Court Opinion

ID: 9520844
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:51:37.267954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:47:03.549779
License: Public Domain

KIRSCH, Chief Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I fully concur in the decision of my colleagues regarding the sufficiency and Brady issues, but I respectfully dissent on the double jeopardy issue.
I think that the evidence here was clear that Ransom committed battery and confinement, that they were discrete crimes, that the trial court properly instructed the jury regarding the two discrete crimes, and that there was no reasonable possibility that the jury used the facts constituting the battery to convict Ransom of the con*502finement. Here, the confinement was complete when Ransom and Reeves entered the victim's home, pointed the handgun at the victim and thereby restricted her freedom. Had they left the victim's home at this point, the evidence would have been sufficient to support Ransom's conviction for confinement. They did not leave, however. Rather, they then proceeded to commit the crime of battery when they repeatedly struck the victim with the gun. The fact that the victim was also confined during, and as a result of, the battery does not vitiate the fact that the crime of confinement had already occurred, complete in itself and separate from the subsequent battery.
I would affirm the decision of the trial court in all respects.