State v. Rojas

In State v. Rojas, Ohio St.3d 131, 1992 Ohio 110, 592 N.E.2d 1376, the defendant was convicted of aggravated murder predicated upon aggravated robbery and a death-penalty specification alleging that the murder had been committed in the course of aggravated robbery. The defendant argued that he could not have been convicted of aggravated robbery because the victim had been dead several hours before he took money from her purse. The Ohio Supreme Court rejected this argument, stating: "The state argues that a thief should not be rewarded because he commits his offense at a leisurely, methodical pace--killing his victim first and then stealing his property. "It went on to state:"The victim of a robbery, killed just prior to the robber's carrying off her property, is nonetheless the victim of an aggravated robbery.The victim need not be alive at the time of asportation. A robber cannot avoid the effect of the felony-murder rule by first killing a victim, watching her die, and then stealing her property after the death." The court went on to point out that if the defendant intended to steal the victim's property while she was alive, the fact that he carried it away after she died is not crucial.