Case Title: State v. Walch

Citation: 

Docket Number: S055830

State: oregon

Court: Oregon Supreme Court

Date: 2009-07-16T00:00:00Z

Document:
FILED: July 16, 2009
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
STATE OF OREGON,
Respondent
on Review,
v.
JUSTIN KEITH WALCH,
Petitioner
on Review.
(CC
041108; CA A127510; SC S055830)
En Banc
On review from the
Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted
November 12, 2008.
George W. Kelly,
Eugene, argued the cause and filed the brief for petitioner on review.  
Joanna J. Jenkins,
Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause and filed the brief for respondent
on review.  With her on the brief were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Mary
H. Williams, Solicitor General.
BALMER, J.
The decision of the
Court of Appeals and the judgment of the circuit court are affirmed.
Gillette, J.,
dissented and filed an opinion in which De Muniz, C. J., and Durham, J.,
joined.
*Appeal from Clatsop
County Circuit Court, Philip Nelson, Judge. 218 Or App 86, 178 P3d
301 (2008).
BALMER, J.
The issue in this criminal case is
whether evidence that defendant dragged the victim 15 feet and forced her into
the trunk of a car is sufficient to show that defendant moved the victim
"from one place to another" as that phrase is used in the kidnapping
statute, ORS 163.225(1)(a), or if the state instead must prove that defendant
moved the victim a "substantial distance."  The trial court
determined that the jury could have found that defendant had moved the victim from
one place to another and denied defendant's motion for a judgment of
acquittal.  Defendant appealed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.  State v.
Walch, 218 Or App 86, 178 P3d 301 (2008).  We allowed review and now affirm,
although we do so for reasons somewhat different than those relied upon by the
Court of Appeals.
Because the issue arises on a motion
for judgment of acquittal, we state the facts in the light most favorable to
the state.  State v. Fries, 344 Or 541, 543, 185 P3d 453 (2008).  At
approximately 9:00 p.m. on March 15, 2004, the victim arrived at her friend
Jeremy's house.  The victim contacted another friend, Amanda, and arranged to
purchase $50 worth of methamphetamine; the victim mentioned to Amanda that she
had $350 in cash with her.  Sometime later, Amanda, her friend Robert, and some
other acquaintances arrived at the house.  The victim gave Amanda the money to
purchase the drugs, and the group left.  Later that evening, defendant and Robert
returned to the house with the drugs that the victim had purchased.  The
victim, Robert, and defendant shared the drugs, and the two men left.
At around 3:30 a.m., Robert and
defendant returned to the house.  Robert came into the house and told the
victim that he had been in an accident in Amanda's car, which the two men had
been driving that night.  Robert phoned Amanda, spoke with her privately for a
few minutes, and then told the victim that Amanda wanted to speak with her. 
Amanda asked the victim to go outside and look at her car, because she did not
believe that Robert had been in an accident.  The victim walked outside, looked
at the car, and determined that there was no damage. 
After looking at the car, the victim turned
to walk back toward the house but heard a rustling in the bushes.  Defendant
emerged from the bushes; he put the victim in a chokehold, pushing her to the
ground.  Eventually, defendant turned the victim over and began strangling her
with his hands.  In the course of the struggle, defendant dragged the victim
five to 15 feet toward the car.  The victim regained her footing and asked why
defendant was attacking her; he responded "I want your money."  Although
she had her money in her pocket, the victim told defendant that it was in the
house.  As defendant and the victim continued to struggle, the victim was
pushed to the ground again.  Defendant then picked her up and threw her into
the trunk of the car.  Defendant tried to close the victim in the trunk, but
the lid hit the victim's head and would not close.  The victim locked her knees
against the inside of the trunk, so that defendant could not push her farther
inside, and defendant was unable to close the lid.  Eventually, defendant pulled
the victim out of the trunk and told her to go to the house and retrieve her
money.       
The victim returned to the house. 
Once inside, Robert helped the victim change her clothes.  At that point, the
victim lost track of the pants that she had been wearing, along with the money
that had been inside the pocket.  Jeremy's mother called 9-1-1, and an
ambulance arrived and transported the victim to the hospital.  Police later
arrested defendant in an apartment, where they also found $250 in cash.  In
searching Amanda's car, police found three rolls of tape, a meat cleaver, and a
crowbar.   
A grand jury indicted defendant for
multiple crimes, including kidnapping in the first degree.  ORS 163.235(1), set
out below.  At the close of the state's case, defendant moved for a judgment of
acquittal on the kidnapping charge, arguing that the evidence was insufficient
to show that the movement of the victim had been "substantial."  The
trial court denied that motion, and a jury convicted defendant of kidnapping in
the first degree.(1)
 Defendant appealed, arguing again that the evidence was insufficient to sustain
a kidnapping conviction.  Specifically, he argued that no reasonable factfinder
could have found that he had moved the victim "from one place to
another," as required by ORS 163.225(1)(a), the companion statute to ORS
163.235.(2) 

As noted, the Court of Appeals
affirmed.  The court first determined, based on this court's opinion in State
v. Murray, 340 Or 599, 136 P3d 10 (2006), that the phrase "from one
place to another" in ORS 163.225(1)(a) requires that the victim's movement
be "substantial."  The court then noted the qualitative differences
between the open driveway from which the victim had been moved and the enclosed
trunk in which she had been placed.  In concluding that the movement in this
case was sufficient, the court reasoned as follows:
"Because Murray teaches that movement from one
place to another is 'substantial' movement, and defendant moved the victim from
one place to another, we conclude that the movement here was also substantial,
despite the fact that the actual distance, as measured in feet and inches,
might be less than the distance the court found to be insubstantial in [other
cases]."
Walch, 218 Or App at 92.  Defendant petitioned for
review of the Court of Appeals decision, and we allowed review to consider
whether moving the victim from the driveway to the car trunk here qualified as
moving the victim "from one place to another" for purposes of ORS
163.225(1)(a).
In reviewing the sufficiency of the
evidence in a criminal case, "the relevant question is whether, after
viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the state, any rational
trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a
reasonable doubt."  State v. King, 307 Or 332, 339, 768 P2d 391
(1989).  The first-degree kidnapping statute, ORS 163.235(1), provides:
"A person commits the crime of kidnapping
in the first degree if the person violates ORS 163.225 with any of the
following purposes:
"(a) To compel any person to pay or deliver
money or property as ransom;
"(b) To hold the victim as a shield or
hostage;
"(c) To cause physical injury to the
victim; or
"(d) To terrorize the victim or another
person."
