Court Opinion

ID: 9852255
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:27:17.127478+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:24.716911
License: Public Domain

Eldridge, Judge,
dissenting.
1. Even if one credits the majority’s position and finds that Mrs. Jackson’s movement to the bedroom was in order to get her purse in response to Smith’s command, such movement was incidental to the armed robbery and in necessary furtherance thereof. If Mrs. Jackson had retrieved her purse and given it to Smith, the armed robbery would have been complete. And evidence of Mrs. Jackson’s movement to get the purse and give it to Smith would have been “used up” in proving the completion of the armed robbery.26 Simply because the armed robbery was halted and Smith forced to leave before the tak*471ing was completed does not transform Mrs. Jackson’s movement into a separate kidnapping. Her movement was not designed to better carry out a separate criminal act, such as rape; nor was it an instance where a victim is forced to a different spot before an assault or robbery is perpetrated.27
The majority considers the attempted armed robbery “complete” at the “substantial step” of ordering Mrs. Jackson to get her purse with the accompanying threat of the use of a weapon. But I submit that the attempted armed robbery was not “complete” until it was frustrated by Mr. Jackson. I believe the majority confuses what it takes for the State to prove an essential element of attempted armed robbery pursuant tó OCGA § 16-4-1 with the offense in toto. “An attempt to commit a crime involves three elements: the intent to commit the crime, performance of a substantial step towards its commission, and failure to complete the crime”28 Thus, the attempted armed robbery was not suddenly “complete” and no longer extant at Smith’s order to Mrs. Jackson to get her purse, making everything thereafter — including Mrs. Jackson’s move to get her purse — fair game for the finding of separate additional offenses.
In this case, Mrs. Jackson’s movement was not in any sense separate from the armed robbery attempted by Smith, but was integrally linked therewith as the method by which Smith was to receive the purse and thus complete the taking.29 The fact that the armed robbery was ultimately frustrated and thus became “attempted,” as opposed to completed, does not alter the sequence of events interrupted by Mr. Jackson’s cane. The offense of kidnapping (if offense there was) should have merged into the offense of attempted armed robbery as a matter of fact for purposes of sentencing.30
2. As a matter of law, a directed verdict should have been entered on the kidnapping charge pursuant to Smith’s motion therefor.
The record shows that defendant Smith was, without resistance and with his hands over his face, backing away from Mr. Jackson’s raised cane and toward the front door at the time Mrs. Jackson made the decision to leave the living room in order to go into the bedroom and use the telephone. Before Smith began cowering and retreating, he had ordered Mrs. Jackson to get her purse, and Mrs. Jackson testified that her purse was in the bedroom. But Smith did not know *472where her purse was in order to “force” her into the bedroom, and immediately thereafter — at the time Mrs. Jackson decided to leave the living room — Smith did not know where she went, when she went, or why she went because he was not concerned with her or her purse anymore; he was busy trying to keep from getting beaten with Mr. Jackson’s cane and to make it out the front door.31 As a matter of law, Smith could not have “forced” Mrs. Jackson into the bedroom when he did not know where she was going, did not know when she left, and Mrs. Jackson determined both the time of her going, the place of her going, and what she would do when she got there.
Decided July 9, 2001
Bischoff & White, James E. Bischoff, for appellant.
William T. McBroom III, District Attorney, Daniel A. Hiatt, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
While any movement will suffice to prove asportation, the offense of kidnapping, i.e., “abducting or stealing away any person without lawful authority and holding such person against her will,” does not encompass the instant scenario wherein the defendant is attempting to leave the scene at the point the victim makes the decision to move to a location unknown to the defendant and to dial 911, an earlier “threatening command” to get one’s purse notwithstanding.

 Haynes v. State, 249 Ga. 119, 120 (288 SE2d 185) (1982); McClure v. State, 179 Ga. App. 245, 246 (2) (345 SE2d 922) (1986).

 Love v. State, 190 Ga. App. 264, 266 (378 SE2d 893) (1989) (Benham, J., concurring specially).

 (Emphasis supplied.) Perkins v. State, 224 Ga. App. 63, 64 (1) (479 SE2d 471) (1996); Wittschen v. State, 259 Ga. 448 (1) (383 SE2d 885) (1989).

 Jordan v. State, 242 Ga. App. 408, 409 (3) (530 SE2d 42) (2000).

 OCGA § 16-1-6 (1).

 Compare Woodson v. State, 273 Ga. 557, 558 (544 SE2d 431) (2001) (defendant’s order to “go in there” along with brandishing of a knife and defendant’s physical accompaniment of victim into room sufficient to show asportation based on threatening command). See also Woodson v. State, 242 Ga. App. 67, 68 (530 SE2d 2) (2000).