Court Opinion

ID: 9640944
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:19:18.20382+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:33.920172
License: Public Domain

Tom Glaze, Justice, dissenting in part. I dissent on the court’s kidnapping holding. The majority court seems to premise its decision on the kidnapping conviction on the fact that she consented to being present on a gravel road in a rural area, where the rape took place. Such a conclusion is contrary to the facts, as I read them. In viewing the evidence in the state’s favor, as this court is required to do, the facts show the appellant met the victim and during conversation, he offered to help get her a job at twice what she was making. He called her later and asked to take her to dinner so they could talk about the job. Subsequently, appellant picked up the victim at a bowling alley. He then drove to a liquor store where he bought liquor and cokes and made a telephone call. After his call, he said, “Work, work, I’ve always got to work.” Appellant then said that he had to go somewhere and pick up something. He then went to the highway and drove “a long way” and ended up in a forest and campsite where he stopped. Appellant asked the victim if he could kiss her, and she said no, she had a boyfriend. After the victim rejected appellant’s advances, he said that he could blow off appellant’s head and nobody would find her. The victim departed the truck and walked down the road in the direction from which they came. At this time, it was getting dark. Appellant pulled his truck alongside the victim and said he was sorry, and she should get in the truck because there were wild animals in the area. She got back in appellant’s vehicle. Appellant, after driving a short distance still in the rural area, stopped his vehicle and ordered the victim out. He got out, pulled a gun and told the victim to take off her clothes. He hit the victim in the face and then she undressed. He then raped her on the tailgate of the appellant’s truck. From the above, the jury could have formed the opinion that the victim intended to talk to appellant over dinner about a job, but the appellant’s intentions were to have sex with her. Appellant, by lying about work necessitating him to pick up something, drove to a rural and deserted area where he raped the victim. Contrary to the majority’s conclusion, the victim never consented to anything the appellant did from the point after she met him and went to a liquor store. Thereafter, everything else that took place was a part of appellant’s stealthy means to place his victim in a setting where he could rape her. As we said in Summerlin v. State, 296 Ark. 347, 756 S.W.2d 908 (1988), a person commits the offense of kidnapping if, without consent, he restrains another person so as to interfere substantially with her liberty with the purpose (in this case) of engaging in sexual intercourse with him. See also Cook v. State, 284 Ark. 333, 681 S.W.2d 378 (1984). Here, appellant took the victim into a forest area at night, ordered her out of his truck, pulled a gun, hit her, ordered her to take off her clothes and raped her. If substantial interference was not imposed on the victim’s liberty in these circumstances, it is difficult to know how such interference with one’s liberty can ever be shown. Not only was she, without her consent, placed in a setting where she could not get away but also he hit her and then pulled his gun to further restrain her so he could perform the rape. In sum, I am of the view that the restraint used by the appellant far exceeded the restraint normally incident to the crime of rape. Summerlin, 296 Ark. 347, 756 S.W.2d 908. Hays and Corbin, JJ., join this dissent.