Opinion ID: 1256193
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Elements of Kidnapping

Text: {63} Defendant was convicted of kidnapping in the first degree under the law in effect prior to the 1995 amendment of Section 30-4-1. See Foster, 1999-NMSC-007, n. 1, 126 N.M. 646, 974 P.2d 140 (explaining the changes occasioned by the 1995 amendment of Section 30-4-1). The trial court instructed the jury on the following elements of this crime: 1. The defendant took or confined or restrained [the victim] by force or deception; 2. The defendant intended to hold [the victim] for service against her will; 3. The defendant inflicted great bodily harm on [the victim]; 4. This happened in New Mexico on or about the 7th day of February, 1994. These jury instructions were patterned on UJI 14-404 NMRA 1996 (withdrawn 1997), which corresponds to the statute in effect prior to the 1995 amendment. {64} The Court of Appeals has observed that [t]he key to the restraint element in kidnapping is the point at which [the v]ictim's physical association with [the d]efendant was no longer voluntary. State v. Pisio, 119 N.M. 252, 260, 889 P.2d 860, 868 (Ct.App.1994), quoted with approval in Foster, 1999-NMSC-007, ¶ 32, 126 N.M. 646, 974 P.2d 140. In this case, the evidence may have suggested to the jury that Defendant's association with the victim began as a consensual encounter in which Defendant proposed to give the victim a ride. Based on Defendant's statements, the physical evidence, and the testimony of the victim's mother, however, the jury could reasonably infer that the association between Defendant and the victim became involuntary. {65} Because an individual's intent is seldom subject to proof by direct evidence, intent may be proved by circumstantial evidence. Pisio, 119 N.M. at 259, 889 P.2d at 867. Thus, to prove the intent element of kidnapping, we have allowed a jury to infer, from evidence of acts committed at some later point during the commission of a kidnapping, that the necessary criminal intent existed at the time the victim first was restrained. McGuire, 110 N.M. at 308-09, 795 P.2d at 1000-01. The testimony regarding Defendant's indication that he wanted to pick up a girl, his statement that he wanted to give the victim a ride because she had red hair and was young and good-looking, the fact that he used a rope that was kept ordinarily in the back of the pickup, and the evidence of acts committed at a later point in the kidnapping provide adequate support for the jury's finding that Defendant intended to hold the victim for service against her will. {66} Based on Defendant's statements, the physical evidence, and the expert testimony of the forensic pathologist, the jury also could reasonably infer that Defendant inflicted great bodily harm on the victim when he tied her up with the intent to further restrain her. Finally, the evidence of the victim's disappearance on February 7, 1994, the evidence suggesting that the victim was killed on the date of her disappearance, and the evidence linking Defendant with the victim on that date provide substantial support for the jury's finding regarding the timing of the crime. Thus, we conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support each of the elements of kidnapping in the first degree contained in the applicable versions of the kidnapping statute and jury instructions.