Court Opinion

ID: 9466008
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:02:48.403945+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:29.605254
License: Public Domain

ROSENN, Circuit Judge,
Concurring
I agree with the majority that the defendants’ convictions for kidnapping must be reversed, but write separately to express my views as to the reason reversal is required. I believe that it is unnecessary on this record to set up criteria by which the detention or asportation requirement of the kidnapping statute must be measured, because the critical element in this case is whether the defendants intended to commit any offense specified in the kidnapping statute. I am convinced that no such intent existed and I, therefore, would reverse the conviction for kidnapping.
The key facts of this bizarre melodrama commence after the victim Morales, unsuccessfully sought monetary aid from his friends to pay off his debt to Berry. Until this time, Morales voluntarily accompanied the defendants in their automobile as they attempted to help him locate sufficient funds to pay off the debt. Morales’ testimony best describes what happened next:
Well, after I give him the money [from his brother], this other man [Brignoni] said they were going back into town and they will take me back to where they pick me up from, so I said okay and I got into the car and went with them. But, when we were going back towards town, I saw that they turn left to like, the road going around Barren’s Castle. When they were going into the road I told them that if they are going someplace else, drop me there and I get a ride into town.
They said that they were just going to see a friend in that area and they would give me a ride back when they come back out, so I stayed in the car with them.
The defendants, instead of visiting their purported friend, *631drove Morales to a beach. At the beach, Morales was ordered to strip, and after a gun was procured, to swim out into the ocean. After swimming for awhile, Morales was summoned back to the beach and informed by the defendants that he had until 10:00 A.M. the next day to repay the debt or else he would be killed. The defendants then took Morales’ clothes and told him that he could find them in the middle of the road back to town. Morales eventually did recover his clothes but his wallet containing $50.00 was missing.
The defendants were indicted for kidnapping and robbery in the first degree. The kidnapping charge alleged that the defendants intentionally and unlawfully seized, confined and carried away Morales and detained him to extract [sic]1 money. The testimony plainly reveals that Morales entered Berry’s car uncoerced. The statute, however, also makes it an offense to entice or decoy any individual for ransom or to exact money. Although the defendants may have brought themselves within the statutory catalogue covering “[a]ny person who . . . inveigles, entices, decoys” when they deceived Morales into accompanying them from the main highway to the Salt River beach, the indictment did not mention such trickery. It recited only that Berry and Brignoni had “seize [d], confine [d] and carr[ied] away.” Because this difference seems to be substantial, Morales’ testimony, at this point, still could not prove this element of the offense charged in the indictment. See Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212 (1960).
When the three men arrived at the beach, however, Berry and Brignoni did indeed seize and confine Morales. As Morales, at Berry’s direction, was removing his clothes, *632Berry told Brignoni “ 'Go and get the gun.’ ” Brignoni did so. Berry then ordered Morales to go out into the water and to swim. At least from the time that Morales started to undress — an act that implies a perceived threat —Morales was, the jury could have found, seized and confined. Courts have recognized that the essence of kidnapping is the element of compulsion and that the requisite force may occur where the victim feels compelled to obey orders because he fears harm or injury from the defendant. See People v. Dagampat, 167 Cal. App. 2d 492, —, 334 P.2d 581, 583 (1959). Accord: State v. Belkin, 549 P.2d 608 (Ariz. App. 1976); People v. Caldwell, 510 P.2d 317 (Colo. 1973). Whether the defendants ''carried away” Morales at the beach, so as to satisfy the asportation requirement of the statute is more debatable. However, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government, United States v. Glasser, 315 U.S. 60 (1942), I cannot say that the jury could not have found that when the defendants forced Morales to swim against his will, that this was insufficient to establish that Morales was ''carried away” by the defendants.
The majority relieves the defendants from the punitive consequences of the mandatory life sentence under the kidnapping statute by avoiding the literal meaning of the statute and importing a gloss on the asportation or detention requirement adopted by jurisdictions that have attempted to limit the broad scope of their kidnapping statutes. Although this effort commends itself under the unique facts of this case, I am concerned because it may introduce instability and uncertainty in an important area of criminal jurisprudence.
I believe, however, that the kidnapping convictions must founder because of a lack of intent on the part of the defendants to commit an offense proscribed by the kidnapping statute. The offense charged in the indictment is *633that the defendants seized, confined and carried away Morales in order to extract [sic] money from him. They therefore had to possess the specific intent to exact money from Morales at the time they arguably seized and confined him on the beach:
Where the prohibited act must be done with a particular purpose or design, such as to obtain ransom, it is necessary to show that the defendant did have the specific intent to detain the victim for that purpose when he committed the act of detaining.
Wharton’s Criminal Law and Procedure, § 372 at 738 (1957).
The record reveals that the defendant drove Morales around in an effort to have him obtain money to pay off his debt to Berry. When Morales had exhausted his efforts in raising sufficient funds, the defendants agreed to take him back to town. When they took the diversionary journey to the beach near Salt River, they knew Morales had no money. At this point, after witnessing Morales’ futile effort to raise $375.00 from friends, it is reasonable to infer that the defendants gave up any expectation of receiving full payment of the debt that night. It is evident that by ordering Morales to strip and swim into the sea, the defendants were not intending to hold or confine Morales to exact money, but rather to impress upon him the serious need to pay the balance of his debt. If a crime occurred at this point, it may have been an assault or a false imprisonment,2 but it was not kidnapping or robbery.
*634There is no evidence to support the conclusion that from the moment the defendants made their diversionary journey to the beach, to the time Morales completed his swim, the defendants were then attempting to rob or exact money from him. Indeed, upon completing his unexpected ocean dip, Morales was informed that he had until 10:00 A.M. the next morning to come up with the money. Such a statement from the defendants is inconsistent with any inference that they expected to exact money from Morales at the beach.
At this point, the defendants did take Morales’ clothing, and it is undisputed that his wallet was later found missing. The defendants told Morales he would find his clothes on the road into town, and they evidently took them to further humiliate Morales, not for their monetary value. The missing wallet appears on this record to have been an afterthought of the defendants and unconnected with the main thrust of the events at the beach. In fact, the record does not reveal that either of the defendants knew about the presence of the $50.00 until Berry took the clothes.
I, therefore, conclude that the activities of the defendants in decoying Morales to the beach and their behavior there did not constitute kidnapping under the statute. I agree with the majority, although not for the same reasons, that the kidnapping convictions cannot be sustained. Giving the Government the benefit of all inferences as we must on this appeal, Glasser, supra, I also agree that the judgment of conviction for robbery in the third degree should be affirmed.

