) 274 Pa.Super. 452, 418 A.2d 493 [citing with approval Justice Mosk's dissent in Butler ]; State v. Russell (1975) 217 Kan. 481, 536 P.2d 1392; Cates v. State (Md.1974) 21 Md.App. 363, 320 A.2d 75 [citing with approval Justice Mosk's dissent in Butler]; Crawford v. State (Tex.Crim.App.1974) 509 S.W.2d 582; State v. Martin (1973) 15 Or.App. 498, 516 P.2d 753; Edwards v. State (1970) 49 Wis.2d 105, 181 N.W.2d 383; People v. Uselding (1969) 107 Ill.App.2d 305, 247 N.E.2d 35; Elliott v. State (1970) 2 Term. Crim.App. 418, 454 S.W.2d 187, 188; but see State v. Snowden (1982) 7 Ohio App.3d 358, 455 N.E.2d 1058, 1065 [following Butler]; Com. v. Larmey (Mass.1982) 14 Mass.App.Ct. 281, 438 N.E.2d 382; People v. Holcomb (1975) 395 Mich. 326, 235 N.W.2d 343, 345-346 [following Butler].) In Barnett, supra, 17 Cal.4th 1044, 74 Cal.Rptr.2d 121, 954 P.2d 384, we confronted claims of instructional error, ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct stemming from the trial court's failure to instruct on a claim-of-right defense as to one of two robbery victims in a capital case in which a robbery-murder special circumstance was alleged. After reviewing the rationale and holding of Butler, supra, 65 Cal.2d 569, 55 Cal.Rptr. 511, 421 P.2d 703 (see ante, 90 Cal.Rptr.2d at pp. 148-149, 987 P.2d at pp. 173-174), we made the following observations regarding the policy implications of permitting a claim-of-right defense to robbery: In his dissent in Butler, Justice Mosk took a dim view of the majority's apparent authorization of armed robbery as a self-help measure. Pointing out that the statutory provision defining robbery (§ 211) raised no issue of ownership of property forcibly taken, but only its possession, Justice Mosk saw no statutory basis for the defense. [Citation.] Moreover, noting that the leading cases permitting forcible recapture of property were all decided before the turn of the century, Justice Mosk concluded that a six-shooter was no longer `an acceptable device for do-it-yourself debt collection' and that the `might-makes-right' doctrine of the previous century was of `dubious adaptability' to modern times. [Citation.] [¶] Since Butler, supra, 65 Cal.2d 569, 55 Cal.Rptr. 511, 421 P.2d 703, was decided, a number of other jurisdictions have rejected the claim-of-right defense for public policy reasons in cases where force, violence, or weapons are used for self-help debt collection. [Citations.] As several courts have observed, the proposition that a claim of right negates the felonious intent in robbery `not only is lacking in sound reason and logic, but it is utterly incompatible with and has no place in an ordered and orderly society such as ours, which eschews self-help through violence. Adoption of the proposition would be but one step short of accepting lawless reprisal as an appropriate means of redressing grievances, real or fancied.' [Citations.] ( Barnett, supra, 17 Cal.4th at pp. 1143-1144, 74 Cal.Rptr.2d 121, 954 P.2d 384.) In Barnett we were not asked by the People to revisit Butler' s increasingly anachronistic authorization of the claim-of-right defense in the context of armed robbery. (Barnett, supra, 17 Cal.4th at p. 1146, 74 Cal.Rptr.2d 121, 954 P.2d 384.) However, noting the obvious public policy reasons for strictly circumscribing the circumstances under which persons should be permitted to enforce their debt demands at gunpoint [citations], we conclude[d] the defense is not available where the claimed debt is uncertain and subject to dispute. (Ibid., italics added.) The People in this case urge that [t]he rationale for declining to permit a defendant to assert a claim of right defense in a robbery case is quite simple: An ordered society founded on the rule of law does not countenance self-help when it is accomplished by the use of fear, intimidation, or violence. Justice Mosk espoused a similar viewpoint in regard to the Butler majority's application of the claim-of-right defense to the facts there in issue: [T]he question is ultimately one of basic public policy, which unequivocally dictates that the proper forum for resolving debt disputes is a court of law, pursuant to legal process  not the street, at the business end of a lethal weapon. Had this defendant been entrusted with the contents of the deceased's wallet, and had he appropriated them to his own use, believing he was entitled to keep the funds in payment of wages or a debt, that belief would have furnished him no