Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-03442/USCOURTS-ca7-14-03442-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Kristen Smith
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14-3442

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

KRISTEN LAUREN SMITH,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Wisconsin.

No. 14-cr-24-jdp — James D. Peterson, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED MAY 29, 2015 — DECIDED APRIL 28, 2016

____________________

Before POSNER, EASTERBROOK, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

SYKES, Circuit Judge. Kristen Smith took her half-sister’s 

newborn son from his bassinette in the middle of the night 

and started out on the long drive from Beloit, Wisconsin, to 

her home in Colorado. When she reached eastern Iowa, she 

learned that police in Wisconsin were pursuing leads on the 

missing infant and wanted to interview her. She spoke by 

Case: 14-3442 Document: 37 Filed: 04/28/2016 Pages: 19
2 No. 14-3442

phone with a Beloit police officer who told her to pull over 

so that local law enforcement could speak with her.

In the pre-dawn hours, Smith pulled off the interstate,

wrapped the baby in blankets, placed him in a plastic container, and put the container behind a gas station. There she

left the infant to freeze in subzero mid-winter temperatures. 

She then drove to another gas station, called the Beloit 

officer back, and was eventually arrested by Iowa police on 

an unrelated warrant. When the police and FBI agents

questioned her, she persistently denied any knowledge of 

the child’s whereabouts. It was only after the baby was 

found alive the next day that she admitted taking him. A

federal jury convicted her of kidnapping.

Smith raises many issues on appeal. She claims that her 

statements to law enforcement were the product of coercion. 

She argues that a subset of her statements—those the district 

court suppressed based on a Miranda violation—were improperly admitted for impeachment purposes. She objects to 

the government’s inquiry during her cross-examination 

about the crime for which the arrest warrant was issued. 

Finally, she asks us to reverse on the ground that no rational 

jury could conclude that she lacked parental permission to 

take the child or that she attained a benefit from the kidnapping. We reject these arguments and affirm.

I. Background

A. Kayden’s Disappearance

Brianna Marshall and her boyfriend, Bruce Powell, started trying to conceive a baby in April 2013, and Brianna soon

became pregnant. Not long after she announced her pregnancy, Kristen Smith, her estranged half-sister, unexpectedly 

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No. 14-3442 3

contacted her via Facebook. Smith lived in Aurora, Colorado; Brianna and Bruce lived in Beloit, Wisconsin. The reunited half-sisters began communicating regularly on Facebook 

and by text.

A short time later, Smith announced on her Facebook 

page that she too was pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl. 

When Smith later learned that Brianna was having a boy, she 

told her half-sister that she had lost the female twin but was 

still carrying a healthy male. In August 2013 Smith offered to 

let Brianna come to Colorado and stay with her and her 

husband. Brianna declined.

On October 23 Smith posted a sonogram on her Facebook 

page, claiming it was an image of the child she was carrying. 

It was not. The original sonogram, dated November 16, 2007, 

had been downloaded to Smith’s computer, and she had 

changed the mother’s name to her own.

Between August 2013 and November 2013, Smith’s computer and eBay account were used to search for fake pregnancy bellies and to view websites titled “How to Create a 

Fake Pregnancy Belly,” “Breastfeeding your Adopted Baby 

or Baby Born by Surrogate,” and “How to Get a Birth Certificate for a Newborn.” On January 16, 2014, Smith sent her 

mother-in-law a sonogram image via text. This one, too, was 

altered.

On February 1, 2014, Brianna gave birth via C-section to a 

baby boy and named him Kayden. On February 3 Smith 

emailed her employer saying she was having labor induced 

that evening and would not be at work that week. She then 

left Colorado, alone, and drove to Wisconsin, arriving in 

Beloit on February 4. She stopped at a Walmart and bought 

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an electric blanket, and then went to the hospital, unannounced, to visit Brianna and Kayden.

Mother and baby were discharged that day; Smith accompanied them, with Bruce, to Brianna’s mother’s house, 

where they were promptly told they were not welcome.

