Court Opinion

ID: 9683811
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:37:17.321091+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:50.396640
License: Public Domain

CATES, Presiding Judge
(concurring specially):
The common law expression of putting in fear does not require a chilling fright to run through the victim’s veins and thus produce a consciousness of violent duress.
* * * And when it is laid to be done by putting in fear, this does not imply any great degree of terror or affright in the party robbed: it is enough *240that so much force, or threatening byword or gesture, be used, as might create an apprehension of danger, or induce a man to part with his property without or against his consent. Thus, if a man be knocked down without previous warning, and stripped of his property while senseless, though strictly he cannot be said to be put in fear, yet this is undoubtedly a robbery. Or, if a person with a sword drawn begs an alms, and I give it him through mistrust and apprehension of violence, this is a felonious robbery.
—Blackstone, iv Com. 243
I would not make the subjective feeling of the victim a sine qua non of putting in fear.1 Rather, a presented firearm with a demand for money suffices to let a case go to a jury.
TYSON, HARRIS, DeCARLO and BOOKOUT, JJ., join in this concurrence.

. See: Gross v. State, 1975, 56 Ala.App. 709, 325 So.2d 216; Brown v. State, 48 Ala.App. 456, 265 So.2d 898 (1972).