I didn’t have a real weapon, just a toy: Even if you used a toy gun, you could be guilty of armed robbery. The Court looks at whether it was a believable replica and if it was, you will still be charged with armed robbery.
I had consent at the beginning to have the property: Recent case law has found that even if you had permission to have custody of the property at the beginning, you could still be guilty of robbery if you forcefully dissuaded the owner from making you return the object. An example of this is if you had permission to borrow a necklace and then when they asked you to return it, you forced them through violence to let you keep it. Even though you had consent at the beginning, it is still robbery because you used force to retain the property.
The victim never saw a weapon: Even if the victim never sees a weapon, a defendant can still be guilty of armed robbery. Since the purpose of using any weapon or device is to create a reasonable apprehension that an offensive weapon is being used, it is immaterial whether the fear is created by seeing or by any other sense, provided the apprehension is reasonable under the circumstances. An example of this is when a defendant told the victim “do as I say or I’ll blow your head off.” Although the victim never saw the weapon, the statement was enough that the robbery had been accomplished by use of an offensive weapon.
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