Theft and robbery in Florida

01 Quick answers

What makes theft grand theft?

Value. Property valued at $750 or more is generally grand theft, a third-degree felony, with higher degrees at higher values. Fla. Stat. § 812.014.

What turns theft into robbery?

Force, violence, assault or putting the person in fear, used in the course of the taking. Fla. Stat. § 812.13. Value becomes irrelevant.

Does robbery require a weapon?

No. A weapon raises it further — with a firearm or deadly weapon it becomes a first-degree felony punishable by life.

What is sudden snatching?

A separate offense for taking property from a person where they become aware of it during the taking, graded differently from robbery. § 812.131.

Does giving it back help?

Returning the property does not undo the offense, but restitution and the circumstances matter to how a prosecutor resolves a case.

Can a theft charge be sealed?

Only where adjudication was withheld, and theft is treated as a crime of dishonesty by employers and licensing bodies long after the case ends.

02 The grades

Theft is graded by value, and the thresholds move

Section 812.014 defines theft as knowingly obtaining or using, or endeavoring to obtain or use, the property of another with intent to deprive them of it. The grading runs on value.

At the lower end it is petit theft, a misdemeanor, with the degree turning on whether the value is under or over one hundred dollars. At seven hundred and fifty dollars it becomes grand theft, a third-degree felony, and it escalates further at higher values — a second-degree felony in the middle band and a first-degree felony at the top.

Certain property is graded by what it is rather than what it is worth. A firearm, a motor vehicle, a will, and several other categories are grand theft regardless of value. So a charge can be a felony over an item that would otherwise be a misdemeanor.

Value is an element, which means it can be contested. It is market value at the time and place of the offense, not replacement cost and not the retail ticket price. Where a case sits just above a threshold, valuation is not a detail — it is the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony.

A prior theft record also escalates: repeat petit theft can be charged as a felony on its own, which is how a series of small cases becomes a serious one.

Where a case sits just above a threshold, valuation is not a detail. It is the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony.

03 The line

How a shoplifting case becomes a robbery

This is the single most important paragraph on this page. Section 812.13 makes it robbery to take property from a person or their custody by the use of force, violence, assault or putting them in fear, in the course of the taking.

Value is irrelevant to robbery. Robbery of an item worth four dollars is a second-degree felony. With a firearm or other deadly weapon it is a first-degree felony punishable by life.

"In the course of the taking" includes what happens on the way out. A person who takes something from a shop and then pushes past an employee at the door, or pulls away from someone trying to stop them, has committed robbery rather than petit theft on the State’s theory. The item is still worth four dollars. The charge has moved several degrees.

That transition is where these cases are fought: whether what happened was force used to accomplish the taking, or a reflex while being grabbed, and whether the contact was anything more than separating from someone holding you. Video, the sequence of events and the employee’s own account at the time are what decide it.

04 Related charges

Burglary, snatching, and what gets added

Burglary is not about theft at all — it is entering or remaining in a structure, dwelling or conveyance with intent to commit an offense inside. The intent at the moment of entry is the element, which is why a burglary charge can stand even if nothing was taken, and why it can fail even where something was.

Robbery by sudden snatching under § 812.131 covers taking property from a person where the victim becomes aware of it during the taking, without the force required for robbery. It is graded differently and the distinction is frequently litigated.

Dealing in stolen property is a separate and more serious charge than theft, and it is commonly added where property was resold or pawned. A pawn transaction leaves a record with identification attached, which is how these cases are built.

A firearm in the case brings the enhancements in § 775.087 into play, which carry their own mandatory minimums independent of the robbery grading.

05 What follows

Why a theft conviction outlasts the sentence

Theft is classified as a crime of dishonesty, and that classification does more damage over time than the sentence does. It can be used to impeach a person as a witness in any future case, including a civil one. Employers and licensing bodies treat it differently from other offenses, particularly in any role involving money, inventory or vulnerable people.

The record. Sealing requires a withheld adjudication. A conviction closes it permanently, and because theft records are the ones background checks are most sensitive to, the difference between those two outcomes is larger here than in most cases.

Immigration. Theft offenses are frequently crimes involving moral turpitude, and a sentence of a year or more can convert one into an aggravated felony. The statute of conviction and the sentence length matter more than the amount involved, which is counterintuitive and is the reason to raise status before any plea.

Restitution is usually part of a resolution and it is a judgment that survives the criminal case. How it is calculated and what it includes is negotiable, and it is worth negotiating rather than accepting a figure.