Gary Leland Coleman admitted taking money from New Bloomfield's Bank Star One branch at 9:18 a.m. on Oct. 6, 2012.
So, attorney Amy Bartholow of the state Public Defender System's Columbia office told the Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday morning that Coleman should be convicted of "stealing," not second-degree robbery, and be given a different prison sentence - because he didn't threaten the use of force as the robbery law requires.
Missouri law defines second-degree robbery as forcibly stealing property - "when, in the course of stealing ... he uses or threatens the immediate use of physical force upon another person" - and makes the crime a Class B felony, with a possible prison term of "not less than five years and not to exceed 15 years."
Stealing, on the other hand, is defined as appropriating "property or services of another with the purpose to deprive him or her thereof, either without his or her consent or by means of deceit or coercion." Stealing is a Class C felony, where any prison sentence cannot exceed seven years.
Bartholow noted the court last year heard similar arguments in the Claude Dale Brooks case.
On Nov. 12, the high court upheld Brooks' conviction and 25-year prison sentence for an Aug. 25, 2011, robbery of a Regions Bank branch in St. Charles - determining that Brooks used force when he "slammed his hand down hard on the counter" and told the teller he'd just given a robbery note to "get back here."
Bartholow noted Brooks had disguised himself with "a wig, hat and glasses to hide his identity, because he was up to no good," and the note he gave the teller in the St. Charles bank showed a familiarity with bank procedures that would cause "a reasonable person" to be fearful.
Coleman didn't do those things in the New Bloomfield case, she argued, and two bank employees had described "Coleman's demeanor as "calm and polite.' He never raised his voice. He was not loud (but) asked the teller to "do him a favor' by putting the money in a bag that he handed her."
She acknowledged Coleman told a supervisor to "stop right there" as she was coming to the window to see if the teller needed any help.
Bartholow argued Boone/Callaway County Circuit Judge Kevin Crane's ruling included the statement: "So that the record is clear, those actions together constituted the threat" that made Coleman guilty of robbery rather than stealing.
Crane, a former Boone County prosecutor, ordered Colemanto serve a 10-year sentence. Now 51, he currently is being held at the Farmington Correctional Center.
But Assistant Attorney General Robert J. Bartholomew pointed to Supreme Court Judge Zel Fischer's words in last November's Brooks opinion: "Banks are regular targets of robberies, and their employees have a heightened awareness of security threats. A demand for money in that context is an implicit threat of the use of force in and of itself."
And even though the two employees testified Coleman was calm and polite, Bartholomew told the judges they also "expressed fear," and the "branch manager said she was "scared to death' by the defendant's demeanor."
That, he argued, was enough to indicate "an immediate threat of physical force."
Bartholow encouraged the judges to review the security system video that recorded the robbery, but said those pictures don't help determine whether Coleman was hiding a hand so as to appear like he had a weapon.
Both attorneys agreed federal law has a separate statute clearly defining a holdup in a bank as a robbery, but Missouri law doesn't.
Several judges wondered how, with that legal difference, a bank robbery without a clear threat would be different from accosting someone on the street, or stealing from a convenience store.
"We certainly understand why the Legislature would want to outlaw, or severely punish, this conduct but, for some reason, it has drawn this distinction between stealing and robbery-second, and it has not (passed) a special bank robbery statute," Judge Laura D. Stith noted. "The Legislature has required something more for this second level, and we have to honor that."
The court did not indicate when it might rule in the case.