Title: State v. Mead
Citation: 318 N.W.2d 440
Docket Number: 64124
State: Iowa
Issuer: Iowa Supreme Court
Date: April 21, 1982

318 N.W.2d 440 (1982) STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Marvin Allen MEAD, Appellant. No. 64124. Supreme Court of Iowa. April 21, 1982. *441 Francis C. Hoyt, Jr., Appellate Defender, and Patrick R. Grady, Asst. Appellate Defender, Des Moines, for appellant. Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., Shirley Ann Steffe, Asst. Atty. Gen., and William E. Davis, Scott County Atty., for appellee. Considered by REYNOLDSON, C. J., and UHLENHOPP, McCORMICK, ALLBEE, and McGIVERIN, JJ. UHLENHOPP, Justice. The principal problem in this appeal relates to the meaning of the word "confines" in our kidnapping statute, section 710.1, The Code 1979. The jury could find the facts as follows. On April 15, 1979, Jovita Zamora (Jovita) and her mother, Angela Zamora (Mrs. Zamora), returned to Mrs. Zamora's home after having Easter dinner with relatives. Jovita testified: Q. Okay. What happened then? A. He stepped alongside of us, and he just stood there, and he did tell us that that's *442 who he was looking for, Cheryl Weeks, and I was carrying a few empty dishes in a box, and I set them down on the front step. When I turned over to set it down, then that's when he grabbed my mother from the back. Mrs. Zamora testified similarly. The State introduced other evidence about a knife and also about pry marks by the door of the house. Defendant Marvin Allen Mead was apprehended, identified as the individual involved in the incident, and charged in three counts with second-degree kidnapping, first-degree burglary, and assault while participating in a felony. He was convicted on those charges and sentenced to twenty-five years each on the first two of them and five years on the third one, to run consecutively for a total of fifty-five years. Defendant appealed. He minimally but sufficiently preserved error on the grounds he asserts on appeal. State v. Allison, 206 *443 N.W.2d 893, 894 (Iowa 1973); State v. Miskell, 247 Iowa 678, 683, 73 N.W.2d 36, 39 (1955). We transferred the appeal to the Court of Appeals. By divided vote that court affirmed the kidnapping and burglary convictions but reversed on the assault charge and ordered it dismissed. We granted further review on the parties' applications. I. Kidnapping. Our kidnapping statute provides in section 710.1(2), The Code 1979: Under that section, a defendant must confine a person or remove a person from one place to another. The State claims that defendant confined Mrs. Zamora when he grabbed her around the neck. Defendant contends that "confines" in the statute contemplates a greater restraint than occurred here. A removal is not involved. The parties' dispute raises again the basic question of the scope of the crime of kidnapping. We have confronted this problem on several occasions, and our present task is to fit this case into the pattern of those decisions. State v. Holderness, 301 N.W.2d 733 (Iowa 1981); State v. Rich, 305 N.W.2d 739 (Iowa 1981); State v. Knupp, 310 N.W.2d 179 (Iowa 1981); State v. Marr, 316 N.W.2d 176 (Iowa 1982). The factual recitation in Holderness includes the following: 301 N.W.2d at 736. We stated: Id. at 740. In Rich a shopping center custodian in a mall told the female victim, after hours, that she would have to use another exit. The two walked toward that exit and the custodian grabbed the victim from behind, held a sharp object to her back and told her she would not get hurt if she did as told, led her to the men's restroom, forced her to lie on her stomach, tied her hands behind her back, and sexually abused her. He then led her around the shopping center, laid her on her back and tied her legs to a bannister with her brassiere and a rag, later untied her legs, put her in a three-wheeled trash container and covered her with trash, wheeled her to a utility shed, left, returned, tied her feet, subsequently wheeled her into the mall area again, and departed. The victim later escaped. After extensively reviewing the split of authority on the confinement-removal issue, contrast People v. Levy, 15 N.Y.2d 159, 204 N.E.2d 842, 256 N.Y.S.2d 793 (1965), to State v. Jacobs, 93 Ariz. 336, 380 P.2d 998, cert. denied, 375 U.S. 46, 84 S. Ct. 158, 11 L. Ed. 2d 108 (1963), and considering the general rules of construction of criminal statutes, we held: Applying these principles