ORS 163.225, in turn, provides, in relevant part:
"(1) A person commits the crime of
kidnapping in the second degree if, with intent to interfere substantially with
another's personal liberty, and without consent or legal authority, the person:
"(a) Takes the person from one place to
another; or
"(b) Secretly confines the person in a
place where the person is not likely to be found."
Thus, to establish kidnapping here, the state had to prove
that defendant (1) took the victim "from one place to another"; (2)
"with intent to interfere substantially with [her] personal liberty";
(3) "without consent or legal authority"; and (4) with the purpose of
causing her "physical injury."  ORS 163.235(1)(c); ORS 163.225(1)(a).
Defendant does not argue that the evidence
was not sufficient for the jury to find that he intended to "interfere
substantially" with the victim's personal liberty, that he acted
"without consent or legal authority," and that his purpose in taking
the victim was to cause her "physical injury."  His sole argument on
review is that the facts described above are not sufficient to permit a
reasonable juror to find that he took the victim "from one place to
another," as required by ORS 163.225(1)(a).
As this court recently noted, an
analysis of the text and context of the phrase "from one place to
another" in the kidnapping statute provides little guidance in determining
its meaning:
"The question of what is included in the
concept of 'taking' a person 'from one place to another' is, at bottom, an
exercise in metaphysics.  The words 'from' and 'to' create no problem here,
because they clearly describe the idea of movement, i.e., of a change of
position.  And 'another' simply replicates 'place' -- i.e., the
statutory phrase fairly may be paraphrased as a matter of standard English to
require that a person be moved 'from place to place.'  Thus, in the final
analysis, this case comes down to the question of how one is to define the term
'place' for the purposes of ORS 163.225(1)(a).
"And here is where the metaphysics problem
arises.  The criminal code, of which ORS 163.225 is a part, contains no
definition of 'place.'  Absent a special definition, we ordinarily would resort
to dictionary definitions, assuming that the legislature meant to use a word of
common usage in its ordinary sense.  See PGE [v. Bureau of Labor and
Industries], 317 Or [606,] 611[, 859 P2d 1143 (1993)] (noting that words of
common usage typically should be given their plain, natural, and ordinary
meaning).  But resort to a dictionary gets us nowhere here.  'Place' is
defined, in Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 1727 (unabridged ed
2002), as 'an indefinite region or expanse.'  Such a definition hardly can be
said to clarify the issue.  (There are many other definitions, but none comes
as close as the foregoing to addressing the problem before us.)"
Murray, 340 Or at 603-04.  We turn to legislative
history to aid us in determining legislative intent.  
To understand the legislature's
intent in using the phrase "from one place to another" in ORS 163.225(1)(a),
it is useful to begin with a discussion of the definition of kidnapping before
the legislature enacted a comprehensive revision of Oregon's criminal laws,
including the kidnapping statutes, in 1971.(3) 
At common law in England, kidnapping was defined as "the forcible
abduction or stealing away" of a person from that person's own country to
another.  4 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 219
(1769).  In the United States, one needed to remove a person only from that
person's own state, rather than from the country, and by the 1950s, nearly all
state legislatures had broadened the definition even further.  Rollin M.
Perkins, Criminal Law 134-35 (1957).  California's kidnapping statute,
for example, provided that "'[e]very person who seizes, confines,
inveigles, entices, decoys, abducts, conceals, kidnaps or carries away any
individual by any means whatsoever with intent to hold or detain, or who holds
or detains, such individual for ransom, reward or to commit extortion or
robbery'" committed the crime of kidnapping.  See People v. Knowles,
35 Cal 2d 175, 180, 217 P2d 1, 4 (1950) (quoting California's kidnapping
statute; emphasis omitted).(4)
With that broader definition,
prosecutors began charging defendants with kidnapping when they moved their
victims only a short distance or confined their victims for a short duration.  Commentary
to Criminal Law Revision Commission Proposed Oregon Criminal Code, Final Draft
and Report § 99, 99-100 (July 1970).  As a result, even when defendants moved
or confined their victims incidentally to the commission of another crime, such
as rape or robbery, prosecutors might charge them with kidnapping.(5) 
The drafters of the revised criminal code thus sought to reestablish kidnapping
as an independent crime based on facts different from those that would support
a conviction for another crime:
"Current kidnapping statutes apply to abductions which
are incidental to or an integral part of the commission of an independent crime
such as robbery or rape where the victim is removed and confined for a given
period to effectuate the criminal purpose.  Where the detention period is brief
there is no genuine kidnapping.  However, cases of this nature are sometimes
prosecuted as kidnapping in order to secure the death penalty or life
imprisonment for behavior that amounts in substance to rape or robbery in
jurisdictions where these offenses are not subject to such penalties."
Id.
Although the legislative history demonstrates
that the drafters were concerned with excluding from the kidnapping statutes conduct
that was merely incidental to another crime, determining how the drafters
intended to exclude that conduct is a more difficult undertaking.  The commentary
is of little use.  As noted above, it describes the problem in detail.  But, at
least in their effort to clarify the defendant's required "movement"
or confinement of the victim for kidnapping purposes, the drafters were more
explicit about the tests that they rejected than about the test that they
eventually adopted.  The drafters considered solutions adopted by other
jurisdictions, as described in the commentary:
"The Model Penal Code provides for kidnapping only
where the kidnapper removes the victim from his place of residence or
business, or a substantial distance from the vicinity where he is found, or
if the kidnapper unlawfully confines the victim for a substantial period in a place of isolation.  New
York has selected the arbitrary figure of twelve hours to designate the point
in the course of a criminal project at which the abduction becomes a major
offense in itself and not merely a facet of some other crime."
Id. at 100 (emphasis added).  But the proposed
statute's evolution and the legislative history demonstrate that the drafters
did not entirely adopt either the Model Penal Code or the New York solution
that they described.
The drafters rejected New York's solution
of an arbitrary time limit outright; no drafts contained a time limit of a
specified number of minutes or hours.  See Minutes, Criminal Law
Revision Commission, Subcommittee No 2, Oct 25, 1968, 3 (discussing and
rejecting numerical limit).  Early drafts adopted the Model Penal Code's solution
of requiring that the kidnapper move the victim a "substantial distance."
