Supreme Court Ruling Eases Prosecution of Kidnappings

The state Supreme Court made it easier Thursday for prosecutors to prove kidnapping, overturning a 21-year-old ruling that required evidence that the victim was moved a substantial distance by force or threats.

In a 6-1 decision, the court said a kidnapping conviction requires proof only that the movement was “substantial in character,” taking into account the increased risk to the victim, the attacker’s concealment and the increased likelihood of harm as well as the actual distance.

“Limiting a [jury’s] consideration to a particular distance is rigid and arbitrary, and ultimately unworkable,” said the opinion by Justice Janice Rogers Brown.

On the other hand, she said, kidnapping cannot be proved, regardless of the circumstances, “if the movement is only a very short distance.”

The court’s statements seem contradictory and fail to clarify the law, said Barbara Michel, defense lawyer in the Fresno County case that was the subject of the ruling. Although the justices “tried to make it easier for prosecutors,” she said, defense lawyers can still argue that the victim was moved “only a very short distance.”

The court declined to apply its new standard to the March 1995 Fresno County case, saying that defendant Samuel Martinez was legally entitled to be judged under the law in effect at the time. The standard will apply only to future cases of “simple” kidnapping, an abduction that is not linked to another crime such as robbery or rape.

The justices overturned Martinez’s conviction for kidnapping a 13-year-old girl, saying that the distance she was moved, through her house and 40 to 50 feet across a yard, was not “substantial” under standards recognized by California courts since the 1970s.

Instead, Martinez, who clearly intended to take his victim a much greater distance if police hadn’t caught him, should have been convicted of attempted kidnapping, the court said. That should reduce his 33-year prison sentence by at least 11 years, his lawyer said.