defense to a charge of embezzlement (Pen.Code, § 511; People v. Proctor (1959) 169 Cal.App.2d 269, 277, 337 P.2d 93). By parity of rationale, the claim of offset denied to the trusted employee who dips into the company cashbox should be denied to one who, like this defendant, enforces his demands at gunpoint. To hold otherwise would be to constitute him judge and jury in his own cause. ( Butler, supra, 65 Cal.2d at p. 577, 55 Cal.Rptr. 511, 421 P.2d 703 (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.), italics added.) [4] `It is a general principle that one who is or believes he is injured or deprived of what he is lawfully entitled to must apply to the state for help. Self-help is in conflict with the very idea of social order. It subjects the weaker to risk of the arbitrary will or mistaken belief of the stronger. Hence the law in general forbids it.' ( Daluiso v. Boone (1969) 71 Cal.2d 484, 500, 78 Cal.Rptr. 707, 455 P.2d 811, quoting 5 Pound, Jurisprudence (1959) § 142, pp. 351-352.) In State v. Ortiz (App.Div.1973) 124 N.J.Super. 189, 305 A.2d 800, the New Jersey appellate court quoted the holding in Butler and criticized the decision for failing to acknowledge the fundamental policy against encouraging resort to force, fear, or violence to gain possession of money or goods, even when acting under a claim of right. The Ortiz court observed that, A review of the authorities ... reveals that the proposition so espoused by the California court is little more than a relic of days long past, which did not then and does not now enjoy anything like the universal acceptance suggested by the sweeping language of the majority opinion in Butler. (Id. at p. 801.) The Ortiz court found that allowing a claim-of-right defense to robbery, as provided in Butler, was antithetical to an ordered and orderly society, and concluded by rejecting] ... out of hand the availability of the defense to robbery. (Id at p. 802.) In State v. Mejia, supra, 141 N.J. 475, 662 A.2d 308 (Mejia), the New Jersey Supreme Court quoted the decision in State v. Ortiz and concluded, in part for sound reasons of public policy, that the New Jersey Legislature, in enacting a statutory claim-of-right defense to theft, did not intend to extend that affirmative defense to robbery. (Id. at pp. 319, 320.) The legitimacy of the need for our laws to discourage forcible or violent self-help as a remedy seems beyond question. Defendant himself acknowledges the strong public policy considerations militating against retention of the claim-of-right defense for robbery. Unlike the court in Mejia, supra, 141 N.J. 475, 662 A.2d 308, however, we have concluded that California's Legislature incorporated the common law claim-of-right doctrine into the statutorily defined mens rea element of robbery when it codified that offense over 100 years ago, and that consequently, we are not free to judicially abolish it and thereby effectively expand the statutory definition of the crime. (§ 6; In re Brown, supra, 9 Cal.3d at p. 624, 108 Cal.Rptr. 465, 510 P.2d 1017.) [5] We nonetheless conclude that Butler went well beyond the basic underlying notion that a thief or robber must intend to steal another's property when, on the facts before it, the court extended the availability of a claim-of-right defense to perpetrators who rob their victims assertedly to settle, satisfy, or otherwise collect on a debt. Specifically, we find nothing in the language of section 211 to suggest the Legislature intended to incorporate such a broad and expansive extension of the claim-of-right doctrine into the robbery statute. Many of the out-of-state decisions that have rejected Butler 's expansive extension of the claim-of-right defense to so-called debt collection robbery cases have retained it as a viable defense where the defendant takes specific property in which he has a bona fide claim of ownership or title. (See, e.g., Edwards v. State, supra, 181 N.W.2d at p. 388; accord, State v. Self, supra, 713 P.2d at p. 144; State v. Winston (1982) 170 W.Va. 555, 295 S.E.2d 46, 51; State v. Russell, supra, 536 P.2d at pp. 1393-1394; State v. Martin, supra, 516 P.2d at p. 755.) The Wisconsin Supreme Court in Edwards v. State, supra, 181 N.W.2d at page 388, cogently set forth the rationale for rejecting a claim-of-right defense to robberies involving forcible debt collection: The distinction between specific personal property and money in general is important. A debtor can owe another $150 but