 In the first preliminary draft, and in one of three alternatives in the second
preliminary draft, the drafters distinguished between second-degree kidnapping and
first-degree kidnapping in part based on whether the defendant had moved the
victim a "substantial distance."  That is, moving the victim a
substantial distance helped to elevate the crime from second- to first-degree
kidnapping.  Criminal Law Revision Commission, Subcommittee No 2, Preliminary
Draft No 1, Art 12, § 3(1) (Oct 1968); Criminal Law Revision Commission,
Subcommittee No 2, Preliminary Draft No 2, Art 12, § 3 (alternate 2) (Dec
1968).  By the third draft, however, the drafters distinguished between first-
and second-degree kidnapping based solely on the kidnapper's purpose and
eliminated any reference to moving the victim a substantial distance.  Criminal
Law Revision Commission, Subcommittee No 2, Preliminary Draft No 3, Art 12, § 3
(Feb 1969).  In fact, "[a]s finally enacted[,] the law does not even
require that there actually be a substantial interference
with the victim's personal liberty; it is only necessary that the perpetrator
have the 'intent to interfere substantially' with the victim's personal
liberty to make the malefactor guilty of kidnapping * * *."  State v.
Garcia, 288 Or 413, 421, 605 P2d 671 (1980) (emphasis in Garcia); see
also ORS 163.225(1) ("substantially" used only in reference to
intent).
The legislative history demonstrates
that the drafters were concerned with avoiding the all-encompassing kidnapping
definitions that existed in some states at the time that they were drafting the
new code.  Specifically, the drafters sought to avoid a kidnapping statute that
would allow prosecutors to charge kidnapping when the defendant had moved or
confined the victim only to effectuate another crime.  The legislative history
also demonstrates that the drafters considered, and ultimately rejected, the
solutions of other jurisdictions.  However, nowhere in the legislative history
did the drafters explain the solution that they ultimately adopted.  We
therefore return to the text of the statute, keeping in mind the drafters' intent
that the kidnapping statute not apply to situations where the movement or
confinement of the victim is only incidental to the commission of an independent
crime.
The drafters' wording of the intent
element in ORS 163.225(1) makes it apparent that it was through that
element that they sought to avoid an over-inclusive definition of second-degree
kidnapping.  As noted, the only place that the drafters used the word "substantially"
is in describing the extent of interference with the victim's liberty that the
defendant must "inten[d]."  And that is where this court has most
frequently referred to a "substantial distance" requirement.  That
is, for a defendant to act with intent to interfere "substantially"
with another's personal liberty, that defendant need not move the victim a
substantial distance or confine the victim for a substantial period of time,
but rather "must intend either to move the victim a 'substantial
distance' or to confine the victim for a 'substantial period of time.'"  State
v. Wolleat, 338 Or 469, 475, 111 P3d 1131 (2005) (emphasis added).
In contrast, the history and wording
of the asportation element in ORS 163.225(1)(a) indicate that the drafters did
not intend to incorporate a "substantial distance" requirement into
the statute when they used the phrase "from one place to another."  Indeed,
as discussed above, the drafters deleted references in earlier drafts to a
"substantial distance" requirement, which would have applied to the
asportation itself.  Nonetheless, the wording of the statute indicates that the
legislature intended the asportation element to aid in narrowing the definition
of kidnapping, albeit not by requiring that the defendant move the victim a
"substantial distance" in every case.  ORS 163.225(1)(a) requires
that the defendant move the victim "from one place to another" -- not,
for instance, that the defendant simply "move" the victim or move the
victim "any distance."  The legislature intended the word
"place" to have some meaning; that is, a kidnapping does not occur by
moving the victim any distance with intent to interfere substantially with
his or her personal liberty.  Rather, the movement must be such that it can be
said that the victim was moved from "one place" to "another
[place]."
As this court has stated, "the
'place' in which something or someone may be found and from which that something
or someone may be taken is situational and contextual."  Murray, 340
Or at 606.  Defendant argues, largely based on Murray, that, regardless
of the context, one cannot take another person "from one place to
another" for purposes of ORS 163.225(1)(a) without moving that person a
"substantial distance."  As we discuss in greater detail below,
although a sentence in Murray provides some support for that argument,
that sentence -- and the conclusion defendant seeks to draw from it -- is not
necessary to the result in Murray and is inconsistent with the
legislative history and with other cases decided by this court.  Defendant's
argument would essentially substitute the phrase "substantial
distance" -- a phrase that the legislature considered and rejected -- for
the phrase "from one place to another" -- the phrase that the
legislature actually used.  As this court state in Wolleat, "[b]y
its terms, the phrase ['from one place to another'] does not require that a
defendant take a victim a specific distance, nor does it require that the
distance be substantial."  338 Or at 473.  
Indeed, we know from the legislative
history that the phrase "from one place to another" means something
different than "substantial distance."  The first draft of the
kidnapping provisions considered by the Criminal Law Revision Commission
provided that a person would commit the crime of second-degree kidnapping if,
among other things, the person moved the victim "from one place to
another."  See Criminal Law Revision Commission, Subcommittee No 2,
Preliminary Draft No 1, Art 12, § 1(1) (Oct 1968) (defining
"restrain").(6) 
That draft also provided that second-degree kidnapping would become
first-degree kidnapping if, among other things, the person moved the victim
"a substantial distance from the vicinity where he is found."  Id.
at § 3(1).  The drafters necessarily intended the two phrases to mean different
things and that a person need not move the victim a "substantial
distance" to move the victim "from one place to another." 
Moreover, because moving the victim a "substantial distance," rather
than "from one place to another," elevated the crime to first-degree
kidnapping, it is apparent that the drafters intended the phrase "substantial
distance" to require a greater amount or degree of movement than the phrase
"from one place to another."
The distance that the victim is moved
is one important consideration in determining whether the victim was moved
"from one place to another" -- i.e., moving the victim a
"substantial distance" more likely will entail moving the victim
"from one place to another" -- but that is not the only variable that
we must consider.  In enacting the kidnapping statute, the drafters' primary
concern was protecting the victim's personal liberty or "freedom of
movement."  Wolleat, 338 Or at 474; see also ORS 163.225(1)
(kidnapping entails acting "with intent to interfere substantially with
another's personal liberty").  Thus, another important factor in
determining whether the defendant moved the victim "from one place to
another" is whether the movement served to limit the victim's freedom of
movement and increase the victim's isolation.  
