Court Opinion

ID: 9590719
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:57:49.891988+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:06.270439
License: Public Domain

Benham, Judge,
concurring specially.
While I am in total agreement with Presiding Judge McMurray’s opinion, this special concurrence is filed to better explain my position on the matter of kidnapping as discussed in Division 1 of the main opinion.
Under OCGA § 16-5-40 (a), “[a] person commits the offense of kidnapping when he abducts or steals away any person without lawful authority or warrant and holds such person against his will.” For there to be a kidnapping conviction there must be some type of asportation, no matter how slight, as in Brown v. State, 132 Ga. App. 399 (2) (208 SE2d 183) (1974). See also McKenzie v. State, 187 Ga. App. 840, 842 (371 SE2d 869) (1988). In the case sub judice, the “carrying away” was ever so slight, occurring when defendant dislodged the victim from the concrete wall and forced her to the ground several feet below, thereby removing her from a public place to a concealed place. Appellant would have us rule that for asportation to take place, the perpetrator must remove the victim to a “different location.” “Asportation” does not require removal to a different location. Williams v. State, 178 Ga. App. 581 (12) (344 SE2d 247) (1986). However, in those cases where the movement involved is minimal, and the alleged kidnapping occurs in furtherance of some other criminal enterprise such as rape, the movement necessary to constitute “asportation” must be more than a mere positional change, e.g., from a standing to a supine position. It must be movement that is not merely incidental to the other criminal act, but movement designed to carry out better the criminal activity when, as here, there is movement from a place of visibility to a place of concealment.