Hudson County Criminal Lawyer Blog
In State v. Damon Williams the court was confronted with the issue of whether or not the prosecutor’s use of a photo of Jack Nicholson in the movie The Shining was inappropriate.
In Williams the defendant walked into a local bank branch and engaged a young female bank teller. The defendant then lowered his body so that he was at eye level with the teller and passed her a note instructing her to provide all of the cash in her drawer. In an attempt at mitigating the bank’s losses, the teller attempted to place a GPS traceable package of twenty-dollar bills in the defendant’s bag. The defendant caught on to the teller’s attempt and instructed her not to do so. During the entirety of this interaction the defendant did not threaten force, nor did he brandish any weapons. Upon the defendant’s exit, the bank teller set off the alarm.
The disputed trial issue was whether or not the defendant committed this act with force or the threat of force and whether or not said actions put the bank teller in fear of immediate injury. The defense argued it did not and that the jury should merely consider the offense a theft (i.e. exercising unlawful control over the moveable property of another.)