Robbery, Theft, Burglary: What’s the Difference in WA State?

In response to numerous questions, we recently posted a video explaining the difference between theft and robbery charges on our Conom Law Firm YouTube channel. You can find the video Theft vs. Robbery if you want to check it out.

But the video got a lot of people talking and it got our creative juices flowing a bit, and if you know anything about lawyers, you know that we just might have more to say about the law.  With that in mind, here’s a bit more to the subject.

Understanding Theft vs. Robbery in Washington State

Non-lawyers use the terms “theft”, “robbery”, and even “burglary” interchangeably sometimes, to mean the equivalent of, “something taken unlawfully.”  But they all have different legal definitions (in Washington State, which is what we are talking about specifically, but across most jurisdictions this holds as well).

Theft: Unlawful Taking of Property

To commit theft, you have to “wrongfully obtain” the property or services of another person, with “intent to deprive” the person of that property or those services.  We have different degrees, or levels of seriousness, when it comes to theft.  How serious an offense is depends on the value of the property or services that were wrongfully taken.  If you take a pack of gum from a store without paying, it’s not as serious as grand theft auto. In Washington State, grand theft auto is called theft of a motor vehicle.  And it’s not as serious because the car is worth a lot of money; the pack of gum is worth very little.  So that makes logical sense.

Robbery: Theft with Force or Threat of Force

But then you throw robbery into the mix and it’s an entirely different crime, with a different focus.  A victim of theft only suffers monetary loss; a victim of robbery can be seriously injured or even killed during the crime, and have a monetary loss on top of that.  The law prioritizes preventing harm to people before property.

Distinguishing Robbery from Theft: The Element of Consent

Both theft and robbery involve an unlawful taking of property.  But robbery goes further – it also requires that a victim be present and that the property be taken against their will.  Contrast that with theft which doesn’t require any person to be present at all.  Going back to stealing the pack of gum, if you do that when no one is around or looking, and you walk out of the store, you can see easily how it is still a theft.  

What if someone leaves their pack of gum on a table and goes out of the room for a second?  If you take their gum and walk out, it’s just a theft (not a robbery), even though you might believe that the victim would have refused to give you the gum.  It’s not “against their will” if the owner isn’t even around to know you are taking the property.

Distinguishing Robbery from Theft: The Role of Force or Threat

Robbery requires that a person take the personal property of another, against that person’s will, by force or the threat of force.  In essence, it’s the threat of violence and harm that distinguishes theft from the more serious robbery.  The threat of force doesn’t have to be explicit but it does have to be real.  For example, if a person corners someone in a dark alley and says to hand over their cell phone and wallet, “or you’re gonna get it”, and holds their hand in their jacket pocket, as if concealing a weapon or pistol, it’s reasonable for the victim to believe that they are in genuine danger of harm.  This is a robbery even if the assailant didn’t actually possess any weapon at all.  The victim believed that they did, and this is what coerced the victim to hand over his property – against his will.

Robbery comes in different flavors, and the use of weapons, or actual bodily harm caused to the victim, can elevate the crime to a first degree robbery, which in Washington is a class A felony (the most serious type).  A person convicted of that charge will go to prison for a minimum 2.5 years, and it only goes up from there.  First degree robbery is also a “strike” offense in Washington, which means that if you are convicted of three separate “strikes”, you go to prison for the rest of your life with no chance of early release.  So it’s very serious.

Burglary: Unlawful Entry with Intent to Commit a Crime

Now, burglary just means to be in a place unlawfully (usually someone else’s property, whether that’s a building or a home) with the intent to commit a crime.  The crime that the burglar intends does not have to be theft, but most of the time it is – a person breaks into a house looking for valuables to steal.

But burglary has very little to do with theft or robbery, strictly focused on the elements of the charge.  You can commit a burglary without committing a theft, or a robbery.  Every case is different though, and we’ve definitely seen burglaries that turn into robberies, with thefts sprinkled in between.

Theft vs. Robbery: Real-World Examples

Simple thefts can also escalate into robbery really easily too.  The classic example is a shoplifter fighting with store security on the way out the door of the store.  If you steal a pair of shoes and then punch the guard in order to escape, you may have just committed a robbery. This is especially true if the guard suffered any injuries.  The consequences can be very harsh – we had a case once where this happened and our client punched the hand of the security guard.  The guard wasn’t injured, but said his hand was numb for awhile from the punch – this was enough to charge our client with robbery.  A low seriousness case can become a high seriousness case in a hurry when the client is all of a sudden facing many years in prison for shoplifting a candy bar, but the government calls it a robbery.

Thanks for reading!

-Derek

derek@conomlaw.com