Opinion ID: 1195354
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: PEOPLE v. DANIELS

Text: As the majority explains, before 1997, section 209 did not expressly specify as a requirement that the movement of the victim increased the risk of harm. We first announced this requirement in People v. Daniels (1969) 71 Cal.2d 1119, 80 Cal.Rptr. 897, 459 P.2d 225 ( Daniels) . There, we held that the intent of the Legislature in amending ... section 209 in 1951 was to exclude from its reach not only `standstill' robberies [citation] but also those in which the movements of the victim are merely incidental to the commission of the robbery and do not substantially increase the risk of harm over and above that necessarily present in the crime of robbery itself. (See Note, Room-to-Room Movement: A Risk Rationale for Aggravated Kidnaping (1959) 11 Stan.L.Rev. 554, 555; Note, A Rationale of the Law of Kidnaping (1953) Colum.L.Rev. 540, 554-557.) ( Daniels, supra, 71 Cal.2d at p. 1139, 80 Cal.Rptr. 897, 459 P.2d 225.) Although our Daniels opinion does not speak clearly to the issue now before us, for two reasons I conclude that Daniels requires an increased risk of physical or bodily harm, and that an increased risk of only psychological harm is insufficient. First, the two law review articles we cited as authority for our holding support this conclusion. The sole focus of the first article is the history, construction, and application of section 209. (Note, Room-to-Room Movement: A Risk Rationale for Aggravated Kidnapping (1959) 11 Stan. L.Rev. 554 (hereafter Room-to-Room Movement ).) The page of the article Daniels cites identifies the justification for section 209's harsh penalties as a substantial risk of bodily harm and an express threat of death or great bodily injury. ( Room-to-Room Movement, supra, 11 Stan. L.Rev. at p. 555, italics added.) Nowhere on the cited page or anywhere else in the article is there even a reference to psychological harm. The second article considers the law of kidnapping generally, including the justification for making kidnapping a separate crime. (Note, A Rationale of the Law of Kidnapping (1953) 53 Colum. L.Rev. 540.) The portion of the article Daniels cites concludes by asserting that a separate kidnapping offense should be limited to kidnapping for ransom, which alone involves conduct which ... is invariably of a highly dangerous order. In ransom kidnappings the means by which the victim is subjugated must almost inevitably be forcible; the victim must be subdued for a period of time sufficient to allow the defendant to demand and secure the ransom, and the accomplishment of the defendant's purpose involves at least a threat to harm or kill the captive.  (Note, A Rationale of the Law of Kidnapping, supra, 53 Colum. L.Rev. at p. 557, italics added.) In context, the referenced threat to harm logically refers to a threat to inflict bodily harm, which is the kind of harm kidnappers threaten in order to accomplish their purpose, i.e., payment of ransom. Thus, our reliance in Daniels on these articles strongly suggests we were referring to an increased risk of only bodily harm. Second, my conclusion is consistent with both the analysis in Daniels and the very existence of its increased risk of harm requirement In Daniels, we relied in part on People v. Jackson (1955) 44 Cal.2d 511, 282 P.2d 898 ( Jackson ). There, we refused broadly to construe the term bodily harm, reasoning: If the more serious penalty [under section 209] may be imposed when the only injury is of a nature similar to that shown by the present record, which concededly is almost necessarily an incident to every forcible kidnapping, neither the purpose of enhancement of the penalty for the more heinous crime nor the intention of deterring the kidnaper from killing or injuring his victim is subserved. ( Jackson, supra, 44 Cal.2d at p. 517, 282 P.2d 898, italics added.) After quoting this passage, we explained in Daniels: Just as we recognized in Jackson that some minor injuries are necessarily incidental to the crime of forcible kidnapping, so we now recognize that some brief movements are necessarily incidental to the crime of armed robbery. Indeed, `It is difficult to conceive a situation in which the victim of a robbery does not make some movement under the duress occasioned by force or fear.' [Citation.] ( Daniels, supra, 71 Cal.2d at p. 1134, 80 Cal.Rptr. 897, 459 P.2d 225.) Similarly, every movement that is not incidental to a robbery inflicts actual and significant emotional harm, unless the victim is unaware of or cannot understand what is happening. (See People v. Wolcott (1983) 34 Cal.3d 92, 1081, 192 Cal.Rptr. 748, 665 P.2d 520; People v. Schoenfeld (1980) 111 Cal.App.3d 671, 687, 168 Cal.Rptr. 762.) Thus, under the majority's interpretation, the second requirement Daniels announceda substantially increased risk of harmis effectively no requirement at all. The Daniels requirement only has meaning if it refers to the risk of bodily harm. [2] I disagree with the majority that, having expressly recognized the word harm could include mental suffering, the Daniels court logically must have intended that the statutory requirement can be satisfied by a substantially increased risk of either physical or mental harm. (Maj. opn., ante, 95 Cal.Rptr.2d at p. 187, 997 P.2d at p. 501, original italics.) For this conclusion, the majority relies on our quotation in Daniels of a passage from People v. Tanner (1935) 3 Cal.2d 279, 297, 44 P.2d 324 ( Tanner ), which stated in part: Harm is defined as `hurt; injury; damage; (2) grief, pain, sorrow; (3) evil; wrong; wickedness.' [Citation.] (See maj. opn., ante, 95 Cal.Rptr.2d at p. 187, 997 P.2d at p. 501; Daniels, supra, 71 Cal.2d at p. 1132, 80 Cal.Rptr. 897, 459 P.2d 225.) However, Tanner addressed a completely different issue of section 209's construction: the meaning of the term bodily harm in the statute's punishment provision. ( Tanner, supra, 3 Cal.2d at p. 297, 44 P.2d 324.) Moreover, in Daniels, soon after quoting what [t]he court ... said in Tanner, we explained that Jackson reconsidered the matter and concluded: `[I]t is seriously questionable whether the definition in the Tanner case states the intention of the Legislature....' ( Daniels, supra, 71 Cal.2d at p. 1133, 80 Cal.Rptr. 897, 459 P.2d 225.) Thus, Daniels did not endorse the cited Tanner discussion, but cited its subsequent rejection in Jackson only to demonstrate that we may properly reconsider and overrule our prior cases interpreting section 209 despite legislative silence. ( Daniels, supra, 71 Cal.2d at p. 1134, 80 Cal.Rptr. 897, 459 P.2d 225.) When we later held in Daniels that a substantially increased risk of harm is necessary for a section 209 conviction, we were not referring back to Tanner's definition of harm, which appeared much earlier in the Daniels opinion in an entirely unrelated discussion and which, as Daniels recognized, Jackson had rejected. Rather, as I have explained, we were referring to the risk of bodily harm discussed in the two law review articles we specifically cited in establishing this requirement. Indeed, were the majority correct that we were referring to Tanner's subsequently rejected definition of harm, an increased risk of evil, wrong, wickedness, sorrow, or griefterms that also appeared in the quoted Tanner definition would be sufficient. I do not believe Daniels meant to construe section 209 so broadly. Moreover, it appears that the very source Tanner used to define the word harm indicated that the definition on which the majority reliesgrief, pain, sorrowwas obsolete, i.e., it had disappeared from current usage. (Webster's New Internat. Diet. (2d ed.1948) pp. xcv, 1139.) Thus, the Daniels passage the majority cites does not support its conclusion that a substantially increased risk of psychological harm is sufficient.