## Facts

- A victim cashed an unemployment check and placed the money in a zippered compartment of a clutch-type purse carried under her arm.
- While the victim stood beside her car with the purse under her right arm, Francisco Sein approached, stood close to her left side, reached across her body, and slid the purse out from under her arm.
- Sein immediately ran away with the purse.
- There was no evidence of a physical struggle, injury, threat, or victim resistance, and no force was used beyond what was needed to remove the purse.
- Police apprehended Sein shortly thereafter, and he was indicted for robbery under N.J.S.A. 2C:15-1.

## Issues

1. Whether the sudden, unresisted snatching of a purse from a victim’s grasp constitutes “us[ing] force upon another” under N.J.S.A. 2C:15-1(a)(1), making the offense robbery rather than theft from the person.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of New Jersey affirmed the Appellate Division’s reversal of Sein’s second-degree robbery conviction.
- The court held the evidence was insufficient to prove the statutory element of “uses force upon another.”
- The matter remained treated as theft from the person, with resentencing consistent with that lesser offense.

## Legal Principles

- Robbery under N.J.S.A. 2C:15-1(a)(1) requires force directed at the person, not merely the minimal physical effort inherent in taking property.
- A “simple snatching” is not robbery unless accompanied by additional force such as a struggle, resistance, injury, or force used to wrest the object away from the victim’s control.
- Legislative references to purse snatching do not convert every purse snatching into robbery; only those involving a degree of force upon the victim beyond mere removal qualify.

## Conclusion

Because the purse was taken without struggle, resistance, threats, injury, or force beyond that necessary to remove the property, the conduct did not satisfy the robbery statute’s “force upon another” element and constituted theft from the person rather than robbery.


State v. Sein, 124 N.J. 209, 590 A.2d 665 (N.J. 1991)