Court Opinion

ID: 9646135
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 12:50:15.431445+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:29.509512
License: Public Domain

BARDGETT, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I dissent from that part of the principal opinion that affirms the conviction of assault in the first degree because the conviction of both constitutes double punishment for a single crime.
Regardless of the hypertechnical distinction made in the principal opinion, it is obvious that the assault on the victim was the assault which was necessary to convict the defendant of robbery in the first degree. As such, it was part and parcel of that offense, State v. Richardson, 460 S.W.2d 537 (Mo.banc 1970). The state cannot split a single crime into its component parts and either try the defendant separately and convict of both or convict of both in the same trial.
It is clear that in order to convict the defendant of robbery in the first degree it was necessary for the jury to find that the defendant committed an assault upon the victim in the perpetration of the robbery. It is also clear that the assault in this case occurred in the furtherance of the robbery. Section 569.020 — robbery in the first degree — sets forth the types of conduct necessary to raise a forcible stealing to robbery in the first degree and includes a description of the conduct that this defendant engaged in in the perpetration of the instant robbery. That conduct includes the use of a firearm and it also includes causing serious physical injury to the victim. Robbery in the first degree and assault in the first degree (§ 565.050) are both class A felonies for which a defendant may be imprisoned for not less than ten years and not to exceed thirty years or life imprisonment. It is obvious that in the instant case the defendant has been found guilty and punished for the robbery in the first degree, which includes the assault, and then again punished for the assault. As such, the conviction and punishment for assault offends against the double jeopardy clause and is prohibited by this Court’s opinion in State v. Richardson, supra.
For the foregoing reasons I concur in the affirmance of the conviction for robbery in the first degree and dissent from the af-firmance of assault in the first degree. The conviction for assault in the first degree in this case should be reversed.