(Brianna’s mother apparently disapproved of her daughter’s 

relationship with Bruce.) The foursome—Bruce, Brianna, 

baby Kayden, and Smith—went to stay with Brianna’s 

grandmother instead. Smith told Brianna’s grandmother that 

she was pregnant and due in two weeks. That same day

Smith emailed her employer announcing that she had given 

birth to a 6-pound-10-ounce baby boy named “Kaysin.” 

Brianna’s son Kayden weighed 6 pounds, 10 ounces when he 

left the hospital.

The next day (February 5) Brianna and Bruce discussed 

with Smith the possibility of moving to Colorado to live with 

her in light of the turbulence in their family situation in 

Wisconsin. Smith told them that she would need to call her 

husband and clear the idea with him. She did so, and Brianna and Bruce then announced to Brianna’s family that they

planned to relocate to Colorado. It didn’t go over well;

Brianna’s half-brother Byron was upset by the news and 

grew increasingly agitated with Bruce during the course of 

the conversation.

At some point later that day, Smith told the couple that 

she would get a head start on the move and planned to leave 

for Colorado late that evening or very early the next morning, taking some of Brianna’s belongings with her. She 

promised to return immediately with her husband and drive 

Brianna, Bruce, and Kayden back to Colorado.

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No. 14-3442 5

Bruce went to bed early that evening because he had a 

headache. Brianna and her grandmother stayed up until 

shortly after midnight. At about 1:30 a.m. on February 6, 

while the rest of the household was asleep, Smith quietly 

lifted Kayden from his bassinette, placed him in the back of 

her car, and took off for Colorado. Brianna woke up at about 

4:30 a.m. to discover her baby missing. She awakened everyone else and frantically searched the house for Kayden, then

called Smith in “hysterics,” telling her the baby was gone.

Smith, of course, had Kayden with her, but she did not 

inform her half-sister of that fact.

Brianna immediately called the police to report the kidnapping. She and Bruce initially suspected that Byron had

taken the baby. Beloit police officers arrived within minutes. 

At 4:54 a.m. Smith called back, and Brianna’s grandmother

handed the phone to one of the officers, who began questioning Smith about the missing infant. She gave her name

as “Kristen Andrews” with a date of birth of July 10, 1985. 

She denied any knowledge of Kayden’s whereabouts and

blamed his disappearance on Byron. The officer instructed 

her to pull over as soon as possible to meet with local law 

enforcement to discuss the matter further. She said she 

would do so.

Smith did pull off the highway, but not to meet with the 

police—at least not right away. Instead, she exited I-80 in 

West Branch, Iowa, and pulled into a BP gas station. There 

she wrapped Kayden in blankets (including the electric 

blanket she purchased in Beloit) and put him in a plastic 

container. She closed the lid, placed the container on the

ground behind the station, and left the baby there. The 

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temperature in West Branch early that morning 

was -11 degrees Fahrenheit, with a windchill of about -20.

Smith then drove a few hundred yards to a different gas 

station. At 5:21 a.m. she called the Beloit officer back to

report her location. This information was immediately 

transmitted to local police. While Smith was still on the line 

with the Beloit officer, a West Branch police squad pulled

into the gas station. On the Beloit officer’s instruction, Smith 

flagged down the local officer and gave him her cell phone 

so he could speak with the Beloit officer.

The West Branch officer then questioned Smith for a few 

minutes in the parking lot. She identified herself as Kristen 

Rose Smith with a date of birth of January 11, 1983. She told 

him that she first learned about Kayden’s disappearance

when Brianna called her at around 4:30 a.m. She permitted

the officer to search her car, but of course the baby wasn’t 

there. The officer asked if she was pregnant; she said, “Yes.”

Another West Branch officer arrived to assist, and the dispatcher relayed information about Smith’s criminal history. It 

turned out she was wanted by Texas on a 2013 warrant for 

falsifying government documents—specifically, militarydeployment orders—to fraudulently break a lease. The 

officers arrested Smith on the Texas warrant and took her to 

the Cedar County Jail.

