Gary Leland Coleman was convicted and sentenced correctly, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a 5-2 decision.
Coleman was convicted of second-degree robbery for the Oct. 6, 2012, hold-up at New Bloomfield's Bank Star One branch.
As Judge Richard Teitelman explained in the court's majority opinion, "Coleman walked into a bank, rested his forearm on the counter, handed the bank teller a plastic grocery sack, and said, "I need you to do me a favor. Put the money in this bag.'
"The teller placed $1,472 in the bag.
"An assistant manager approached Mr. Coleman, (who) told her, "Ma'am, stop where you are and don't move any farther.'
"The assistant manager complied. Mr. Coleman took the bag of money and ran out of the bank.
"The entire encounter lasted approximately 45 seconds."
Coleman eventually was arrested in Texas and brought back to Missouri, where he admitted he was the man in the bank surveillance photographs and had taken the money from the bank, Teitelman wrote.
He was charged as a persistent offender with one count of second-degree robbery, waived his right to a jury trial and was tried by Boone-Callaway Circuit Judge Kevin Crane - who found Coleman guilty as charged and sentenced him as a persistent offender to 10 years in prison.
However, Coleman argued on appeal both to the Kansas City court of appeals district and to the Supreme Court that he was convicted of the wrong crime because he didn't use, or threaten to use, force.
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.
Last November, the seven-judge court upheld a second-degree robbery conviction in a St. Charles County case, where Claude Dale Brooks entered a Regions Bank facility disguised with a wig, hat and glasses to hide his identity, because, as Coleman's lawyer, Amy Bartholow told the court in April, "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.
Bartholow asked the Supreme Court to find Coleman's case was different because he didn't threaten anybody.
However, Teitelman's five-page decision repeated the court's finding in the Brooks case, that "determining the existence of a threat is an objective test that depends on whether a reasonable person would believe the defendant's conduct was a threat of the immediate use of physical force."
Also, since "banks are regular targets of robberies, and bank 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."
Moreover, Teitelman wrote, evidence in the Coleman case supports that finding.
"Mr. Coleman approached the bank teller, kept one hand concealed, demanded money to which he had no lawful right, and directed the branch manager not to move any farther when she approached to investigate the situation," Teitelman wrote for the five-judge majority.
"These facts and the inferences from those facts support the conclusion that a reasonable person would perceive Mr. Coleman's actions as threatening and, as a result, would comply with his directive to place the money in the bag."
Teitelman was joined by Chief Justice Mary R. Russell and judges Zel Fischer, George Draper and Paul Wilson.
However, judges Patricia Breckenridge and Laura Denvir Stith disagreed.
In a four-page dissent, Breckenridge wrote, "There is no claim that Mr. Coleman actually used physical force on another person to effectuate the stealing of money from the bank.
"Rather, the majority opinion finds that Mr. Coleman's conduct ... is sufficient evidence that his conduct was an actual or attempted threat that he would use physical force."
She agreed "any victim of a bank robbery would reasonably be in fear that the victim is in danger and, while the bank robbery is in progress, there was an ongoing, inherent threat that Mr. Coleman would decide to use force."
However, Breckenridge added, "reasonable perception" - even though supported by "reports of countless crimes in which the perpetrators needlessly decide to injure or kill victims and bystanders during the commission of robberies" - isn't enough to meet the state law requirement that the defendant "uses or threatens the immediate use of physical force upon another person."
Breckenridge and Stith would have ordered Coleman to be convicted of stealing rather than second-degree robbery, and re-sentenced.