Court Opinion

ID: 9743486
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:34:39.540374+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:41.558755
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
concurring.
The criminal episode at the pizza parlor on September 21, 1975, involved three men, two of whom were armed, and two women employees. The determination of the number of armed robberies occurring during this episode is very much a fact-bound determination. It is to be made by stripping the events to their basic reality and deciding how many unitary or integrated transactions occurred. McKinley v. State, (1980) Ind., 400 N.E.2d 1378. This approach, like the approach to the question of the sufficiency of evidence to convict, involves an act of judgment, and not surprisingly can lead at times to differing judicial opinions, even on the same appellate court.
Here, while holding the two women employees at bay on the main floor with their weapons, one man ordered one of the women to open the cash register. As she did so one man entered the area behind the counter, took the cash drawer from the machine, and placed it on the counter. The three men then grabbed the money from the drawer.
The two women were then ordered downstairs and herded to the rear of the building. This action was accompanied by violent verbal and physical threats. The men then demanded their money, and in the *767presence of the women dumped the contents of their purses out on the floor. The coin purse of one containing three dollars was taken and over one hundred dollars was taken from the purse of the other. The men then ran out of the restaurant. The entire episode lasted for only five minutes. One of the women testified that she had the money with her to pay some personal bills due the next day.
Upon consideration of the foregoing events, the elements of the crime of armed robbery, and the charges as brought, I am led to the judgment that three separate armed robberies occurred during this episode. Two robberies occurred when the personal funds were taken from the women, and one when the cash register drawer was emptied.