Definition
Putting in fear is a required element of robbery at common law. It describes the act by which a perpetrator causes the victim to apprehend imminent violence or bodily harm, compelling the victim to surrender property against their will. The fear need not rise to panic or terror; it is sufficient that the victim's mind was put in a state of apprehension such that their will was overcome. The property must be taken against the will of the person robbed — if consent, however reluctant, is given freely and without apprehension of force, the element is not satisfied.
The term operates as a technical marker distinguishing robbery from lesser offenses. It answers the question: was this a taking by force and intimidation, or merely a taking?
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To cause someone to feel afraid; to frighten or intimidate.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To make afraid; to terrify; to fill with apprehension of evil.
The ordinary meaning of "fear" suggests a subjective emotional state — genuine fright. The legal meaning is narrower and more technical. A victim need not be subjectively terrified; the question is whether a reasonable person in the victim's position would have experienced apprehension sufficient to overcome their will. Courts have held that even a feigned threat — one the perpetrator did not intend to carry out — can satisfy the element if it produced the requisite apprehension. Conversely, a victim who was unaware of the threat at the time of the taking may defeat the element, because no apprehension occurred.
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Common Confusion
Putting in fear is frequently conflated with the use of actual violence in robbery. The two are related but legally distinct. At common law, robbery could be accomplished either by actual force (violence applied to the person) or by putting in fear — the two routes to the offense ran in parallel. A taking accomplished through sudden snatching, without any threat or apprehension, might satisfy neither prong and reduce to larceny from the person. Researchers should be careful not to treat "force or fear" as a single unified element; historical sources and modern statutes often treat them separately, with different evidentiary implications.
Putting in fear is also distinct from duress as a defense. Duress involves fear operating on the defendant; putting in fear involves fear the defendant induces in a victim.
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Core Elements
The element of putting in fear in robbery requires:
1. An act or threat by the defendant directed at the victim (or a person in the victim's presence) sufficient to cause apprehension of bodily harm.
2. Apprehension actually experienced by the victim at the time of the taking — the fear must precede or accompany, not follow, the taking.
3. A causal connection: the taking must occur because of the fear, not merely in its presence. The victim's will must be overcome.
4. The taking must be against the victim's will — property voluntarily surrendered under a non-coerced transaction does not satisfy the element, even if the victim is later frightened.
What is not required: the defendant must have the means to carry out the threat, or that the victim's fear be reasonable in hindsight. Courts have generally held that the victim's honest and actual apprehension controls, not whether a reasonable bystander would have been afraid.
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Why It Matters in Research
Structural pattern: Historical evolution with a cross-cutting definitional role in criminal law.
Researchers working with historical criminal law materials will encounter "putting in fear" as a term of art embedded in the definition of robbery, not as a freestanding offense. Its significance lies in how it marks the boundary between robbery and larceny from the person — a boundary that has shifted over time and varies across jurisdictions.
In early common law sources (Coke, Blackstone), the element was stated categorically: robbery required putting in fear. Later commentary and case law softened this into a disjunctive standard — force or fear — raising interpretive complications in historical records where only one is described. A charge or conviction record citing "robbery by putting in fear" signals a specific evidentiary theory, not merely a general robbery allegation.
For researchers using nineteenth-century American sources, the codification of robbery in state penal codes often fragmented the common law offense into degrees. First-degree robbery frequently required putting in fear with a deadly weapon; second-degree robbery might require only putting in fear. The same phrase, appearing in different statutory generations, can carry different weight.
The element also appears in historical indictment forms. When reading old indictments, "did put in bodily fear" is ritualized pleading language, not necessarily a factual description. Its presence tells you the charge was robbery, not what the actual circumstances were.
One research trap: Bouvier notes that the goods must be taken "against the will" of the victim. This language is worth tracing forward, because courts in some jurisdictions distinguished between a victim who handed over property in fear (will overcome — robbery) and one who was momentarily distracted and the property seized (will not engaged — potentially larceny). The same factual scenario could be characterized either way depending on the court's theory.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are in close agreement on the core proposition: putting in fear is the element distinguishing robbery from other larcenies, specifically larceny from the person. All four sources anchor the term to Coke's Third Institute and Blackstone's Commentaries, reflecting the durability of these two authorities as the foundation of Anglo-American robbery doctrine.
Bouvier goes furthest in flagging the analytical complexity the other sources leave implicit. He notes that "what force must be used or what kind of fears excited are questions very proper for discussion" — an acknowledgment that the term, despite its confident use, raised genuine interpretive difficulty. Rapalje and Lawrence make the same structural point: the "violent taking" requirement exists to separate robbery from larceny, but violence and fear are not the same thing, and the sources slide between them.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss: they do not address the treatment of threats made against third parties (e.g., threatening to harm a bystander to compel the victim to surrender property), the sufficiency of implied versus explicit threats, or the development of the "reasonable apprehension" standard. These questions are resolved in case law, not in the lexicographical tradition.
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Jurisdictional Note
Modern American criminal codes have largely replaced the common law element with statutory language, often framed as "force or intimidation" or "threat of immediate bodily harm." The precise threshold for what constitutes sufficient apprehension varies by jurisdiction. Federal courts applying robbery statutes (such as the Hobbs Act) have developed their own body of doctrine that does not map precisely onto state common law formulations.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Asylum — Persecution Standard, Past Persecution Presumption, and the Well-Founded Fear Test (The Law Mind Immigration Law Encyclopedia) for a related but distinct legal standard involving fear as a legal element in a different context.
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