Opinion ID: 2315144
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: III: Kidnapping Merger

Text: Appellant also argues that the kidnappings of Raley and Butler were merely incidental to the rapes and robberies of those victims and thus that those convictions should have merged. [8] In Robinson v. United States, 388 A.2d 1210, 1211-12 (D.C.1978), we set forth the test to be used as follows: The facts of each case must be examined to determine whether in fact two separate crimes were committed, or whether they merged. In making this determination, we inquire whether the asportation (or seizure) in a given case was of the type incidental to every rape or whether the confinement and restraint were significant enough of themselves to warrant an independent prosecution for kidnaping. A like question is whether the kidnaping substantially increased the risk of harm over and above that necessarily present in the underlying crime. (Citations omitted.) More recently, in a case involving the question whether kidnapping merged with a robbery charge, we noted that while merger occurs when the detention or confinement [9] is an integral part of the robbery, where a jury could reasonably conclude that the detention or confinement was not `approximately coextensive' in time and place with the crime itself, then each may constitute a separate criminal act. Catlett v. United States, 545 A.2d 1202, 1215 (D.C.1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 1017, 109 S.Ct. 814, 102 L.Ed.2d 803 (1989). Thus, we said, a separate kidnapping conviction would be upheld where the kidnapping element exposed the victim to more danger and decreased the risk that appellants would be caught. Id. at 1216. See also Beck v. United States, 402 A.2d 418 (D.C.1979); Sinclair v. United States, 388 A.2d 1201 (D.C.1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1118, 99 S.Ct. 1026, 59 L.Ed.2d 77 (1979). Applying the criteria set forth in these decisions, [10] we think the trial court was correct in refusing to merge the kidnapping into the rape and robbery convictions. In each incident, the facts warranted a conclusion that the seizure exceeded that incidental to the rape or robbery [11] and both temporally and in kind was more than approximately coextensive with the underlying incidents themselves. In addition, in each case, the kidnapping feature enhanced the likelihood of success in perpetrating the underlying crime. The Raley incident extended over a period of a quarter of an hour. After ordering Raley to the ground, appellant went through her purse and wallet, removing cash and looking at her credit cards. When he came to the ATM card, he pointed the gun at Raley's neck and demanded the code. After Raley gave it to him, he continued to hold her at gunpoint as he repeatedly grilled her about her ATM number, asking her Are you lying? He then continued going through her purse. Next, he pulled Raley's skirt and ... coat up,... took [her] hose off ... took [her] underwear off, and finally raped her. That finished, he stripped her of her ring, watch, necklace, and earrings, and then asked her what else she had. Finally, he told Raley to count to a hundred and climbed up the first level of stairs. Just before leaving, he turned back and told Raley to keep counting, an order she obeyed. In the Butler incident, appellant, having induced the complainant to enter an alley on the ruse that it was a shortcut, [12] ordered her at gunpoint to drive to the dead end of the alley, where he committed the rape and the other offenses. As with Raley, there was repeated interrogation about the ATM code. As he departed, he ordered the complainant to put her head on the car's steering wheel and wait there until he came back. In both cases, the detention extended over a considerable period of time and provided the opportunity for appellant to perpetrate a series of unrelated offenses on the complainant: in the case of Raley, a robbery of cash and an ATM card from her purse, then a rape, then the removal of her ring, watch, necklace, and earrings from her person; in the case of Butler, the robbery of cash and an ATM card, then sodomy within the car, then a rape on the car hood, then more interrogation about the ATM code number. Furthermore, in both cases, the complainant was ordered to remain where she was for a period of time following the crime itself and the departure of appellant. [13] On these facts, the confinement and restraint in each instance were significant enough of themselves, Robinson v. United States, supra, 388 A.2d at 1211, to warrant the independent convictions for kidnapping. Appellant's reliance on Robinson, supra, and Vines v. United States, 540 A.2d 1107 (D.C.1988) is unfounded. In Robinson, where the defendant seized the victim and dragged her approximately 63 paces before throwing her to the ground and attempting to rape her, the court found that the seizure and asportation were clearly incidental to the assault, and the likelihood of bodily harm was not substantially increased. It was a single uninterrupted event and no mention was made that the asportation significantly diminished the likelihood of detection. Vines is a closer case, but nonetheless distinguishable. There, two men in a basement were forced into a laundry room, robbed, and told to lie on the floor of an adjoining storage room. The perpetrator shut the door, placed a brick against it, and left. On the particular facts, we found the detentions momentary and coextensive in time and place with the robbery and that the movement into the storage room, while facilitating appellant's escape, did not render it more likely that he would avoid apprehension. There was no explicit instruction in Vines that the victims remain nor did the brick present any obstacle to their pushing open the door. More importantly, in Vines there was no overarching detention over an extended period facilitating the commission of a series of distinct crimes and creating a transcendent atmosphere of threats and terror in the confinement. The two convictions on the counts of felony murder are vacated. [14] In all other respects, the judgment appealed from is Affirmed.