Opinion ID: 1298046
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Approaches followed in other states

Text: In a case involving a statute similar to A.R.S. § 13-116, the California Court of Appeal held that a defendant could not receive consecutive sentences for kidnapping and rape when the kidnapping was only incidental to the rape. People v. Burns, 158 Cal. App.3d 1178, 205 Cal. Rptr. 356 (1984). Only where a defendant kidnaps a victim for one purpose, and then later forms an intent to rape, may he be punished for both kidnapping and rape. Id. at 1181, 205 Cal. Rptr. at 358. Defendant urges us to apply the California test to our sentencing statute. We reject this suggestion. We find the Burns application of a merely incidental type analysis wholly unsatisfactory. Because the Burns analysis centers only on the defendant's subjective intent, it allows a defendant who robs or assaults to hold his victim for a lengthy period of time. As long as the defendant does not form the intent to kidnap, the court cannot punish him any more severely than the defendant who kidnaps and quickly commits the ultimate crime. In any event, Noble effectively rejects the Burns standard. New York has taken a middle ground between Burns and Noble. In People v. Cassidy, 40 N.Y.2d 763, 358 N.E.2d 870, 390 N.Y.S.2d 45 (1976), the New York Court of Appeals held that a defendant could not be separately punished for assault, attempted sexual abuse, and kidnapping. New York espouses a merger doctrine [that] is intended to preclude conviction for kidnapping based on acts which are so much the part of another substantive crime that the substantive crime could not have been committed without such acts and ... independent criminal responsibility may not fairly be attributed to them. 40 N.Y.2d at 767, 358 N.E.2d at 873, 390 N.Y.S.2d at 47. In our view, this test comes somewhat closer to rational application, though we are given pause by its application under the facts of Cassidy (defendant grabbed a young woman from the sidewalk, dragged her approximately seventy feet at knife point, forced her into a garage where he attempted to sexually assault her). Noble may prevent us from applying the merger doctrine to facts similar to Cassidy. Many states have also found it difficult to determine what crimes may be charged when a single act constitutes two or more distinct and separate offenses. Indeed, a distinct split of authority exists pertaining to the prosecution of kidnapping in crimes also involving rape, robbery, and similar offenses. See Annotation, Seizure or Detention for Purpose of Committing Rape, Robbery, or Similar Offense as Constituting Separate Crime of Kidnapping, 43 A.L.R.3d 699 (1972). The cases collected in the annotation represent two general and opposing views. One view is that the seizure or detention of the victim, with any accompanying movement, is necessarily sufficient to constitute the separate crime of kidnapping.... [T]he fact of a forcible removal, and not the distance of the forcible removal, [constitutes] the separate crime of kidnapping. The other view, quite logically, is that the seizure or detention alone is not necessarily sufficient to constitute the separate crime of kidnapping. Here, the courts reasoned that movements merely incidental to the commission of a rape, robbery, or similar offense, and which did not substantially increase the risk of harm ... necessarily present in the rape, robbery, etc., did not constitute the separate crime of kidnapping. Id. at 701 (emphasis added) (footnotes omitted). Insofar as prosecution is concerned, Arizona seems committed, though with little analysis, to the first view. See State v. Pickett, 121 Ariz. 142, 146, 589 P.2d 16, 20 (1978); State v. Jacobs, 93 Ariz. 336, 342, 380 P.2d 998, 1002-03, cert. denied, 375 U.S. 46, 84 S.Ct. 158, 11 L.Ed.2d 108 (1963). This may indeed be the better rule for prosecution of the crimes, though it does not define a single act under the sentencing statute. Indeed, it is difficult to find cases that provide a recognized analytical framework with which to draw a bright line between a single act and multiple acts in situations where the restraint imposed on the victim in the ultimate crime necessarily involves the technical commission of a kidnapping. To hold that consecutive sentences are possible in all such cases circumvents the obvious legislative intent that a single act that violates multiple criminal statutes may be punished only under one of the statutes. We believe, however, that two of the concepts found in the cases are useful in applying and improving the Tinghitella identical elements test. In determining whether consecutive sentences may be imposed for kidnapping and rape, as in this case, the court should consider whether the perpetrator's conduct in seizing or detaining the victim put the victim to a different or additional risk of harm than that inherent in the ultimate offense. If so, then the seizure or detention has been more than incidental to the ultimate crime and is more likely to be a separate act. This court has no desire to give a criminal a discount card to commit as many crimes as he or she may desire, secure in the belief that he will receive only concurrent sentences. Thus, if the perpetrator's conduct with regard to the seizure or detention preliminary to the main crime caused the victim to suffer a risk of harm different from or additional to that inherent in the ultimate crime, such conduct weighs in favor of a finding that the seizure or detention was a separate act, allowing consecutive sentences. If, on the other hand, the defendant's conduct in the commission of the preliminary crime did not increase the risk of harm to the victim, and if, under the facts, the defendant could not commit the ultimate crime without committing the lesser, then the facts would favor a finding that only a single act exists and that A.R.S. § 13-116 forbids consecutive sentences.