State v. Mann

Penelope Dawkins and Richard Lockamy did household chores and worked at Charlie Mann's (defendant's) sawmill. Knowing Lockamy had a criminal record and that the pair needed money, Mann repeatedly -- three or four times a week -- urged them to rob an elderly man he said carried large amounts of cash and would be easy to target, offering them ideas on how to do it and warning Lockamy that if he didn't rob the man, Mann would either do it himself or find someone else. Separately, trailer-park manager Keith Barts, who knew Mann and had previously received robbery job leads from him, told Lockamy the robbery of the elderly man would be a good job; two weeks later, Barts told Lockamy he had committed the robbery and believed he'd killed the man, who had in fact died. A jury convicted Mann of soliciting Lockamy to commit common-law robbery, and the trial court sentenced him to seven years as a felony; the appellate court found no trial error but remanded for Mann to be resentenced only as a misdemeanant, and the state sought review.