Court Opinion

ID: 9451918
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:27:02.852251+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:58.280018
License: Public Domain

BURGER, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I concur fully in Judge McGowan’s opinion but in light of the dissent it may be useful to emphasize that split seconds before the officer asked his question, Appellant was not “unarmed” for he had a .38 caliber pistol. I suggest it is also a “frightening experience” calling for “considerably more fortitude than most of us have” to confront and disarm an armed robber who has just used his weapon to loot a store.
That Appellant was unarmed at the moment of the colloquy with the officer is hardly the point. The multiple trials and appeals in Coleman v. United States1 demonstrate that an unarmed man is not necessarily cowed or subdued. There the unarmed robber fleeing police disarmed an officer, murdered him and gravely wounded his partner.
I find it difficult to accept the equation of police action in pointing a pistol at an armed robber and a robber pointing a pistol at his victim to steal a watch. I should think the former is what we pay policemen to do and the latter is what we imprison a robber for doing.

. Coleman v. United States, 111 U.S.App. D.C. 210, 295 F.2d 555 (1961), cert. denied, 369 U.S. 813, 82 S.Ct. 689, 7 L. Ed.2d 613 (1962); Coleman v. United States, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 168, 334 F.2d 558 (1964); Coleman v. United States, 123 U.S.App.D.C. 103, 357 F.2d 563 (1965).