In Murray, for example, the
defendant, in the course of stealing the victim's car, pushed the victim from
the driver's seat to the passenger seat.  The victim immediately opened the passenger
side door and exited the car; the defendant closed the passenger door and drove
away.  340 Or at 601-02.  This court determined that the evidence had failed to
show that the "defendant tried to keep [the victim] in the car. 
Instead, [the] defendant drove the car away."  Id. at 606 (emphasis
in original).  Indeed, the defendant pushed the victim to the passenger seat,
where she could escape more easily by opening the passenger door.  Far from
serving to isolate the victim or limit her freedom of movement, the defendant's
movement of the victim in that case indirectly led to the victim's freedom.  That
fact, coupled with the fact that the defendant had moved the victim only a few
feet, led this court to conclude that the defendant had not moved the victim
"from one place to another."
Here, in contrast, the "situation[]"
and "context[]," Murray, 340 Or at 606, surrounding the
incident provide support for the jury's determination that defendant took the
victim "from one place to another."  The victim was originally in the
driveway, an open area from which she might have run away or been seen by the
people inside the house.  Defendant attacked the victim and fought with her, moving
her approximately 15 feet.  Defendant then picked the victim up and shoved her
into a car, a location (and an object) intended to quickly move people a
distance of some miles.  Further, defendant not only forced the victim into a
car, but into the trunk of a car, a place in which, as the Court of
Appeals accurately stated, "a human being could be put for almost no
innocent purpose."  Walch, 218 Or App at 92.  Because the context
is such that defendant moved the victim from one place (the open driveway) to a
qualitatively different, more mobile and isolated place (the trunk of a car),
we conclude that the asportation element of the kidnapping statute has been
satisfied.  Moreover, the 15 feet that defendant moved the victim is several
times the distance involved in Murray, regardless of whether that
distance is considered quantitatively "substantial."(7) 
We need not decide whether defendant moved the victim a "substantial distance,"
because the kidnapping statutes do not require that the victim be moved a
"substantial distance" or, indeed, any specific distance.  The distance
of the movement is simply one factor in determining whether the defendant, with
the intent to interfere substantially with the victim's personal liberty, took
the victim "from one place to another."(8)
For the foregoing reasons, we
conclude that the evidence was sufficient to permit a reasonable jury to find
that defendant had moved the victim "from one place to another" for
purposes of ORS 163.225(1)(a).  As noted, defendant does not argue that the evidence
was insufficient to permit a reasonable jury to find the three other elements
of first-degree kidnapping, including that defendant "inten[ded] to interfere
substantially with another's personal liberty."  The trial court therefore
properly denied defendant's motion for a judgment of acquittal.
The dissent protests that we are
overruling relevant precedent, asserting that several of this court's prior
cases "equat[e] * * * the requirement that movement be 'from one place to
another' under ORS 163.225(1)(a), when it occurs in the context of a separate
substantive offense, with movement of a 'substantial distance.'"  ___Or at
___ (Gillette, J., dissenting) (slip op at 7).  Not surprisingly, we disagree. 
The analysis above of the phrase "from one place to another" and of this
court's cases interpreting that phrase is consistent with, and would lead to
the same results in, the three cases that the dissent mentions, Garcia,
Wolleat, and Murray.  Moreover, it is consistent with this court's
unequivocal statement in Wolleat that the term "from one place to
another" in ORS 163.225(1)(a) "does not require that a defendant take
a victim a specific distance, nor does it require that the distance be
substantial."  338 Or at 473.   
The only support for the dissent's
position that this court's cases "equate" "from one place to
another" with "substantial distance" is one sentence in Murray. 
However, as we will demonstrate, that sentence is not essential to the result
in Murray, and, more importantly, it is inconsistent with other cases
and with the legislative history of the kidnapping statutes.  As noted, in Murray,
the defendant shoved the victim from the driver's seat of the victim's car into
the passenger seat, where the victim opened the door and got out, as the
defendant said "get out, bitch."  Murray, 340 Or at 602.  This
court examined whether that evidence would permit a jury to find the
asportation element of second-degree kidnapping -- that the defendant had
"[t]ake[n] the [victim] from one place to another."  ORS 163.225(1)(a). 
As we already have seen, the court discussed the meaning of the words in the
statute -- particularly the word "place" -- and quoted extensively
from the discussion of the legislative history of the kidnapping statutes in Garcia. 
Murray, 340 Or at 603-06.  The court noted that the meaning of
"place" was "situational and contextual" and that it was,
"among other things, a function of the object to be moved, as well as a
function of the area in which the movement occurs."  Id. at 606. 
The court then applied the law that it had reviewed to the facts of the case:
"But however one
may wish to characterize the confrontation between defendant and [the victim]
in the car, no evidence indicates that defendant tried to keep [the
victim] in the car.  Instead, defendant drove the car away.  That means that,
even if one were to find some sort of asportation in the events in question, it
was only 'incidental' -- as that word was used in Garcia -- to
defendant's theft of the car and, therefore, not the kind of conduct that the
legislature intended to permit to serve as the basis for a separate kidnapping
charge.  Put differently, defendant did not 'take' [the victim] anywhere or,
even if he did, the distance that [the victim] moved was not 'substantial,' i.e.,
was not 'from one place to another.'  See Garcia, 288 Or at 421
(defendant guilty of kidnapping only if, during commission of another
substantive offense, he took victim 'substantial distance')."
Id. at 606-07 (emphasis in original).
Obviously, the first three sentences
in the paragraph just quoted -- indeed, the first three and a half sentences --
are sufficient to reach the result that the court reached in Murray and
are entirely consistent with the analysis above:  a kidnapping requires a
"tak[ing]" of the victim "from one place to another" that
is not "only 'incidental'" to another crime.  In Murray, there
was no evidence that the defendant took the victim from one place to another. 
He simply shoved her across the seat and, after she opened the door and got
out, shut the door and drove off without her.  The defendant's physical contact
with the victim was "only incidental" to the other crimes that he
committed:  robbery, assault, and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.  Here,
in contrast, defendant assaulted and robbed the victim.  He also moved
the victim about 15 feet to the car, lifted her off the ground, placed her in
the trunk, and tried to shut the trunk lid.  Our conclusion that the foregoing
conduct meets the asportation requirement of ORS 163.225(1)(a) is consistent
with the words of that statute and with this court's cases.
