Com. v. Zangari, 96-P-91

• Decision Date: 03 April 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96-P-91,96-P-91
• Citation: 42 Mass.App.Ct. 931,677 N.E.2d 702
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. James ZANGARI.
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

Page 702

677 N.E.2d 702

42 Mass.App.Ct. 931

COMMONWEALTH v. James ZANGARI.

No. 96-P-91.

Appeals Court of Massachusetts.

April 3, 1997.

Further Appellate Review Denied May 22, 1997.

Paul M. Koziell, Brookline, for defendant.

S. Jane Haggerty, Assistant District Attorney, for Commonwealth.

RESCRIPT.

About 7:30 P.M., June 10, 1994, two elderly women, Nancy Colantonio and Vera Croston, returned in Croston's 1981 Chevrolet Citation automobile to their home at 36 Webster Street, Haverhill. Croston, upon entering the driveway, located by the side of the stairs leading to the porch and front door, stopped the car to let Colantonio out. Colantonio walked up the stairs. She felt someone snatch her purse from under her arm. She was stunned. Turning, she saw the back of a man running down Webster Street in the direction of Summer Street. She said she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

While Colantonio was making her way, before the purse snatch, Croston was easing the car up the rest of the short driveway and locking the car. Standing at the back of the car and looking over it, Croston saw a man walking diagonally across Webster Street toward the house. She saw him full face, then lost sight of him until she saw his back as he fled down Webster Street.

Cheryl Kiley, tending her flower garden on the opposite side of Webster Street, saw a man run up the stairs, snatch Colantonio's purse, run down the stairs and turn and run down Webster Street. Kiley had a side view of the man.

Upon testimony to the foregoing effect and further identification evidence from selections of photographs, Zangari was tried to a jury in Superior Court and found guilty of violating G.L. c. 265, § 19(a ), ¹ unarmed robbery from a person over the age of sixty-five. (Colantonio was eighty-six at the time.)

On the present appeal from the judgment of conviction, Zangari contends that the trial judge erred when he denied motions for a required finding of not guilty because, says Zangari, the force the thief applied in snatching the purse was, as matter of law, insufficient to satisfy the "force and violence" denounced in the statute. Zangari intimates that he could have been found guilty of larceny from the person, G.L. c. 266, § 25(a ), ² where force is not made part of the offense.

Zangari is complaining that the force applied to Colantonio was no more or little more than that used by a pickpocket who is chargeable only with larceny; hence some substantial force should be required to convict of armed robbery. The point of our leading case of Commonwealth v. Jones, 362 Mass. 83, 86, 283 N.E.2d 840 (1972), as observed in Commonwealth v. Davis, 7 Mass.App.Ct. 9, 385 N.E.2d 278 (1979), was that "where the snatching or sudden taking of property from a victim is sufficient to produce awareness, there is sufficient evidence of force to permit a finding of robbery." Id. at 11, 385 N.E.2d 278. See also Commonwealth v. Fielding, 371 Mass. 97, 117, 353 N.E.2d 719 (1976); Commonwealth v. Moran, 387 Mass. 644, 651, 442 N.E.2d 399 (1982); Commonwealth v. Sheppard, 404 Mass. 774, 778, 537 N.E.2d 583 (1989); Commonwealth v. Brown, 2 Mass.App.Ct. 883, 318 N.E.2d 486 (1974); Commonwealth v. Lashway, 36 Mass.App.Ct. 677, 679-680, 634 N.E.2d 930 (1994); Commonwealth v. Ahart, 37 Mass.App.Ct. 565, 570-571, 641 N.E.2d 127 (1994); Nolan & Henry, Criminal Law §§ 285, 291 (2d ed.1988); 2 LaFave & Scott, Substantive Criminal Law § 8.11(d)(1) (1986). In pickpocketing, which is accomplished by sleight of hand, such evidence is lacking. The difference accounts for the perceived greater severity of the offense of unarmed robbery in contrast with larceny. The Jones rule was firmly adopted in the face of contrary authority in some States that accepted roughly the position urged now by Zangari. It seems that a division continues to the present although, as usual, one can anticipate that a classification of jurisdictions may...