that was my point - there's no way with no physical evidence they could possibly prove force at all...
Well not exactly, you don’t need the evidence to prove your case for a strong arm robbery case. Suppose I roll up on an on-view where a complainant is flagging me down at the Inner Harbor and the complainant says Officer that big guy right there grabbed my forearm and used his other hand to force my I-Phone out of my hand but no visible injury is present. A witness says, yep I saw the whole thing. The suspect is holding a cell phone but before I can seize it, he throws it as far as he can into the harbor. I am not going to jump into the harbor to try and recover it. I can still lock up the suspect and if a judge believes the cell phone was the complainant’s and the witnesses convince the judge that the defendant used force, the defendant can be found guilty of robbery. If there were marks on the complainant’s hand or wrist even better. I get crime lab to respond. I get the marks photographed. I bring the photos, now evidence, to court and they get introduced and marked exhibit A, B, C, etc.
The problem for the State in Humph’s case is even if the charger is brought to court by the Uber Driver it cannot be entered into evidence because the chain of custody has been broken. So even if the officer identifies it as the exact same charger Humph had in his hand that he took, because let’s say it had a serial number on it and the officer wrote the serial number down before he gave it to the complainant and the complainant brings a receipt to show he bought the charger and the serial number is on the receipt. Chain of custody was still broken, evidence can’t be entered.
If chain of custody was not broken, and let’s say the Uber Driver and witnesses say Humph grabbed the charger by force and took it up to his hotel room and I go up to the hotel room and the charger was in the back bathroom and I ask Humph if I can check for the charger and he says no, and I arrest Humph for the robbery. I can only search his person, and his reach, lunge, or grasp (basically the immediate small area - not across the room) unless the bathroom door is open and the charger is in plain view on the countersink. I don’t need the charger to arrest Humph, because a felony does not need to happen in my presence to arrest. All I need is probable cause, which in Humph’s case can be derived by victims, witnesses, or informants. If I don’t have the charger as evidence to seize, it would be almost impossible for the State to prove its case against Humph just on the word of the victim without independent witnesses. But to complicate things even more, let’s say after Humph was released on bail he mailed the charger back to the victim and he turned it over to police and they properly followed custody procedures. The charger may still be entered into evidence, depending on if the Judge allowed it because chain of custody was not broken.
Seizure of evidence can get very complicated, you could fill ten warehouses with case law and still not have enough room, but not in Humph’s case - it is very easy. I put a lot of time into studying the fourth amendment.
I make one caveat to this case and that is video cameras are everywhere. At Humph’s preliminary hearing, the State could say we have been investigating this case and we found this video showing the defendant balling his fist at the victim, after he appeared to be pointing to the charger in the defendant’s hand.