The dissent nevertheless focuses on
the last sentence in the paragraph from Murray, quoted above, which states
that, even if the defendant in that case had "take[n]" the victim
anywhere, "the distance that [the victim] moved was not 'substantial,' i.e.,
was not 'from one place to another.'"  Murray, 340 Or at 606.  As
support for that proposition, Murray provides, and the dissent quotes,
the following citation:  "See Garcia, 288 Or at 421 (defendant
guilty of kidnapping only if, during commission of another substantive offense,
he took victim 'substantial distance')."(9) 
See ___ Or at ___ (Gillette, J., dissenting) (slip op at 7) (quoting Murray,
340 Or at 606-07).
Other than the material just quoted,
nothing in any Oregon case or statute even suggests that the requirement in ORS
163.225(1)(a) that the defendant "take" the victim "from one
place to another" requires that the defendant move the victim a
"substantial distance."  On the contrary, as the legislative history
discussed above makes clear, the Criminal Law Revision Commission considered
and rejected a proposal to require, for a kidnapping conviction, that the
defendant move the victim a "substantial distance."  And the
Commission considered, but did not adopt, a different proposal that would have
used movement "from one place to another" to describe second-degree
kidnapping and movement of a "substantial distance" to describe
first-degree kidnapping.  That undisputed background demonstrates that,
whatever those two different phrases mean, they cannot mean the same thing. The
dissent's position is untenable.
One might fairly ask, then, where the
sentence from Murray, 340 Or at 606, and the parenthetical in Murray
describing Garcia, 288 Or at 421, originated.  The answer is
found in this court's editing, in Murray, of the extensive quotation
from Garcia that discusses the legislative history of the kidnapping
statutes.  In Garcia, the court reviewed the Criminal Law Revision
Commission's efforts to define kidnapping in a way that would prevent a
separate kidnapping conviction "where the detention or asportation of the
victim is merely incidental to the accomplishment of another crime,
particularly that of robbery or rape."  Garcia, 288 Or at
420.  That review quoted subcommittee minutes, statutes from other states,
different drafts of statutes, and statements by committee staff and witnesses. 
For the dissent, the critical sentence from Garcia is the following,
which this court quoted in Murray:
"The drafting technique utilized to
accomplish the legislative purpose is manifested in the definition of the crime
of kidnapping.  The Commission reasoned that even though the malefactor's
conduct offended the statutory injunctions [against some other substantive
offense], he would be guilty of kidnapping also if in committing [that other
offense] he took the victim a 'substantial distance' or held the victim for 'a
substantial period of time.'"
Murray, 340 Or at 605-06 (quoting Garcia, 288
Or at 420-21) (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis and bracketed
material in Murray).
Unfortunately, in excerpting that
quotation from Garcia, Murray omitted the following, which
appears in Garcia directly after the sentence just quoted and is part of
the same paragraph:
"See n. 3, supra.  As finally enacted[,] the law
does not even require that there actually be a substantial interference with
the victim's personal liberty; it is only necessary that the perpetrator have
the 'intent to interfere substantially' with the victim's personal
liberty to make the malefactor guilty of kidnapping if he commits an act
proscribed by ORS 163.225."
Garcia, 288 Or at 421 (footnote omitted; emphasis in Garcia).(10)
Murray's omission of that text
in its quote from Garcia leaves the inaccurate impression that, to be
guilty of kidnapping under ORS 163.225, the perpetrator must move the victim a
"substantial distance" or hold the victim for a "substantial
period of time."  And from that inaccurate impression, Murray draws
the similarly inaccurate conclusion quoted previously.  The inaccuracy becomes
apparent when one examines the omitted part of the paragraph from Garcia. 
The citation -- "See n. 3, supra" -- is to a long quotation
from the minutes of a subcommittee of the Commission regarding a discussion of
the first draft of the kidnapping statute, see Garcia, 288 Or at
417 n 3, and shows that the court in Garcia (in the sentence emphasized
in Murray) was not describing any Oregon statute, but
rather a discussion draft presented to the Commission.  The references in that
first draft to "substantial distance" and "substantial period of
time" were deleted in later drafts and do not appear in the
kidnapping statutes as enacted.  The sentence in Garcia following that
citation reinforces the conclusion that Garcia correctly reached that the
kidnapping statute as enacted contrasted with the earlier drafts:  
"As finally enacted[,] the law does not even require that there actually
be a substantial interference with the victim's personal liberty * * *."  Garcia,
288 Or at 421.
The dissent also suggests that,
because we discuss the fact that defendant forcibly put the victim in the trunk
of the car, we are somehow conflating the asportation element of the kidnapping
statute, ORS 163.225(1)(a), with the alternative confinement element of ORS
163.225(1)(b).  Under that provision, a person with the requisite intent is guilty
of second-degree kidnapping if the person "[s]ecretly confines the
[victim] in a place where the [victim] is not likely to be found."  (Kidnapping
by confinement was not charged here.)  The dissent misses the point.  The car
trunk is relevant, in our view, not because it is a "secret" place
where the victim might be confined and not be likely to be found, but because
it was "another" "place" to which defendant took the victim
after he attacked her outside the house.  As this court stated in Murray,
340 Or at 606, determination of the "place" from which and the other
"place" to which the victim must be "taken" to meet the
asporation requirement is "situational and contextual."  The fact
that defendant moved the victim to a car and, indeed, a car trunk -- rather
than simply to a spot on the driveway 15 feet from where he first attacked her
-- supports our interpretation of the statute, as well as the jury verdict
here.(11)
We agree with the dissent that the legislature
took pains to enact a kidnapping statute that would limit "the separate
crime of kidnapping" to situations "where the detention or asportation
is not merely incidental to the commission of the underlying
crime."  Garcia, 288 Or at 420 (emphasis in original).  However,
the dissent -- and the sentence in Murray discussed above -- is
incorrect in stating that the legislature intended to achieve that result by
requiring that the detention be for a "substantial period of time" or
that the asportation be movement of a "substantial distance."(12) 
Rather, as the legislative history and this court's decision in Garcia show,
the legislature intended to achieve that result by requiring proof that the
perpetrator had the "intent to interfere substantially" with the
victim's personal liberty.  Garcia, 288 Or at 421.  Defendant
does not argue that that requirement was not met here.
