People v. Bradford

A defendant shoplifts property from a store in a shopping mall and forcibly resists the mall security guards who apprehend him and recover the property. Can the guards be victims of a robbery when they are not the owners of the stolen property and are not directly employed by the store that owned the property? We conclude the answer in this case is yes, because the guards had a special relationship with the store and had the duty and authority to retrieve its stolen property. We also reject defendant’s claims that the jury instructions on this point were defective and that his midtrial motion for self-representation under Faretta v. California (1975) 422 U.S. 806, 834-835 [ 45 L.Ed.2d 562 , 95 S.Ct. 2525 ] (Faretta) should have been granted.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Defendant Richard Gary Bradford went to the Solano Mall in Fairfield where he stole six bottles of perfume from the front of a Victoria’s Secret store. Nina Paiz, a shift manager for Victoria’s Secret, noticed defendant walking out of the store with the perfume as she arrived for work. Defendant stood near a kiosk and then briefly returned to Victoria’s Secret carrying a bag from another store with the…