Once in police custody, Smith was Mirandized but not 

questioned until FBI agents arrived at the jail to take over the 

investigation. Special Agents James McMillan and Carlton 

Morgan arrived at about noon and began a videotaped 

interrogation.

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No. 14-3442 7

During the first hour or two of questioning, Agent 

McMillan asked for consent to search Smith’s car and phone. 

Smith agreed and signed a consent form, but she repeatedly 

gave the agents an incorrect access code to unlock her 

phone. When they confronted her about this evasion, she 

responded: “[I]f I was being difficult[,] then why wouldn’t I 

be like, ‘I don’t want to talk to you; I want an attorney’?” She 

eventually provided the correct code, and the agents took 

the phone for forensic examination. At some point Smith

also agreed to submit to a polygraph examination.

In the meantime West Branch police did an inventory 

search of Smith’s car. They recovered clothing, storage 

containers, a baby car seat, and a prosthetic belly. 

Early that evening Agent Riessen of the Iowa State Police 

arrived at the jail to administer the polygraph. Before beginning, he delivered fresh Miranda warnings and read aloud 

from a polygraph consent form. When Agent Riessen asked 

Smith to confirm that no one was forcing her to take the 

polygraph, she replied, “Yes, they are.” Agent Riessen 

reiterated that no one was forcing her to take the polygraph. 

Smith then signed the consent form and the examination

proceeded. 

When the polygraph was finished, Agent Riessen determined that Smith had been deceptive. The FBI agents then 

resumed the interrogation. At about 1:30 a.m. on February 7, 

Smith stopped answering questions, so the agents said they 

would take her to her cell to sleep. Before concluding the 

interview for the night, Agent McMillan asked her to sign a 

consent form to access her Yahoo! email account. Smith 

refused, saying, “I want everything to go to an attorney.” 

When asked to confirm what she meant, Smith said: “EveryCase: 14-3442 Document: 37 Filed: 04/28/2016 Pages: 19
8 No. 14-3442

thing else I want an attorney to advise me.” The interrogation immediately ceased and Smith was returned to her cell.

At around nine o’clock that morning, the agents returned 

with a new Miranda waiver form. Smith read and signed it, 

but counsel had not yet been provided. The interrogation

resumed, but word soon arrived that West Branch police had 

discovered Kayden alive and unharmed in the plastic container behind the BP station. When the agents told Smith the 

baby had been found, she called her husband and told him 

not to say anything to authorities and to get her out of jail as 

quickly as possible. She eventually admitted to the FBI 

agents that she left Wisconsin with Kayden, put him in the

plastic container, and placed the container behind the BP 

station. She even drew a map of the station to show them 

exactly where she put him.

Agents later searched Smith’s home in Colorado and recovered baby accessories and furniture, infant formula, a 

hard copy of the altered sonogram she sent to her mother-inlaw, and a partially completed birth-certificate application 

for an infant named “Kaysin Michael Smith.” The application listed Smith and her husband as the parents and their 

Colorado home as the place where “Kaysin” was born.

A federal grand jury indicted Smith for kidnapping. See

18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1). Because the victim was a minor, she 

faced a minimum prison sentence of 25 years and a maximum term of life. Id. § 3559(f)(2).

B. The Suppression Hearing

Smith moved to suppress her custodial statements, alleging that the February 6–7 interrogation violated Miranda and 

was coercive. At a hearing before a magistrate judge, Smith 

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No. 14-3442 9

took the position that all questioning should have ceased 

when Agent Riessen asked her if anyone was forcing her to 

take the polygraph and she answered, “yes, they are,” or at 

the very latest when she stopped answering questions and 

asked for an attorney at about 1:30 a.m. on February 7.

