“Physical Force” in Oregon Third-Degree Robbery Requires Harm-Causing or Fear-Inducing Contact—A Fast, Nonthreatening Snatch Is Not Robbery

Case: State v. Williams, 374 Or 648 (Or 2025) (DeHoog, J.)
Court: Supreme Court of Oregon (En Banc)  |  Date: December 30, 2025
Lower court: 330 Or App 222 (2024) (nonprecedential memorandum opinion)

1. Introduction

State v. Williams addresses the boundary between theft and robbery under Oregon’s third-degree robbery statute, ORS 164.395(1). The defendant, Joshua Brandon Williams, took a motel keycard from a guest (RH) by grabbing it from RH’s hand and running. RH reported no threats, no verbal exchange, and no physical altercation; an officer noted no evidence the defendant touched RH’s hand.

The legal issue was narrow but consequential: does a swift, nonviolent, nonthreatening “snatch” constitute “use or threatened immediate use of physical force upon another person” during a theft, transforming theft into robbery?

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Oregon Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reversed the robbery conviction in part, remanding for further proceedings. The Court held that the legislature did not intend ORS 164.395 to reach mere grabbing of property in a way that involves no harm and is not reasonably capable of creating fear or danger of bodily harm.

Applying that construction, the Court concluded that no rational juror could find the “physical force” element satisfied on this record. The Court also rejected the state’s fallback request to remand for entry of a conviction for attempted third-degree robbery, reasoning that the evidence likewise failed to show an intentional attempt to use or threaten “physical force,” or the specific robbery intent required by ORS 164.395(1) and ORS 161.405.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited (and How They Shaped the Decision)

• State v. Johnson, 215 Or App 1, 5-6, 168 P3d 312, rev den, 343 Or 366 (2007)
  The Court of Appeals treated Johnson as controlling; it had held that “physical force” can be satisfied by “taking the victim’s property so quickly that resistance is futile.” The Supreme Court’s reasoning in Williams repudiates that understanding: speed and “futility of resistance,” without harm or fear-capable contact, is not enough. While the Court does not use an express “overrule” formula, the new construction effectively displaces Johnson’s “swift taking” theory as a sufficient basis for the “physical force” element.
• State v. Hall, 327 Or 568, 966 P2d 208 (1998)
  Hall defined “threatens” in ORS 164.395(1) to include implicit threats—conduct that “announces that a person’s welfare is in danger.” Williams uses Hall as a benchmark for fear/danger capacity: the key inquiry is whether circumstances reasonably signal danger of harm. The contrast between Hall’s coercive, late-night demands and Williams’s brief, silent snatch supported the conclusion that the conduct here was not fear-inducing.
• State v. White, 346 Or 275, 211 P3d 248 (2009) and State v. Hamilton, 348 Or 371, 233 P3d 432 (2010)
  Both cases involved merger questions, but they contain this Court’s articulation of robbery’s gravamen: robbery is distinguished from theft by “threat or likelihood of violence,” “creating a sense of fear,” and “actual or threatened violence” as the factor that transforms theft into robbery. Williams treats those statements as strong contextual evidence of what ORS 164.395 is for—addressing violence/fear risks, not merely the mechanics of taking.
• State v. Marshall, 350 Or 208, 253 P3d 1017 (2011)
  Defendant urged importing Marshall’s “greater than or qualitatively different from” standard (from “forcible compulsion” in sexual abuse). The Court declined to rely on that route, concluding the robbery statutes’ text, context, and legislative history were sufficient. Still, the Court’s ultimate line-drawing—excluding force inherent in a nonthreatening taking—reaches a functionally similar result through robbery-specific sources.
• Interpretive methodology cases: PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606, 859 P2d 1143 (1993) and State v. Gaines, 346 Or 160, 206 P3d 1042 (2009)
  The Court explicitly applies the PGE/Gaines framework (text, context, and helpful legislative history) to settle the meaning of “physical force.”
• Meaning/usage cases: Comcast Corp. v. Dept. of Rev., 356 Or 282, 337 P3d 768 (2014); Zimmerman v. Allstate Property and Casualty Ins., 354 Or 271, 311 P3d 497 (2013); State v. Eggers, 372 Or 789, 558 P3d 830 (2024); State v. Gonzalez-Valenzuela, 358 Or 451, 365 P3d 116 (2015); State v. Cloutier, 351 Or 68, 261 P3d 1234 (2011)
  These cases supply tools for handling dictionary meaning, terms of art, and the primacy of statutory context. They support Williams’s rejection of an “in isolation” reading of “force” that would collapse robbery into theft.
• State v. Wallace, 373 Or 122, 561 P3d 602 (2024)
  Provides the sufficiency-of-the-evidence standard for reviewing denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal: view evidence in the light most favorable to the state, ask whether a rational trier of fact could find elements beyond a reasonable doubt.
• Legislative-history sources and related guidance: State v. Haley, 371 Or 108, 531 P3d 142 (2023); State v. Garcia, 288 Or 413, 605 P2d 671 (1980); State v. Carpenter, 365 Or 488, 446 P3d 1273 (2019)
  These cases justify treating the Criminal Law Revision Commission’s commentary and tapes as “rich” evidence of legislative intent, with an assumption that the legislature accepted the Commission’s explanations when it enacted the text verbatim.
• Older robbery/assault lineage cases: Merrill v. Gladden, 216 Or 460, 337 P2d 774 (1959); State v. Broom, et al., 135 Or 641, 297 P 340 (1931); State v. Wilson, 218 Or 575, 346 P2d 115 (1959); State v. Garcias, 296 Or 688, 679 P2d 1354 (1984)
  These decisions supply historical definitions of “assault” and the conceptual link between robbery and assault/violence—an explicit theme the Commission sought to retain.
• State v. Civil, 283 Or App 395, 388 P3d 1185 (2017)
  Explains the Court of Appeals’ rigorous “plainly wrong” standard for overruling its own precedent—relevant to why the Court of Appeals felt constrained by Johnson, and why Supreme Court review was outcome-determinative.

