In re M.D. CA1/3

Discussion 1. Substantial evidence supports the court’s robbery finding. The minor contends that the robbery conviction must be reversed because there is no evidence he “took the backpack with the level of force necessary to support a finding of felony robbery.” We disagree. In People v. Burns (2009) 172 Cal.App.4th 1251, 1257, the court recognized that while there exists “some generalized impression that a purse snatch—grabbing a purse (or similar object) from a person—is grand theft and nothing more,” where “a person wrests away personal property from another person, who resists the effort to do so, the crime is robbery, not merely theft.” The court explained that the force necessary to establish a robbery “ ‘must be a quantum more than that which is needed merely to take the property from the person of the victim, and is a question of fact to be resolved by the [trier of fact] taking into account the physical characteristics of the robber and the victim.’ [Citation.] An accepted articulation of the rule is that ‘[a]ll the force that is required to make the offense a robbery is such force as is actually sufficient to overcome the victim’s resistance.’ ” (Id. at p. 1259.) In this…