The decision of the Court of Appeals
and the judgment of the circuit court are affirmed.
GILLETTE, J., dissenting.
The lead opinion today holds that
moving a robbery victim 15 feet during a mutual affray and attempting
(unsuccessfully) to force the victim into the open trunk of a car constitutes
"tak[ing] the person from one place to another," a required element
of the kidnapping crime defined at ORS 163.225(1)(a).  In doing so, the opinion
cites (but then sub silentio overrules) relevant precedent.  As I hope
to show, that is not a defensible course for this court to follow but, even if
it were the correct analysis, it answers the wrong question.
The problem here arises out of
defendant's attempt to steal money from the victim.  Defendant and his
co-conspirators planned to lure the victim onto an unlit lawn and driveway area
adjacent to a house, ostensibly to have the victim look at alleged damage to a
car that one of the co-conspirators had parked in the driveway.  Defendant
would then accost the victim and take money that he believed she was carrying.
So much for planning.  As it turned
out, when defendant accosted the victim in the vicinity of the car, she put up
a spirited physical resistance.  The struggle moved the parties to the rear of
the car, a distance of no more than 15 feet.  Defendant, when his other efforts
to subdue the victim failed, finally tried to throw her into the trunk of the
car.  He did not succeed:  She continued to fight, and the trunk was already
partially filled.  Defendant finally let go of the victim and instructed her to
go into the house and bring back her money.  The "kidnapping" -- if
any there was -- was over.
The crux of the lead opinion's
holding is this:
"[T]he 'situation' and 'context' * * * surrounding the
incident provide support for the jury's determination that defendant took the
victim 'from one place to another.'  The victim was originally in the driveway,
an open area from which she might have run away or been seen by the people
inside the house.  Defendant attacked the victim and fought with her, moving
her approximately 15 feet.  Defendant then picked the victim up and shoved her
into a car, a location (and an object) intended to quickly move people a
distance of some miles.  Further, defendant not only forced the victim into a
car, but into the trunk of a car, a place in which, as the Court of
Appeals accurately stated, 'a human being could be put for almost no innocent
purpose.'  * * *  Because the context is such that defendant moved the victim
from one place (the open driveway) to a qualitatively different, more mobile
and isolated place (the trunk of a car), we conclude that the asportation
element of the kidnapping statute has been satisfied.  Moreover, the 15 feet
that defendant moved the victim is several times the distance involved in [State
v.] Murray[, 340 Or 599, 136 P3d 10 (2006)] regardless of whether
that distance is considered quantitatively 'substantial.'7  We need not decide
whether defendant moved the victim a 'substantial distance'  * * *.
"7 The
Court of Appeals stated that movement can only be 'from one place to another'
if the movement is 'substantial' -- a statement that the Court of Appeals based
on its understanding of Murray.  * * *  As discussed above, the
asportation requirement of ORS 163.225(1)(a) does not even use the word
'substantial,' and the drafters considered, but rejected, the use in that
section of the term 'substantial distance.'  This court's cases, including [State
v.] Garcia[, 288 Or 413, 605 P2d 671 (1980)], [State v.] Wolleat[,
338 Or 469, 111 P3d 1131 (2005)], and Murray, mention 'substantial distance'
as one aspect of proving the required intent to 'substantially interfere,' but
they do not state -- with the exception of one sentence in Murray --
that 'substantial movement' is the only way to prove that a defendant moved a
victim from one place to another."
___ Or at ____ (slip op at 14-15) (emphasis in original;
citations omitted).
At bottom, the flaw in the lead
opinion's analysis (which concludes that the asportation element of ORS
163.225(1)(a) is met by what it insists on characterizing as a
"qualitative difference" between two different places, even if the
distance between the two places is not quantitatively substantial) is that it
unwittingly conflates the asportation element in ORS 163.225(1)(a)
("takes * * * from one place to another) (emphasis added) with the
secreting element of ORS 163.225(1)(b) ("[s]ecretly confines the
person in a place where the person is not likely to be found")
(emphasis added). (13) 
That is evident from the majority's focus on the movement of the victim to the
trunk of a car, which it describes as a "place" where "a human
being could be put for almost no innocent purpose" and, again, as an
"isolated place."  The lead opinion also refers -- as if it mattered
-- to the assumed facts that the driveway was "an open area from which
[the victim] might have run away or been seen by the people inside the
house."  All those comments show that the lead opinion is preoccupied by
what it believes to be the defendant's efforts to hide the victim from the view
of others.  But defendant was not charged with secreting the victim(14) and,
therefore, the case below and before this court is not about secreting.  The
court should not overrule precedent interpreting the phrase "takes * * *
from one place to another" in ORS 163.225(1)(a) to accommodate its obvious
concern with the apparent attempt to secrete the victim that the facts may
suggest, but which never was charged.
And make no mistake, the lead opinion
is overruling two of this court's previous cases:  In Garcia, for
example, the court undertook an extensive analysis of the legislative history
of the kidnapping statutes.  The court there characterized the purpose of the
drafters of the criminal code this way:
"The minutes reveal that the drafters intended to
prevent conviction and sentencing for kidnapping when the detention was merely
incidental to a rape or robbery."
288 Or at 417 (emphasis added).  The court then went on to
state:
"From this history we draw the inference
that the Commission, and subsequently the legislature, intended that there be
no conviction of the defendant for the separate crime of kidnapping where the
detention or asportation of the victim is merely incidental to the
accomplishment of another crime * * *."
Id. at 420 (emphasis added).  The Garcia court
then directly and unambiguously held the following:
"The drafting technique utilized to
accomplish the legislative purpose is manifested in the definition of the crime
of kidnapping.  The Commission reasoned that even though the malefactor's
conduct offended the statutory injunctions [against some other substantive
offense], he would be guilty of kidnapping also if in committing [that other
offense] he took the victim a 'substantial distance' or held the victim 'a
substantial period of time.' * * * As finally enacted the law does not even
require that there actually be a substantial interference with the victim's
personal liberty; it is only necessary that the perpetrator have the 'intent
to interfere substantially' with the victim's personal liberty to make the
malefactor guilty of kidnapping if he commits an act proscribed by ORS
163.225.  We find nothing in legislative history to indicate the legislature
intended by its adverb 'substantially' anything other than was intended by the
Commission in its use of the adjective 'substantial.'"
