Fanning v. The State Of Ga.

• Decision Date: 30 September 1880
• Citation: Fanning v. The State Of Ga., 66 Ga. 167 (Ga. 1880)
• Parties: Fanning. vs. The State of Georgia.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

66 Ga. 167

Fanning. vs. The State of Georgia.

Supreme Court of the State of Georgia

SEPTEMBER TERM, 1880.

Criminal law. Robbery. Larceny. Before Judge Simmons. Fulton Superior Court. September Term, 1879.

Reported in decision.

Frank A. Arnold, for plaintiff in error.

B. H. Hill, Jr., solicitor-general, for the state.

Jackson, Chief Justice.

The substantial facts in this case are, that the defendant slipped his hand into a lady's outside pocket, and furtively took therefrom a purse of money. Before he got the purse entirely out, she felt the hand and tried to seize it, but the thief had succeeded and the purse was gone. In extracting hand and purse, the pocket was torn, and when the lady turned she saw the thief looking unconcernedly at the houses on Whitehall street. She rushed upon him and caught him by the coat, which in his struggle to escape, was left torn in her possession. Afterwards a policeman arrested and secured him.

The sole question is, do these facts make a case of robbery or larceny from the person under our Code?

The criminal deed was consummated when the purse was taken from the lady. The subsequent struggle to recapture it by seizing the thief cannot be considered todetermine whether the taking itself was forcible, or private and furtive. The mete fact that the pocket was torn in the effort to get the furtive hand out with the purse when the lady felt it and tried to seize it, is not sufficient, we think, to show such force and open violence as makes the crime of robbery.

Under the Code of this state, robbery is "the wrongful, fraudulent and violent taking of money, goods or chattels, from the person of another, by force or intimidation, without the consent of the owner, " Code, §4389. There was no intimidation here at all, nor...