3.2 Legal Reasoning (How the Court Reached the New Standard)

(a) Text: “physical force upon another person”

The Court began with dictionary meanings and acknowledged that “force” can range broadly, including “strength or power of any degree,” while “physical” points toward bodily force. But the Court emphasized that ORS 164.395 requires force “upon another person,” not merely force exerted on an object.

The textual problem was indeterminacy: dictionary definitions alone could support either party’s framing (the state’s “any degree” or defendant’s “violent” force). The Court therefore moved decisively to context and legislative history.

(b) Context: robbery’s purpose and structure

The Court treated the robbery scheme (third-, second-, and first-degree robbery) as signaling a harm-and-risk orientation: aggravators (weapons, accomplices, serious injury) are about increasing danger and fear, even when no injury occurs. That structure is hard to reconcile with an interpretation that would make robbery turn on barely more than the mechanics of a taking.

The Court also considered related 1971 Code provisions using “physical force,” notably:

• ORS 162.155(1)(a) (second-degree escape): commentary frames “physical force” as increasing “risk to others.”
• ORS 162.315(2)(c) (resisting arrest): “violence, physical force or any other means that creates a substantial risk of physical injury,” reinforcing a linkage between “physical force” and injury-risk.

(c) Case-law context: robbery is about fear/violence, not mere taking

Drawing on State v. White and State v. Hamilton, the Court underscored that what “transforms” theft into robbery is “actual or threatened violence” and creating “a sense of fear.” That informs what “physical force” must mean in ORS 164.395: it must be conduct that causes harm or is reasonably capable of producing fear/danger of harm.