Id. at 420-21 (emphasis added).
As the foregoing recitation makes
clear, the Garcia court did not, as the lead opinion would have it,
"mention 'substantial distance' as one aspect of proving the required
intent to 'substantially interfere.'"  ___ Or at ___ n 7 (slip op at 15 n
7).  Instead, the court recognized that the Commission (and the legislature)
intended to eliminate overcharging in cases where movement of a victim was
"merely incidental" to crimes such as the central crime in this case
-- robbery.  In order to carry out that manifest intent, the Garcia
court imposed a requirement that, where the defendant was attempting to commit
some other substantive offense (in this case, robbery), the evidence show that
the defendant moved the victim a "substantial distance."  That
requirement was designed to assure that the acts that constituted the alleged
kidnapping were not "merely incidental" to another crime.  Proof that
a victim of another offense was moved "a substantial distance" from
place to place thus was not about intent to "substantially interfere"
-- commission of the other substantive offense (rape, robbery, or the like)
proved that.  Instead, the "substantial distance" proof was intended
to show that defendant's acts were not merely incidental to the other
substantive offense but, instead, constituted the separate crime of
kidnapping.  Garcia thus is flatly contrary to the lead opinion, and the
lead opinion's attempt to avoid Garcia ignores history.
State v. Wolleat, the second
case cited by the lead opinion, is further support for my point.  There, the
defendant assaulted his fiancée and, in the course of doing so, moved her 15 or
20 feet from one room in their home to another.  He was convicted of
fourth-degree assault and kidnapping.  As the case presented itself to this
court, the only issue was the sufficiency of the evidence to support the
kidnapping conviction.  338 Or at 471-72.
This court, in its analysis,
thoroughly examined Garcia and, for good measure, revisited the
legislative history of ORS 163.225(1)(a).  Wolleat, 338 Or at 474-78. 
The court then summarized its research this way:
"One proposition emerges clearly from the
legislative history.  Moving a victim from one room to another while committing
another crime does not constitute moving the victim a substantial distance. 
Put differently, that movement is not sufficient, by itself, to give rise to an
intent to interfere substantially with the victim's liberty to move freely.  See
Garcia, 288 Or at 421 (explaining that concept of 'substantial distance'
informs meaning of 'intent to interfere substantially').  With that background
in mind, we turn to the facts of this case.
"The evidence, viewed in the light most
favorable to the state, shows that defendant moved the victim from the bedroom
to the living room, approximately 15 to 20 feet, while he assaulted her.  A
reasonable juror could infer from that evidence that defendant intended to move
the victim the distance that he did.  However, an intent to do only that would
be insufficient to establish the mental element necessary to prove kidnapping -- a point that the legislative history
makes clear.  In order to find defendant guilty of kidnapping, a reasonable
juror would have to be able to infer that defendant intended either to move the
victim a greater distance than he did or to transport her to a place of
confinement.  As our recitation of the facts makes clear, no reasonable juror
could draw that inference from this record.
"We recognize, as the court did in Garcia,
that in most cases the question whether the defendant intended to interfere
substantially with the victim's liberty will present a question of fact for the
jury.  Id.  In some cases, however, the intended movement will be so
minimal that a court can say, as a matter of law, that no reasonable juror
could find that the defendant had the statutorily required intent.  This is one
of those cases, as the examples in the legislative history make clear."
Wolleat, 338 Or at 478.  The court then held that the
evidence against defendant was insufficient.  Id. at 478-79.
Wolleat, in other words,
recognized that moving a victim a "substantial distance" was required
in order to show that defendant intended to commit kidnapping, i.e.,
intended -- apart from and above the acts involved in the other substantive
offense -- separately to interfere substantially with the victim's
liberty.  Or, as the Wolleat court might just as readily have said,
"The record in this case shows only movement that was merely incidental to
the substantive offense."
Finally, the lead opinion dismisses Murray. 
___ Or at ___ (slip op at 12).  But that opinion cited all the foregoing parts
of Garcia with approval.  Murray, 340 Or at 604-06.  And, after
doing so, this court specifically agreed with Garcia's equating of the
requirement that movement be "from one place to another" under ORS
163.225(1)(a), when it occurs in the context of a separate  substantive
offense, with movement of a "substantial distance."  This court said:

"Put differently, defendant did not 'take' [the victim
in that case] anywhere or, even if he did, the distance that [the victim] moved
was not 'substantial,' i.e., was not 'from one place to another.'  See
Garcia, 228 Or at 421 (defendant guilty of kidnapping only if, during
commission of another substantive offense, he took victim 'substantial
distance')."
Murray, 340 Or at 606-07.  Once again, and as a direct
follow-up to the analysis in Garcia and in Wolleat, the Murray
decision stands authoritatively for the precise proposition that the lead
opinion now wishes to ignore.
In
the long run, however, it may be that the "substantial distance"
quarrel that I have with the lead opinion is beside the point.  The pivotal
fact here is that the victim was moved by the acts of her attacker during the
course of an assault and attempted robbery.  Given that the victim resisted, it
is hard to imagine any such crime in which the struggling parties would not
move at least 15 feet.  The movement clearly and inescapably was
"incidental to" those crimes.  We thus are not even called on to
decide whether a 15-foot movement of a victim ever
could be movement "from one place to another," as that concept appears
in ORS 163.225(1)(a).  Even if it could be such under some circumstances, that
circumstance is not presented here.
I do not mean to suggest that the
majority's sense that defendant's actions constituted some kind of
kidnapping-related crime is entirely misplaced.  It may be possible that
defendant successfully could have been charged with attempted kidnapping
under ORS 163.225(1)(b) on the theory that he attempted to
"secretly confine" the victim in the trunk of a car -- "a place
where [she was] not likely to be found."  But the prosecutor and the grand
jury, not we, chose to charge defendant with violating ORS 163.225(1)(a). 
It is inappropriate for this court to adopt an entirely new reading of ORS
163.225(1)(a) that saves the prosecution from the consequences of its choice,
simply because the place to which the victim was moved evokes in some of us a
feeling of secret confinement.(15)
I respectfully dissent.
De Muniz, C. J., and Durham, J., join
in this dissenting opinion.
