Opinion ID: 2191551
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Anthony

Text: We begin our review with a discussion of State v. Anthony . In State v. Anthony and State v. Martin, this Court heard consolidated appeals to address whether a kidnapping conviction, separate from an accompanying offense, would violate due process. Both defendants in the consolidated cases were convicted of aggravated kidnapping and armed robbery. In Anthony, the defendant entered a restaurant and ordered two employees at gunpoint to an office, while his accomplice detained three other employees at dumpsters outside the restaurant. The defendant demanded that the employees in the office open the safe. When the employees informed the defendant that the safe was in a different part of the restaurant, he instructed one of the employees to remain in the office. The defendant and the second employee went to the location of the safe where the defendant was successful in obtaining money. He then encountered a third employee inside and instructed him to return to the restroom from which he had emerged. The defendant and his accomplice fled. The entire episode lasted approximately five minutes. In Martin, the defendant entered an insurance agency and robbed two people at gunpoint. He ordered the two individuals into a bathroom and left the building with approximately two hundred dollars he had obtained. The episode took about four minutes. We held that due process principles, specifically article I, section 8 of the Tennessee Constitution, require us to determine whether the confinement, movement, or detention is essentially incidental to the accompanying felony . . . or whether it is significant enough, in and of itself, to warrant independent prosecution. Anthony, 817 S.W.2d at 306. We determined that the convictions for aggravated kidnapping were essentially incidental to the robberies and thus violated due process. We held that the kidnappings were essentially incidental based upon the following factors: (1) the removal or confinement did not substantially increase the risk of harm to the victims; (2) the victims' movement was slight; (3) the confinement was brief; and (4) the victims were not harmed. Id. at 307. Our holding in Anthony was prompted by amendments to the kidnapping statutes that no longer require the common law elements once necessary to a conviction for kidnapping. In 1990, the General Assembly amended the kidnapping statute to more broadly define kidnapping as false imprisonment . . . [u]nder circumstances exposing the other person to substantial risk of bodily injury. Act of Apr. 30, 1990, 1990 Tenn. Pub. Acts ch. 982, § 1 (codified as amended at Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-303(a) (2006)). False imprisonment is to knowingly remove[] or confine[] another unlawfully so as to interfere substantially with the other's liberty. Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-302(a) (2006). This definition of false imprisonment codifies the common law and broadly addresses any situation where there is an interference with another's liberty. Id. § 39-13-302, Sentencing Comm'n Cmts. [4] Anthony recognized that the modern definition of kidnapping could literally overrun crimes such as robbery and rape because detention and confinement against the will of the victim necessarily accompany these crimes. 817 S.W.2d at 303 (quoting People v. Levy, 15 N.Y.2d 159, 256 N.Y.S.2d 793, 204 N.E.2d 842, 844 (1965)). We noted that a victim is commonly confined briefly at gunpoint, bound and detained, or moved into and left in another room or place. Id. (quoting Levy, 256 N.Y.S.2d 793, 204 N.E.2d at 844). The legislature did not intend, however, that every robbery should also constitute kidnapping, even though a literal reading of the statute might suggest otherwise. Id. at 306. Whether a separate kidnapping conviction violates due process is a question of law to be determined initially by a trial court. State v. Cozart, 54 S.W.3d 242, 247 (Tenn.2001). We review the trial court's determination de novo with no presumption of correctness. See Griffin v. State, 182 S.W.3d 795, 798 (Tenn.2006).