Opinion ID: 1756911
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Instruction on Accessory After the Fact.

Text: This issue applies only to defendants Sanders and Johnson. Defendants were charged with robbery and kidnapping. They were convicted of robbery as charged and false imprisonment. False imprisonment was submitted as an included offense of kidnapping. Sanders and Johnson claim error because the trial court refused to also submit the crime of being an accessory after the fact as an included offense of the principal crimes charged. Being an accessory after the fact is a separate crime defined in section 703.3(1), The Code. We have held it is not an included offense of the crime of robbery. State v. Sanders, 280 N.W.2d 375, 377 (Iowa 1979). We now say the crime of being an accessory after the fact is not an included offense of the crime of kidnapping as defined in sections 710.1-.4, The Code. Kidnapping requires a specific intent to accomplish one or more of the alternatives listed in the statute. The only intent necessary to render one guilty of violating section 703.3(1) is the intent to prevent the apprehension of the accused person. In Sanders, we explained the two-prong test for determining if one offense is included within another. One of these is legal, the other factual. As in Sanders, this case fails to pass the legal test because the elements of the two are totally dissimilar on the vital matter of intent. 280 N.W.2d at 377. Thus, the trial court was correct in refusing to submit the requested instruction.