Court Opinion

ID: 9585423
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:00:18.630266+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:43:53.901519
License: Public Domain

Pope, Presiding Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion in Division 1, as the evidence adduced at trial supports the conviction for armed robbery.
The record shows that when the victim reached her car, Nelson attacked her and shoved her into her car. Sometime during that struggle, Nelson took the victim’s car keys. While they were in the car, the victim was crying and pleading with Nelson to let her go, and he showed her a hatchet and threatened to kill her. After threatening the victim with the hatchet, Nelson started the car and began to drive it away. When Nelson brandished the hatchet, the robbery was an ongoing event. Thus Nelson used the hatchet “to acquire and maintain superiority” over the victim in order to accomplish the armed robbery. Emmett v. State, 199 Ga. App. 650, 651-652 (405 SE2d 707) (1991). Cf. Watkins v. State, 207 Ga. App. 766, 768 (430 SE2d 105) (1993) (sustaining indictment averring armed robbery committed with gun, even though money was taken while knife was held to victim’s neck, where gun was used later “to retain illegal control and possession” over money as a part of “a continuous armed robbery transaction”).
In Emmett, the defendant entered a UPS truck, pointed a gun at the driver, and ordered him to drive to a parking lot. There, he told the driver to get in the back of the truck where he tied the driver up and began driving the truck himself. This Court was considering the issue of whether the defendant’s armed robbery conviction merged into the offense of kidnapping. The Court held that the kidnapping was complete when the defendant entered the truck, pointed the gun at the victim and ordered him to drive away. The armed robbery occurred when the defendant used the gun to “acquire and maintain superiority” over the victim. Emmett, 199 Ga. App. at 651-652.
In this instance, while Nelson was able to force the victim into the car and take the keys without the use of a weapon, he pulled the hatchet to acquire and maintain superiority over the victim once they were in the car. Contrary to the majority opinion, I do not believe it was necessary for the victim to be actively resisting Nelson at the time he pulled the hatchet in order to determine the robbery was still *390in process. The use of the hatchet gave Nelson control over the car, allowing him to start it and drive it away. Thus, the use of the weapon was not “subsequent” to the robbery but “contemporaneous with it.” Young v. State, 251 Ga. 153, 157 (303 SE2d 431) (1983). The hatchet was an integral and necessary component for completing the robbery.
Decided June 25, 1998
Reconsideration denied July 13, 1998
Merritt & Rose, C. Nathaniel Merritt, for appellant.
Dupont K. Cheney, District Attorney, John T Durden, Jr., Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
Nelson’s conviction for armed robbery should be affirmed.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Andrews joins in this opinion.