1

The magistrate judge found—and the district court 

agreed—that Smith unequivocally requested counsel at 

1:30 a.m. on February 7. At that point she stopped answering 

questions, refused to sign a consent form to search her 

Yahoo! account, and told the agents she wanted “everything 

to go to an attorney.” The agents immediately halted the 

interrogation and returned Smith to her cell. But they reinitiated the interrogation the next morning without counsel 

present (albeit with new Miranda warnings). Because Smith’s

request for counsel at 1:30 a.m. was unambiguous, the 

district judge granted her suppression motion in part, barring the government from using anything she said after 

1:30 a.m. in its case-in-chief. But the judge rejected her claim 

of coercion and found her statements voluntary. That ruling 

left the door open to using the suppressed statements for

impeachment if Smith testified. See Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 

714, 722–24 (1975) (holding that statements obtained in 

 

1 Smith also argued that her verbal tussle with the agents over the access 

code to her phone amounted to an invocation of her right to counsel. As 

we’ve noted, she consented to the search but repeatedly gave the agents 

an inaccurate access code to the phone. When they confronted her about 

this, she replied: “If I was being difficult, why wouldn’t I be like, ‘I don’t 

want to talk to you; I want an attorney’?” Smith argued in the district 

court that this reference to an attorney amounted to an invocation of her 

right to counsel. The district judge rejected this claim. Smith has wisely

abandoned the argument on appeal.

Case: 14-3442 Document: 37 Filed: 04/28/2016 Pages: 19
10 No. 14-3442

violation of Miranda, though excluded from the prosecution’s 

case-in-chief, may be used to impeach the defendant’s testimony if otherwise voluntary); Harris v. New York, 401 U.S.

222, 224–25 (1971).

C. The Trial

The government’s theory of the case was that Smith faked 

a pregnancy to coincide with Brianna’s, kidnapped Kayden 

to pass him off as her own, and disposed of the infant out of 

fear that she would be caught. In its case-in-chief, the government introduced evidence establishing the narrative 

we’ve recounted above. 

Smith’s primary defense was that Bruce, the baby’s father,

had given her permission to take Kayden to Colorado. She 

testified in her own defense and told the jury that she woke 

up at around 1:30 a.m. on February 6 to get an early start on 

the long drive to Colorado, as she had told Bruce and Brianna she would do. She testified that Bruce was still awake 

at that hour and specifically instructed her to take Kayden 

with her. She tried to explain away the government’s evidence of a falsified pregnancy by insisting that she had in fact 

been pregnant with twins but lost the female mid-pregnancy 

and gave birth to a stillborn boy in January 2014 but hadn’t 

told anyone about the stillbirth. She said the browsing 

history on her computer couldn’t be attributed to her because her entire family used the computer. Finally, she 

admitted leaving Kayden at the BP gas station, but she said 

she left him in front of the station, not behind it, and claimed 

that she plugged the electric blanket into an outlet to keep 

him warm. When asked why she concealed his whereabouts

for nearly 30 hours, she said she was in a state of “panic” 

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No. 14-3442 11

and did not understand why Bruce had not explained to 

everyone that Kayden was with her.

Three aspects of the government’s cross-examination of 

Smith are important on appeal. First, to rebut her testimony

that she really had been pregnant, the government introduced a statement she made during the 9 a.m. interrogation 

on February 7 admitting that she had purchased the prosthetic belly and claiming that she did so because she wanted 

to trick her body into producing breast milk to feed her 

stepdaughter. Second, to impeach her testimony that she left 

Kayden in front of the gas station, not behind it, the government introduced the map she drew after the FBI agents

told her that Kayden had been found. The map plainly 

showed that she left the baby behind the gas station, where 

he was indeed found. Third, although the parties had stipulated to the existence of the Texas arrest warrant, the government asked Smith on cross-examination if she had submitted falsified military-deployment orders in May 2013 in 

an effort to break a Texas lease—the crime for which the 

warrant was issued. Smith objected, but the judge overruled 

the objection. Smith then denied the conduct, saying she was 

in Virginia at her wedding at that time.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty. Smith moved for 

judgment of acquittal or a new trial. The judge denied the 

motion and sentenced her to 300 months in prison.

