Kidnapping & False Imprisonment

Common law held that kidnapping meant forcible abduction of a person and sending him to another country. It may be interpreted as an aggravated form of false imprisonment, since in incorporates that crime with taking the victim out of his own county, thus removing the victim from the protection of his own laws. In those years, it was considered a misdemeanor; today it is commonly a felony by statute.

Kidnapping Today

Kidnapping still constitutes aggravated false imprisonment. The imprisonment portion of the crime involves substantial restraint of the victim's liberty. Ordinarily, it becomes kidnapping when the motive emerges as:

• Intent to seek ransom;

• Use of the victim as shield or hostage;

• Intent to inflict bodily injury;

• Intent to terrorize;

• Sexual abuse;

• Intent to hold the victim in a state of involuntary servitude (slavery);

• Using the victim to facilitate a crime or flight thereafter;

• Causing the interference with the performance of a government or political function.

A victim is "held to service" when forced to commit an act or forced to refrain from committing some act. Kidnapping may also be charged when the restrained victim is then exposed to "the risk of serious bodily injury" or is held in a remote and secreted location.

Degrees and Definitions

The courts have held that the requirement in the Federal Kidnapping Act concerning "ransom or reward or otherwise" is not overly broad or vague, and that the potential gain to the kidnapper need not be monetary alone. It has also been found that a kidnapper need not collect a ransom in order to be guilty: evidence of intent to seek ransom is sufficient, as with the other prohibited purposes.

Some jurisdictions have established degrees of kidnapping. In Washington, first degree kidnapping includes abduction for the purposes of ransom; for use as a hostage or shield; to facilitate in the commission of a felony; to inflict extreme mental stress on the victim or a third party; or to interfere in a governmental function. Intentional abduction for any other purpose is second degree kidnapping. In Virginia, failure to report a kidnapping is a crime.

In either case, "kidnapping" must involve restraint by threat of deadly force or by holding the victim in a hideaway. The lesser crime of unlawful imprisonment involves mere restraint of the victim so as to substantially interfere with his liberty, without consent or legal authority.

Movement of the Victim

Moving a kidnapping victim to another country was long ago abandoned as part of the crime's definition. However in circumstances during the commission of another crime such as rape or robbery when the victim is moved from place to place, from room to room or driven to a remote location, such movement may constitute kidnapping.

Many statutes attempt to cope with the "movement" question by requiring that the interference with liberty be "substantial." Taking a victim from his house or business and thus from a place of safety is substantial; pushing a victim into an alley or hallway is not. Confinement in a secreted place must be for a substantial period: locking a robbery victim in a closet while his house is plundered thus is not kidnapping.