Opinion ID: 1407600
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Restraint supplied by the killing itself.

Text: [5] Pursuant to instruction No. 9 and RCW 9A.40.010(2)(b) the State may establish kidnapping if the victim is restrained by the use of deadly force. While it is clear in this case that deadly force was employed ( i.e., the killing itself), we conclude that restraint by an ultimate killing does not, in and of itself, establish kidnapping. RCW 9A.40.010(2)(b) contemplates employment of a deadly force that stops short of actual homicide. When the State establishes a killing it may have proved a homicide or some other crime, but it has not established kidnapping. In the broadest sense the infliction of a fatal wound is the ultimate form of restraint because it obviously restrict[s] a person's movement ... in a manner which interferes substantially with [the person's] liberty. RCW 9A.40.010(1). If such logic is applied to the law of kidnapping, however, every intentional killing would also be a kidnapping because the killing itself would supply the requisite restraint ( i.e., the killing being the ultimate form of restraint). Moreover, every intentional killing would automatically become murder in the first degree under RCW 9A.32.030(c)(5), which provides that one causing the death of another in the course of any kidnapping is automatically guilty of murder in the first degree. Most importantly, the intentional killing, converted thusly into first degree murder, would in turn automatically be converted into aggravated murder in the first degree under RCW 9A.32.045(7) because it was committed in the course of a kidnapping. Clearly Initiative 316 was intended to identify those crimes which are particularly outrageous, to enhance the degrees of culpability and to elevate the status of such crimes. There is nothing to indicate, however, that the people of this state intended to employ the kidnapping statute in such a convoluted way as to eliminate all distinction among intentional killings. On the contrary, the initiative carefully set out seven specific circumstances in which a first degree murder could be elevated into a crime punishable by death. It did not, either specifically or by inference, indicate that its purpose was to automatically convert every intentional killing into aggravated murder in the first degree punishable by death. Thus, we are compelled to conclude evidence of the killing itself does not establish the restraint necessary to prove kidnapping based on restraint by the use of deadly force under RCW 9A.40.010(2)(b). It is evident from the foregoing analysis that the State has failed to establish the elements of kidnapping either by the substantial evidence test adopted in Green I or beyond a reasonable doubt as required by Jackson. Accordingly, one of the two critical grounds upon which the charge of aggravated murder in the first degree was based fails. If the charge of aggravated murder in the first degree is to stand, it must be based solely on the charge of first degree rape.