II. Discussion

A. Coercion

On appeal Smith reprises her argument that her interrogation was coercive and therefore not voluntary. Coercive 

interrogation tactics can include “physical abuse, psychologCase: 14-3442 Document: 37 Filed: 04/28/2016 Pages: 19
12 No. 14-3442

ical intimidation, or deceptive interrogation tactics that have 

overcome the defendant’s free will.” United States v. Stadfeld, 

689 F.3d 705, 709 (7th Cir. 2012) (quotation marks omitted). 

The inquiry considers the “totality of circumstances.” United 

States v. Charles, 476 F.3d 492, 497 (7th Cir. 2007). While the 

voluntariness of a confession is a question of law that we 

review de novo, United States v. Jordan, 223 F.3d 676, 683 (7th 

Cir. 2000), the district court’s predicate factual findings are 

reviewed for clear error, United States v. Walker, 272 F.3d 407, 

412 (7th Cir. 2001). “A finding of fact is clearly erroneous 

when a review of the entire record leaves us with a definite 

and firm conviction that a mistake has been made.” United 

States v. Dillon, 150 F.3d 754, 757 (7th Cir. 1998).

As we’ve noted, Smith’s interrogation was videotaped.

She has not pointed to anything about the conditions or 

interrogation tactics that was the least bit coercive. There 

was no physical abuse, psychological abuse, or deception. 

She has not identified anything about her personal circumstances that made her especially vulnerable. It’s true that the 

interrogation was lengthy, but she received meals and had 

regular breaks, so she cannot and does not argue that the 

conditions of the interrogation were coercive. 

Instead, Smith’s argument seems to be that the agents’ 

repeated requests for consents and waivers—to search her 

car and phone, to take a polygraph, to search her Yahoo! 

account, and to resume the interrogation on the morning of 

February 7—made the interrogation inherently coercive. In 

support of this theory, Smith cites United States v. Villegas, 

388 F.3d 317 (7th Cir. 2004), but it’s hard to understand why. 

In that case, DEA agents knocked on the defendant’s door, 

identified themselves as law enforcement, and politely 

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No. 14-3442 13

requested permission to enter his home; no threats were 

made and no weapons were drawn. Id. at 325. The defendant 

consented to the agents’ entry, and we upheld the district 

court’s determination that the consent was voluntary. Id. at 

325–26. Villegas plainly does not help Smith’s coercion argument.

Smith places special emphasis on her pre-polygraph colloquy with Agent Riessen—specifically, her affirmative 

response to the agent’s question whether anyone was forcing 

her to take a polygraph test. (Recall that when she gave this 

answer, Agent Riessen assured her that she didn’t have to 

take the polygraph. She then signed the consent form and 

the examination proceeded.) At the evidentiary hearing on 

the suppression motion, Smith testified that before the 

polygraph examination began, Agent McMillan approached 

her in the hallway and told her that she had to take the 

polygraph. Agent McMillan denied saying this or anything 

like it. The magistrate judge credited the agent’s testimony 

over Smith’s. The district judge accepted this credibility 

determination, and Smith doesn’t challenge that ruling on 

appeal. Without more, the pre-polygraph exchange with 

Agent Riessen is not evidence of coercion.

In the end, Smith hasn’t identified anything in the record 

to support her claim of coercion. The district court’s voluntariness ruling was sound.

B. Evidentiary Errors

Smith also challenges several aspects of her crossexamination. Evidentiary rulings are reviewed for an abuse 

of discretion; we will reverse “only when no reasonable 

person could take the view adopted by the trial court.” 

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14 No. 14-3442

United States v. Ozuna, 561 F.3d 728, 738 (7th Cir. 2009) 

(internal quotation marks omitted).

Smith attacks the government’s use of two statements 

from the otherwise suppressed interrogation on the morning 

of February 7. She objects to the government’s introduction 

of her admission that she purchased a prosthetic belly to 

trick her body into producing breast milk. She also objects to 

the admission of her hand-drawn map depicting the location 

behind the gas station where she left Kayden. These two bits 

of evidence, she argues, were improper impeachment because they were not in fact inconsistent with her testimony 

on direct examination.