of construction, we conclude that our legislature, in enacting section 710.1, intended the terms "confines" and "removes" to require more than the confinement or removal that is an inherent incident of commission of the *444 crime of sexual abuse. Although no minimum period of confinement or distance of removal is required for conviction of kidnapping, the confinement or removal must definitely exceed that normally incidental to the commission of sexual abuse. Such confinement or removal may exist because it substantially increases the risk of harm to the victim, significantly lessens the risk of detection, or significantly facilitates escape following the consummation of the offense. 305 N.W.2d at 745. Knupp involved this factual situation: 310 N.W.2d at 181. We reviewed Holderness and Rich and held: Id. at 183. In Marr the facts were these: 316 N.W.2d at 177. We held: Id. at 180. We now hold that unless we extend kidnapping to nearly any case involving a seizure by a defendant of another person during the commission of a crime, which we refuse to do, the instant case does not involve sufficient confinement to constitute kidnapping. As the United States Supreme Court stated regarding the federal kidnapping act in Chatwin v. United States, 326 U.S. 455, 464, 66 S. Ct. 233, 237, 90 L. Ed. 198, 203 (1946): "Were we to sanction a careless view of the crime of kidnapping or were we to disregard the background and setting of the Act the boundaries of potential liability would be lost in infinity." The Michigan Court of Appeals concretely expressed the same thought in People v. Adams, 34 Mich. App. 546, 557, 192 N.W.2d 19, 24 (1971), aff'd, 389 Mich. 222, 205 N.W.2d 415 (1973): See also Aikerson v. State, 274 So. 2d 124, 127 (Miss.1973) ("This would mean that any person who seized and held another in a fist fight or seized, hugged and kissed a woman without her consent, would be guilty of kidnapping."); Mobley v. State, 409 So. 2d 1031, 1034 (Fla.1982) ("The prevalent view nationwide is that kidnapping statutes, regardless of their wording, do not apply to unlawful confinements or movements incidental to other felonies. Most courts have reasoned that the legislature did not intend for the statutes to be literally applied. Some reasoned that a narrow construction of the statutes was necessary to prevent the abuse of prosecutorial discretion. One court has suggested that a literal application of its kidnapping statute would be a violation of due process." Kidnapping conviction upheld where defendants held hostages in cell during prison riot.). We are impressed by the distinction between "seizure" and "detention" (which the court equated to confinement) drawn by the court in Hardie v. State, 140 Tex.Cr. 368, 377, 144 S.W.2d 571, 575 (1940). The present case involves a seizure of Mrs. Zamora by defendant, not a confinement of her. Under the statute, kidnapping cannot be predicated on merely "seizing" another person. The trial court should have dismissed the kidnapping count. II. Merger. Defendant next contends that two mergers occurred in this case by virtue of section 701.9, The Code 1979: Relevant also are rules 6(1) and (2) of the Iowa Rules of Criminal Procedure: 1. Multiple offenses. When the conduct of a defendant may establish the commission of more than one public offense arising out of the same transaction *446 or occurrence, the defendant may be prosecuted for each of such offenses. Each of such offenses may be alleged and prosecuted as a separate count in a single complaint, information or indictment, unless, for good cause shown, the trial court in its discretion determines otherwise. Where the public offense which is alleged carries with it certain lesser included offenses, the latter should not be charged, and it is sufficient to charge that the accused committed the major offense. A. The State charged defendant with kidnapping and assault while participating in a felonythe kidnapping and the burglary. Defendant first contends that when he was convicted of kidnapping, the assault charge based on participating in the kidnapping merged into the kidnapping charge so that he could not also be convicted of the assault based on the kidnapping. No necessity exists to decide this question because we have held that the kidnapping conviction cannot stand. B. As to the charge of assault based on participating in the burglary, defendant first claims that in any event the State had to