Court Opinion

ID: 9778671
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:15:47.83686+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:12.466216
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION
HENLEY, Judge.
I respectfully dissent for the following reasons.
*928I find myself unable to agree with the majority holding that defendant’s conduct constituted “violence to the person” within the meaning of § 560.120. That section provides that the offense of robbery in the first degree may be committed in either of two ways, namely: (1) by violence to the person, or, (2) by putting in fear of some immediate injury to the person. ■ It is my opinion that in describing alternative methods by which the offense could be accomplished the legislature intended to and did make a distinction between the two; that the legislature understood and intended that each method have a separate, distinct meaning, and that one requires proof different from the other. As I see it, “putting in fear of some immediate injury to the person” is a step short of “violence to the person; ” it is a state of mind, a state of “fear” that some immediate physical injury which has not been wrought upon the person may be inflicted. I would hold that “violence to the person” means violence to the person, inflicted; some physical violence to or assault of the person, however slight; that it does not mean a display of “violence,” by threats or conduct, in the presence of the person causing fear of personal injury that may never be accomplished. The latter accords solely with “putting in fear of some immediate injury to the person,” the second method as distinguished from the first. The first method requires proof of infliction of physical violence; the second does not. I hold the opinion that it is this distinction that the legislature intended to make between the two methods. Having this opinion, I would hold that there was no substantial evidence in the record of violence to the person of the agents and employees of the bank.
However, I would hold that the evidence does support a taking of the bank’s money by putting Wilma Otto in fear of some immediate injury to her person. But, in submitting the method of taking by putting in fear, instruction S-l does not correctly state the law.
The statute proscribes a taking from the person1 of the agent in charge, against the will of the agent, by putting him or her in fear of some immediate injury to his or her person. It is the taking from the person and against the will of the agent in charge by putting that person in fear that the statute proscribes; not the taking from that person, against the will of one or more other agents of the owner by putting in fear “any [one or more] of them.” This instruction, by the use of the words “or any of them,” directs a verdict of guilty upon a finding by the jury of a taking of the bank’s money from Wilma Otto by putting someone else in fear of some immediate injury to his person. In other words, the instruction would authorize a verdict of guilty if the jury found that the taking from Wilma Otto was by putting either Granville Cook or Shirley Recar, or both, in fear, although the agent from whose person the money actually was taken may not have been in fear and the taking not against her will. Put another way, the instruction authorizes a verdict of guilty if any of the other agents of the bank were put in fear without a requirement that the jury also find that the taking was by putting the agent from whose person the money was actually taken in fear of some immediate injury to her person. In these respects the instruction misled and positively misdirected the jury as to the law of the case. Had the instruction required that the jury find that Wilma Otto, alone, as the *929agent from whose person the money was taken, was put in fear of some immediate injury to her person,2 or that all, Granville Cook, Shirley Recar and Wilma Otto, were put in fear, the instruction would not be subject to the objection noted.
For the reasons stated, I would reverse the judgment and remand the case for a new trial.

. The proof is that the bank’s money was taken from the possession and in the presence of Wilma Otto rather than from her person. This court has held that a charge of robbery from the person is satisfied by proof that the money was taken in the presence of the person. State v. Davis, Mo., 58 S.W.2d 305, 308-309 [8, 9], and cases there cited. Therefore, for brevity and clarity, in referring to the money having been taken from the person of Wilma Otto, I use the word “person” in the sense that it was from her possession and in her presence that the money was taken.

. State v. Emmons, 285 Mo. 54, 225 S.W. 894, 895 [3].