Rule 613 of the Federal Rules of Evidence permits a 

cross-examiner to impeach a witness’s testimony with evidence of her prior inconsistent statements. It’s wellestablished that “two statements need not be diametrically 

opposed to be inconsistent.” United States v. Vasquez, 635 F.3d 

889, 898 (7th Cir. 2011) (quoting United States v. Jones, 

808 F.2d 561, 568 (7th Cir. 1986)).

We see nothing improper about the government’s use of 

Smith’s admission to the FBI agents that she purchased a 

prosthetic belly. She testified on direct examination that she 

was pregnant from July 2013 until she delivered a stillborn 

baby in January 2014. The contemporaneous existence of a 

real pregnancy necessarily implies a denial that she was 

faking a pregnancy. The prosecutor asked her whether she 

had “told the FBI that [she] had been faking a pregnancy and 

wearing a fake prosthetic belly so that [she] could convince 

[her] body to produce breast milk” to feed her stepdaughter.

That was directly responsive to, and inconsistent with, 

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No. 14-3442 15

Smith’s assertion that she had in fact been pregnant during 

the relevant time.2

By the same token, Smith’s testimony on direct examination that she left Kayden in front of the BP gas station was 

flatly inconsistent with the map she drew for the agents on 

the morning of February 7, after the baby was found. Smith 

doesn’t press very hard on her claim that the two statements 

were inconsistent. She mainly argues that it didn’t make 

much difference whether she placed the baby in back of the 

gas station or in front of it, so the probative value of this 

evidence was too slight and the court should have disallowed it.

The deficiencies in this argument are so manifold that 

we’re not sure where to begin. First, Smith did not object to 

the admission of the map, so the claim is forfeited. Second, 

the map directly contradicted Smith’s assertion on the witness stand that she placed the baby in front of the station, 

making this evidence highly probative of her credibility as a 

witness. Third, her prior admission about Kayden’s location 

was relevant to her state of mind; the degree of concealment 

was circumstantial evidence of her purpose in abandoning 

him. Finally, any error in admitting this evidence was certainly harmless given the abundant evidence of her guilt.

Smith’s final evidentiary challenge is an attack on the 

government’s inquiry into the conduct underlying the Texas

arrest warrant. Before trial Smith had stipulated to the 

 2 Oddly, Smith concedes in her brief that “[t]hese two statements could 

be inconsistent but they could also be consistent with each other.” This 

concession is probably sufficient on its own to insulate the district court’s 

ruling from reversal.

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16 No. 14-3442

existence of the warrant, and in exchange the government 

agreed not to introduce the warrant or the specifics of the

charge into evidence. On cross-examination, however, the 

prosecutor asked Smith if she had used falsified militarydeployment orders to break a lease in Texas in May 2013—

the specific conduct underlying the warrant. Smith objected, 

arguing that the stipulation took the entire subject off the 

table. The judge discussed the matter with the lawyers at 

sidebar and overruled the objection.

That was not an abuse of discretion. The government’s 

stipulation did not foreswear the opportunity to crossexamine Smith about the conduct underlying the warrant if 

she took the stand. That conduct—using falsified militarydeployment orders to break a lease—was relevant to her

character for untruthfulness under Rule 608(b) of the Federal 

Rules of Evidence. She denied the conduct anyway, saying 

she was in Virginia in May 2013. And given the ample 

evidence of Smith’s guilt, any possible error was harmless.

C. Sufficiency of the Evidence

Smith’s final argument is that the evidence was insufficient to prove that she lacked Bruce’s permission to take 

Kayden or that she took the baby for personal benefit. A 

challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence requires the 

challenger to shoulder “a heavy, indeed, nearly insurmountable, burden.” United States v. Warren, 593 F.3d 540, 546 (7th 

Cir. 2010). We “consider the evidence in the light most 

favorable to the prosecution, making all reasonable inferences in its favor, and [must] affirm the conviction so long as 

any rational trier of fact could have found the defendant to 

have committed the essential elements of the crime.” United 

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No. 14-3442 17

States v. Paneras, 222 F.3d 406, 410 (7th Cir. 2000) (quotation 

marks omitted). 