establish, in addition to the other elements, both the kidnapping and the burglary because that is the way the assault was charged, citing State v. Hochmuth, 256 Iowa 442, 127 N.W.2d 658 (1964). This is a misreading of Hochmuth. If the State's only assault charge here were assault while participating in kidnapping, the State could not convict defendant of the assault by establishing assault while participating in burglary; then Hochmuth would apply. But since the State charged assault while participating in kidnapping and burglary, and since kidnapping and burglary are both felonies, the State can establish the element of "participating in a felony" by proving either the kidnapping or the burglary. For his second merger claim, defendant advances the novel proposition that a conviction of assault while participating in burglary does not permit a conviction of the burglary also. He arrives at that result by two routes. Defendant first contends that to be convicted of assault while participating in burglary, a person must be found to have committed burglary; therefore burglary is necessarily included in the assault. Defendant's problem is with his premise: that a person must be found to have committed burglary. Included offenses are ascertained by the familiar two-step testlegal and factual set out in such cases as State v. Sangster, 299 N.W.2d 661, 663 (Iowa 1981). We need only consider the legal step. Under that step, the question is whether the greater offense cannot be committed without committing the lesser offense. Id. at 663 ("The lesser offense is necessarily included in the greater offense if it is impossible to commit the greater without also committing the lesser."). The question is whether the State had to prove, on the charge of assault while participating in burglary, that defendant actually committed the burglary in order to be participating in it. The answer is controlled by section 702.13 of the Code: (Emphasis added.) We applied that section, in a sexual abuse context, in State v. Johnson, 291 N.W.2d 6, 8 (Iowa 1980). Under the section, a person may participate in an offense although he does not commit it. *447 The result is that assault while participating in burglary can be committed without committing the burglary, hence the burglary is not necessarily included in the assault. Consequently burglary is not merged into assault while participating in burglary. Defendant's second contention is that convictions for assault while participating in burglary and for burglary unconstitutionally subject him to double punishment for the same offense. The principal decision on this question, regarding state convictions, is Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 97 S. Ct. 2221, 53 L. Ed. 2d 187 (1977), which relied on Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S. Ct. 180, 76 L. Ed. 306 (1932) (federal convictions). See also Harris v. Oklahoma, 433 U.S. 682, 97 S. Ct. 2912, 53 L. Ed. 2d 1054 (1977). A recent decision involving federal convictions is Albernaz v. United States, 450 U.S. 333, 101 S. Ct. 1137, 67 L. Ed. 2d 275 (1981). The gist of these decisions is that the double jeopardy clause prohibits prosecution for the lesser crime where the greater crime cannot be committed without committing the lesser one. Harris, 443 U.S. at 682, 97 S. Ct. at 2913, 52 L. Ed. 2d at 1056 ("When as here, conviction of the greater crime, murder, cannot be had without conviction of the lesser crime, robbery with firearms, the Double Jeopardy Clause bars prosecution for the lesser crime after conviction of the greater one."). Since we have held that conviction on the present assault charge is not dependent upon conviction on the burglary charge, no violation of the double jeopardy clause appears. III. Sufficiency of evidence. Defendant contends finally that the evidence is insufficient to generate a jury question on whether he had a dangerous weapon in his possession, in connection with the burglary charge. See § 713.2, The Code. We have examined the record and hold that sufficient evidence on the issue was introduced under the test in State v. Robinson, 288 N.W.2d 337, 339 (Iowa 1980). We uphold the convictions and sentences for burglary and assault while participating in a felony, but direct the district court to dismiss the kidnapping charge. DECISION OF COURT OF APPEALS VACATED; JUDGMENT OF DISTRICT COURT AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART.