The court of appeals recently held that a defendant who was initially unarmed, then stole a weapon from a victim, was properly convicted of armed robbery because the defendant was armed with the weapon that he stole. Sound circular? Read on. First off, the recent case is State v. McMillan. In brief, the evidence suggested that the defendant was a drug dealer; that he went to a car wash unarmed to talk to two people, at least one of whom was a customer; that the defendant somehow obtained a gun from the victims; that he used it to shoot and kill both victims; and that he ran off with the gun. The court of appeals found that the defendant had committed armed robbery, stating that “defendant’s taking and use of the weapon were part of a continuous transaction, such that it was proper to convict defendant of the armed robbery of the same instrument used to commit the robbery.” McMillan cites State v. Manness, 363 N.C. 261 (2009), a case in which the defendant took an officer’s gun, shot and killed the officer, and fled. Among many other offenses, the defendant was convicted of armed robbery. On appeal, he argued that he could not properly be “convicted of robbery with a dangerous weapon when the object taken in the robbery is also the firearm used to perpetrate the offense.” The supreme court disagreed. First, it observed that the armed robbery statute, G.S. 14-87, requires a taking “with the use or threatened [...]
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