Borrowing from the text of the federal kidnapping statute, the jury instructions—to which both parties consented—

listed the following four elements of the offense:

1. The defendant knowingly seized, confined, 

kidnaped, abducted or carried away [Kayden];

2. The defendant held [Kayden] for a reason 

or purpose that would secure some benefit 

to herself[;]

3. The defendant willfully transported [Kayden] in interstate commerce from Wisconsin to Iowa; and

4. [Kayden] had not yet attained the age of 

18 years.

The third and fourth elements are uncontested; the focus 

here is on elements 1 and 2. Smith argues that the evidence 

was insufficient to contradict her testimony that Bruce had 

instructed her to take his infant son to Colorado. She also 

argues that the government failed to prove that she took 

Kayden to secure a personal benefit to herself. Both contentions are belied by the record. 

To the first issue, the government’s abundant evidence of 

Smith’s evasive actions—leaving the baby at the gas station 

in subzero temperatures and consistently lying to police 

about her role in his disappearance—convincingly refuted

her claim about having Bruce’s permission to take the baby.

And if more were needed, the government adduced eviCase: 14-3442 Document: 37 Filed: 04/28/2016 Pages: 19
18 No. 14-3442

dence that Bruce was in extreme distress when he learned 

his son was missing and overjoyed when the baby was 

found. Viewed in the light most favorable to the government

(or really any light at all), the government’s evidence was 

easily sufficient—indeed overwhelming—on the first element of the kidnapping charge.

Smith’s challenge to the evidence of a “personal benefit”

requires only slightly more analysis. When first enacted, the 

federal kidnapping statute required that the victim be held 

“for ransom or reward,” which generally implied “some 

pecuniary consideration or payment of something of value.” 

Gooch v. United States, 297 U.S. 124, 126 (1936). Congress 

amended the statute to read “for ransom or reward or 

otherwise.” The Supreme Court has interpreted the amended statute as prohibiting the “transportation in interstate or 

foreign commerce of persons who were being unlawfully 

restrained in order that the captor might secure some benefit

to himself.” Id. at 128. 

The government adduced substantial evidence that Smith 

took Kayden because she wanted a baby. Many courts have 

held that a personal relationship alone is a “benefit” sufficient to satisfy the broad “or otherwise” language of the 

kidnapping statute. See United States v. Montgomery, 635 F.3d 

1074, 1086 (8th Cir. 2011) (explaining that the personalbenefit element is satisfied when the perpetrator “held [the 

infant] for purposes of claiming the infant as her own”); cf. 

United States v. Walker, 137 F.3d 1217, 1219 (10th Cir. 1998) 

(“The facts presented at trial indicate Walker’s actions were 

motivated by self-interest, i.e., his interest in convincing [a 

female friend] to remain in a relationship with him.”). The 

lengths to which Smith went in concocting and perpetuating 

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No. 14-3442 19

the pregnancy myth gave the jury a firm factual foundation 

to find that Smith kidnapped Kayden for the personal 

benefit of keeping him and passing him off as her own child.

The prosecutor also noted in his closing argument that 

Smith’s abandonment of Kayden behind the gas station 

inured to her benefit by increasing her likelihood of escaping 

criminal liability for the kidnapping. Smith takes issue with 

this theory of “personal benefit”; she argues that “this act 

falls outside the statute” because when she left the baby at 

the gas station, she “relinquished control of the child.” That

sounds almost like a challenge to the legal adequacy of the 

government’s alternative “personal benefit” theory. If so, the

argument is woefully undeveloped and therefore waived.

United States v. Collins, 796 F.3d 829, 836 (7th Cir. 2015) 

(“[T]his [c]ourt has long warned that perfunctory and undeveloped arguments are deemed waived.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Regardless, it’s clear enough from the record that the 

government was not offering the jury two different theories 

of criminal liability, one legally proper and one legally 

improper. Throughout the trial and in closing argument, the 

government’s theory of the case was that Smith wanted a 

baby and kidnapped Kayden to obtain that personal benefit.

The prosecutor’s stray observation during closing argument

that Smith obtained a (temporary) benefit from concealing 

the child was brief and inconsequential and is not grounds 

for reversal.

AFFIRMED.

Case: 14-3442 Document: 37 Filed: 04/28/2016 Pages: 19