the $150 in the debtor's pocket is not the specific property of the creditor. One has the intention to steal when he takes money from another's possession against the possessor's consent even though he also intends to apply the stolen money to a debt. The efficacy of self-help by force to enforce a bona fide claim for money does not negate the intent to commit robbery. Can one break into a bank and take money so long as he does not take more than the balance in his savings or checking account? Under the majority rule [as it then existed, allowing a claim of right defense to any robbery] the accused must make change to be sure he collects no more than the amount he believes is due him on the debt. A debt is a relationship and in respect to money seldom finds itself embedded in specific coins and currency of the realm. Consequently, taking money from a debtor by force to pay a debt is robbery. The creditor has no such right of appropriation and allocation. We agree with the rationale of Edwards v. State, supra, 49 Wis.2d 105, 181 N.W.2d 383, and similar decisions drawing a distinction for debt collection cases. Indeed, the Butler majority appears to have overlooked this court's earlier decision in People v. Beggs (1918) 178 Cal. 79, 172 P. 152 (Beggs) , an extortion case (§ 518) in which we explained that because of the strong public policy militating against self-help by force or fear, courts will not recognize a good faith defense to the satisfaction of a debt when accomplished by the use of force or fear. In Beggs, the victim was caught stealing goods from a store owner and charged with petit larceny. Defendant, who was the store owner's lawyer, then met with the victim and informed him he would have the charges dismissed if the victim paid the store owner $2,000 as compensation for the theft, otherwise the victim would face seven or ten years in prison and could be sent to San Quentin. (178 Cal. at p. 81, 172 P. 152.) Based on the fear induced by this threat, the victim paid the $2,000 which was shared by defendant and the store owner. Defendant was thereafter charged with and convicted of extortion. (Ibid.) On appeal, defendant claimed the trial court erred in denying his defense of good faith. This court rejected the claim, noting that section 518 then provided, Extortion is the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by a wrongful use of force or fear, or under color of official right. ( Beggs, supra, 178 Cal. at pp. 82-83, 172 P. 152.) In concluding the phrase wrongful use of force or fear did not allow for a defense that the defendant had a good faith belief that the use of force or fear was permissible or justified, the court in Beggs explained: In reading section 518 with sections 519, 523, and 650, we cannot escape the conclusion that, assuming [the victim] had in fact stolen goods of the value of two thousand dollars from [the store owner], the threats made by defendant to prosecute [the victim] therefor unless he paid the value of said goods, which sum of two thousand dollars the latter, by reason of fear induced by such threat, paid, constitutes the crime of extortion. It is the means employed which the law denounces, and though the purpose may be to collect a just indebtedness arising from and created by the criminal act for which the threat is to prosecute the wrongdoer, it is nevertheless within the statutory inhibition. The law does not contemplate the use of criminal process as a means of collecting a debt. To invoke such process for the purpose named is, as held by all authorities, contrary to public policy. Hence, good faith, or the fact that the end accomplished by such means is rightful, cannot avail one as a defense in such prosecution, any more than such facts would constitute a defense where one compels payment of a just debt by the threat to do an unlawful injury to the person of his debtor. ( Beggs, supra, 178 Cal. at p. 84,172 P. 152, italics added.) We therefore hold that to the extent Butler, supra, 65 Cal.2d 569, 55 Cal.Rptr. 511, 421 P.2d 703, extended the claim-of-right defense to robberies perpetrated to satisfy, settle or otherwise collect on a debt, liquidated or unliquidated  as opposed to forcible takings intended to recover specific personal property in which the defendant in good faith believes he has a bona fide claim of ownership or title  it is unsupported by the statutory language, further contrary to sound public policy, and in that regard is overruled.