 The statute uses the term “exact” money. See 14 V.I.C. § 1052. The variance between the indictment and the statute is harmless in view of the similarity in meaning between the words. Furthermore, the defendants do not complain.

 A conviction for false imprisonment under 14 V.I.C. § 1051 (1978) might well have been more appropriate. The essence of false imprisonment is an unlawful restraint on another’s freedom. Forgione v. United States, 100 F.Supp. 239, 242 (E.D. Pa. 1951), aff’d, 202 F.2d 249 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 345 U.S. 966 (1955); Wharton’s Criminal Law and Procedure, § 385 at 750. In State v. Roberts, 286 N.C. 265, —, 210 S.E.2d 396, 404 (1974), the Supreme Court of North Carolina held that kidnapping is false imprisonment plus asportation beyond the immediate vicinity of the confinement. In the instant case, an unlawful restraint was placed on Morales’ freedom by the defendants’ act of forcing him to swim out into the ocean. However, if any asportation occurred, it was not outside the immediate vicinity of the confinement. This would appear to be classic false imprisonment, and although the false imprisonment statute and the kidnapping *634statute in the Virgin Islands employ similar language, the distinction between the two crimes recognized in Roberts could arguably be adopted. If so, a conviction for false imprisonment as a lesser included offense of kidnapping could have occurred in this case. See cases collected at Annot., 68 A.L.R.3d 828 (1976).