Court Opinion

ID: 9528162
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:37:51.6471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:19:56.081074
License: Public Domain

STEWART,- Justice:
(concurring in result).
I concur in the result reached in the Chief Justice’s opinion but do so for a different reason, i. e., the instructions are prejudicially flawed because the jury was never told specifically the elements of the crime of aggravated robbery. The instructions were worded in the statutory language, but in this case that was not sufficient. The instructions do not require the jury to find that the taking which occurs in a robbery must be with an intent to deprive.
Section 76-6-301, Utah Code Ann. (1953), as amended, was enacted in 1973 as part of the general revision of the criminal code. The phrase “felonious taking,” as found in the prior statute, was changed to an “unlawful and intentional taking.” This revision did not change that element of the crime requiring an intent to deprive which *81has always accompanied the crime of robbery. See People v. Hughes, 11 Utah 100, 39 P. 492 (1895). Although the instructions use the term “specific intent,” they did not define that term. However meaningful that term of art may be to lawyers, it clearly fails to convey the intended legal meaning to jurors unless it is carefully and precisely defined. Absent such a definition, the jury could not possibly find all the necessary elements of the crime, especially in view of the defense relied upon in this case.
In my view it is manifest error not to instruct a jury precisely as to the mens re a necessary for a conviction of robbery.