(d) Legislative history: retaining the assault–robbery link; shifting focus to personal safety

The Criminal Law Revision Commission materials were central. The Court extracted three main themes:

• Robbery historically intertwined with assault, and the Commission intended to retain that core. The Commission’s project director described robbery as “really a type of an assault,” and that “assault is fundamental to robbery.”
• Robbery’s “principal reason” is repression of violence. The Commission commentary described robbery’s “primary concern” as “physical danger” and “risk of injury,” not the property-taking itself.
• Robbery vs extortion is largely temporal, not qualitative. The materials distinguished robbery (immediate threat) from theft by extortion (future threat), with both hinging on threats of bodily injury—supporting that “physical force” in robbery is about harm/fear of harm.

(e) The resulting synthesis

Rejecting both extremes, the Court adopted a middle construction:

• Force need not be “violent” in a narrow, dictionary-of-arts sense.
• But it must be more than incidental bodily force attending a nonthreatening taking.
• It must involve contact that causes bodily harm or is reasonably capable of creating fear/danger that such harm will occur.

3.3 Application to the Facts

On this record, the defendant’s conduct was a swift snatch of a keycard, with no verbal threats, no threatening behavior, no evidence of direct contact with RH’s hand, and no contextual cues suggesting imminent harm. RH’s reaction—suggesting they go to the front desk “to take care of this”—reinforced the absence of fear/danger dynamics.

Under the Court’s standard, the conduct was theft-like, not robbery-like. Accordingly, the trial court erred in denying the motion for judgment of acquittal on third-degree robbery.

3.4 Impact (What Changes After Williams)

• Snatch-and-run prosecutions: Oregon prosecutors can no longer rely on mere speed (“resistance is futile”) to satisfy “physical force” under ORS 164.395(1). Many “grab and flee” incidents will be theft (or other offenses), not robbery, unless accompanied by harm, injury-risk contact, or fear-inducing circumstances.
• Doctrinal clarification of robbery’s boundary: The opinion re-centers robbery on the legislature’s violence-and-fear rationale reflected in State v. White and State v. Hamilton, reducing the risk that robbery becomes a property-crime enhancement detached from personal-safety concerns.
• Practical evidentiary consequences: Cases will turn more heavily on facts showing injury, physical intimidation, threatening positioning, implied menace, or circumstances that reasonably communicate danger—consistent with State v. Hall’s implicit-threat analysis.
• Attempted robbery limits: The Court’s refusal to order entry of attempted robbery underscores that when evidence fails to show fear-capable force, it may also fail to show an attempt to use or threaten such force or the requisite robbery intent.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Third-degree robbery (ORS 164.395): Theft becomes robbery only if, during the theft/attempted theft, the defendant uses or immediately threatens “physical force upon another person” with the purpose of overcoming resistance or compelling compliance.
• “Physical force upon another person” (after Williams): Not every bodily movement involved in taking property counts. The contact must either (a) cause bodily harm, or (b) be the kind of contact that would reasonably make someone fear bodily harm is about to happen.
• Motion for judgment of acquittal: A request for the judge to take the case away from the jury because, even viewing the evidence most favorably to the state, no rational juror could find the element(s) proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
• PGE/Gaines statutory interpretation: Oregon’s method: start with text; read text in context; consult legislative history if helpful; aim to implement legislative intent.
• Implicit threat (from State v. Hall): A threat need not be spoken. Conduct can “announce” danger under the circumstances (e.g., masked demands near a cash register late at night).
• Attempt (ORS 161.405): Attempt requires intentional conduct constituting a substantial step toward the crime. If the evidence does not show an intent to use/threaten fear-capable force (and the specific robbery intent), an “attempted robbery” fallback may fail.

5. Conclusion

State v. Williams delivers a clear doctrinal correction: ORS 164.395 does not convert every quick taking from a person into robbery. “Physical force upon another person” requires harm-causing contact or contact reasonably capable of generating fear/danger of bodily harm—keeping robbery anchored to its historical and legislative role as a violence-and-fear offense rather than a speed-based enhancement of theft.