1. The
jury also convicted defendant of robbery in the first degree, conspiracy to
commit robbery in the first degree, and assault in the fourth degree.  The jury
acquitted defendant of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, attempted
aggravated murder, and conspiracy to commit kidnapping in the first degree.
2. Before
the Court of Appeals, defendant also argued that the trial court had erred in
refusing to give an instruction on the lesser-included offense of robbery in
the second degree and that the trial court had erred in imposing consecutive
sentences.  The Court of Appeals rejected those arguments, State v. Walch,
218 Or App 86, 92-96, 178 P3d 301 (2008), defendant does not raise them in this
court, and we do not address them. 
3. In
1967, the legislature established the Criminal Law Revision Commission to
revise and modernize the criminal laws of Oregon.  Or Laws 1967, ch 573, §§
1-2.  In 1971, as part of that comprehensive revision, the legislature enacted
the current kidnapping statutes, ORS 163.225 and ORS 163.235.  Or Laws 1971, ch
743, §§ 98-99.
4. Oregon's
pre-revision kidnapping statute required proof that the perpetrators intended
to remove the victim from the state or to secretly confine the victim within
the state.  Former ORS 163.610 (1969), repealed by Or Laws 1971,
ch 743, § 432, provided:
"Every person who without lawful authority
forcibly seizes and confines, inveigles or kidnaps another, with intent to
cause such other person to be secretly confined or imprisoned in this state
against his or her will, or to cause such other person to be sent out of the
state against his or her will, shall be punished by imprisonment in the
penitentiary for not more than 25 years or by a fine not exceeding $10,000, or
both."
Before the
1971 revision, the definition of kidnapping in Oregon had remained nearly
unchanged for almost 100 years.  The Codes and General Laws of Oregon, title
II, ch II § 1746 (Hill 1887).
The commentary to the revised
criminal code does not indicate whether the drafters considered Oregon's statute
to be similar to those of other states that are discussed in the commentary. 
Indeed, the commentary contains little discussion of the elements of the
pre-1971 Oregon kidnapping statute, cases decided under that statute, or the
effect of the changes made in the 1971 revision, except to state that the draft
"retains the existing Oregon system * * * of dividing kidnapping into
separate degrees" and that "the kidnapping in the second degree
section retains the basic provisions of [then-existing second-degree
kidnapping]."  Commentary to Criminal Law Revision Commission Proposed
Oregon Criminal Code, Final Draft and Report § 99, 100 (July 1970).  
5. Nothing
in the commentary suggests whether the drafters believed that that specific
problem existed in Oregon under the pre-1971 Oregon statute.
6. The
first draft provided that a person committed the crime of second-degree
unlawful imprisonment if he "restrain[ed] another person."  Criminal
Law Revision Commission, Subcommittee No 2, Preliminary Draft No 1, Art 12, § 4
(Oct 1968).  "Restrain" was defined as interfering with another's
liberty by "moving him from one place to another."  Id. at § 1(1). 
Second-degree kidnapping was defined as "abduct[ing] another
person."  Id. at § 2(1).  "Abduct" was defined as
"restrain[ing] a person with intent to prevent his liberation by [one of
two means]."  Id. at § 1(2).  Proof that a defendant moved a person
"from one place to another" was thus necessary to prove both
second-degree kidnapping and the lesser crime of second-degree unlawful
imprisonment.
7. The
Court of Appeals stated that movement can only be "from one place to
another" if the movement is "substantial" -- a statement that
the Court of Appeals based on its understanding of Murray.  Walch,
218 Or App at 91.  As discussed above, the asportation requirement of ORS
163.225(1)(a) does not even use the word "substantial," and the
drafters considered, but rejected, the use in that section of the term
"substantial distance."  This court's cases, including Garcia,
Wolleat, and Murray, mention "substantial distance" as
one aspect of proving the required intent to "substantially
interfere," but they do not state -- with the exception of one
sentence in Murray -- that "substantial movement" is
the only way to prove that a defendant moved a victim from one place to
another.
8. Because
we have determined that defendant moved the victim from "one place to
another" by moving her from the open driveway into the enclosed trunk, we
need not address the state's argument that the distance that the victim
voluntarily moved pursuant to defendant's ruse -- from inside the house to the
driveway -- should be included in the distance that defendant "took"
the victim.
9. This
court's opinion in Murray did not cite or explain the directly contrary
statement in Wolleat that the asportation requirement of ORS
163.225(1)(a) "does not require that a defendant take a victim a specific
distance, nor does it require that the distance be substantial."  State
v. Wolleat, 338 Or 469, 473, 111 P3d 1131 (2005).
10. To
its credit, when the dissent quotes Garcia, it includes this sentence,
unlike the majority opinion in Murray.  ___ Or at ___ (Gillette, J.,
dissenting) (slip op at 4).  Nevertheless, the dissent omits the citation that,
as stated in the text, shows that the sentence preceding the citation -- which
both Murray and the dissent emphasize and rely upon -- does not describe
the kidnapping statute as enacted.
11. Of
course, the asportation and confinement elements are not mutually exclusive.  A
defendant might well take a person from one place to another (with the
requisite intent) and secretly confine the person where the person is
not likely to be found.  Because confinement was not charged here, however,
there is no need to consider whether the evidence in this case would have
supported a conviction under that prong of the kidnapping statute.
12. Similarly,
the citation in Murray to Garcia, which includes a parenthetical
statement purporting to describe Garcia as holding (or stating) that one
is guilty of kidnapping "only if, during commission of another substantive
offense, he took victim 'substantial distance,'" Murray, 340 Or at
606-07, is not an accurate description of Garcia.  The dissent also
perpetuates that error.  See ___ Or at ___ (Gillette, J., dissenting)
(slip op at 7) (quoting Murray, 340 Or at 606-07).
13. The
majority quotes the entire statute at ___ Or at ___ (slip op at 4-5). 
14. Count
3 of the indictment charged defendant with "unlawfully and knowingly,
without consent or legal authority, tak[ing the victim] from one place to
another,  with the intent to interfere substantially with [the victim's]
personal liberty          * * *."
15. That
is particularly true when, as here, the defendant is being held accountable for
a completed kidnapping under an asportation theory when, if he had been
properly charged under a secreting theory, he could at most have been found
guilty only of attempted kidnapping.