Court Opinion

ID: 9705561
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:11:28.14905+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:12.284426
License: Public Domain

LIPEZ, Justice,
concurring.
Although I agree with the Court’s conclusion that there is insufficient evidence to support Taylor’s conviction for attempted kidnapping, I write separately because I take a different view of the nature of that insufficiency. If there were evidence before the trial 001114; that the defendant was dragging the victim through the graveyard to his truck on a nearby road, there would not have to be additional evidence that Taylor intended to transport the victim a substantial distance once he got her into his track. Rather, the trial court could rationally draw the inference that Taylor was dragging her to the track in order to transport her a substantial distance from the scene. His effort in dragging the victim such a distance would be both a substantial step toward the commission of the crime of kidnapping and a powerful indication of his intent to remove her a substantial distance from the scene. No other explanation of that effort would make much sense. In my view, the insufficiency of the evidence relates to the lack of evidence that the defendant was dragging the victim towards his track.
According to the testimony of the victim, after she was dragged a distance of approximately 20 feet from the street to the second row of stones in the graveyard, the defendant in rapid succession sprayed her with a chemical substance, pushed her to the ground, got on top of her, banged her head on the base of a stone monument, and tried to rip off her blouse and pull down her pants. An attempted sexual assault that begins almost immediately in the graveyard is inconsistent with an intent to drag the victim a considerable distance through the graveyard to a track on a nearby road, and drive away from the scene. For that reason, the attempted kidnapping conviction must be vacated.