"Strong-arm robbery": This is a real criminal code charge?

Factual Questions
1

From [Suspected Walmart robber tries to carjack two different cars, both drivers pull out guns](Suspected Walmart robber tries to carjack two different cars, both drivers pull out guns)

…According to Fox 30, Jacksonville police officers arrested 36-year-old Christopher Raymond Hill, charging him with strong-arm robbery, carjacking with firearm or deadly weapon, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and trespassing…

I know each state has its own codes, so maybe it’s just a Florida thing. Never heard of it before, though. Where else is it real, or is it journalese?

2

Browsing Google News for “strong-arm robbery” in quotes, I’m seeing it used in Georgia, Illinois, California, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Maryland, etc.
ETA: IIRC you are in New York, so here are some examples from there.

3

I’m having a hard time determining the difference between “armed robbery” and “strong-arm robbery”. Perhaps the latter encompasses any show of force without need of an actual weapon?

4

From here: “taking or stealing something from a person using force or threats but without using a weapon.”

5

nm

6

Strong-arm robbery in Florida is a 2nd Degree Felony. While the actual text of the statute, ss. 812.13(c), does not use the term “strong-arm”, the “Criminal Punishment Code; Offense severity ranking chart” found in State Statute 921.0022 parenthetically describes the offense as such. It lists the offense as, “Robbery, no firearm or other weapon (strong-arm robbery).”

Basically, if you try to steal something it is just a theft. The second that someone tries to stop you and you use any type of force (to include threat of force, or “putting [the victim] in fear”) to complete your thievery, it becomes a robbery. So shop-lifting becomes strong-arm robbery when the store clerk or security tries to stop the person at the door and the thief shoves them out of the way, etc.

7

The term is used in the move Heat.

8

Basically if you look at the earlier state criminal codes they used dozens of separate offenses like this. In later years they consolidated the offenses into robbery 1st degree, robbery 2nd degree, robbery 3rd degree types of classifications.

9

In New Jersey we just have robbery. You have to look into the statute to get the grading. What we call strong arm robbery is 2nd degree robbery. If a weapon is used it is 1st degree robbery. One is 5-10 years, the other is 10-20.

There are multiple crimes that are called by certain terms informally but it doesn’t appear in the statute. The word rape doesn’t appear in any of our statutes.

10

Odd, since the robberies in Heat were all armed robberies. Very heavily armed robberies.

11

Were they? (I assume a 30 year old movie doesn’t need spoiler alerts) I recall at one point they dropped everything and walked away and the only thing they could be charged with was trespassing and vandalism? Some were armed, some weren’t.

12

Nitpick: the Florida Statutes are properly cited as “§xxx.xx, Fla. Stat.,” “F.S. xxx.xx” or “Fla. Stat. §xxx.xx.” But otherwise, an excellent answer.

13

Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7fsxnzZF9w&list=RDC7fsxnzZF9w&start_radio=1#t=20

14

Interesting.

15

What you might look at is the American Model Penal Code from the 1960s and the subsequent state criminal code revisions:

https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1130&context=faculty_scholarship

16

I’ve heard the term a number of times, most notably in reference to Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. He was accused of having stolen from a convenience store by threatening the owner physically but without a weapon. The phrase “strong arm robbery” was tossed around a lot to describe the allegations. A brief googling leads me to believe that, like the states listed above, there’s no separate crime called “strong arm robbery” in Missouri, but it would just be charged as a Whatever-Degree robbery.

17

But that one wasn’t a robbery, it was a burglary, since no one was present at the precious metals depository.

My point was that in the movie, they never performed a “strong-arm” robbery, in both robberies they were heavily armed.

18

An armed robbery, (aka aggravated robbery) is where the robber displays some sort of weapon in order to get the victim to comply. A strong armed robbery is where the robber just takes the victims property by force without displaying any weapons.