State v. Evans

243 P.2d 975, 72 Idaho 458, 1952 Ida. LEXIS 193
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedApril 29, 1952
Docket7867
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 243 P.2d 975 (State v. Evans) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Evans, 243 P.2d 975, 72 Idaho 458, 1952 Ida. LEXIS 193 (Idaho 1952).

Opinion

THOMAS, Justice.

The defendant was charged with, prosecuted for, and convicted of the crime of kidnapping in the second degree, under subd. 1 of Sec. 18-4501, I.C., based upon an indictment of the grand jury.

The defendant appeals from such conviction and assigns as errors the failure of the trial court to sustain his timely objection to the introduction of any evidence, the refusal of the court to grant defendant’s motion in arrest of judgment, and giving of certain instructions. These assignments present but one question and all relate to the matter of whether or not it was necessary to allege in the indictment and prove at the trial that the defendant secretly kept and detained the complaining witness against her will.

The charging part of the indictment is set forth in the following language:

*461 “The said J. C. Evans on or about the 1st day of October, 1951, did then and there wilfully, knowingly, unlawfully, intentionally and feloniously siese, 'confine, inveigle, and kidnap one Joan McCarrel with intent to cause her without authority of law to be kept and detained against her will”.

The provisions of Sec. 18-4501, subd. 1, I.C., defining kidnapping in the second degree, so far as relevant here, was last .amended in 1919 and reads as follows:

“Every person who wilfully:
“1. Seizes, confines, inveigles or kidnaps another, with intent to cause him, without authority of law, to be secretly confined or imprisoned within this state, or to be sent out of this state, or in any way held to service or kept or detained against his will; or,
«2 * * *
“3. * * *, is guilty of kidnapping.”

It is the contention of the defendant that the indictment does not allege the public offense of kidnapping in the second degree in the absence of an allegation that the person was secretly kept and detained, but, at most, alleges false imprisonment. In support of such contention appellant cites and relies principally on the cases of People v. Camp, 139 N.Y. 87, 34 N.E. 755, decided in 1893, and State v. Olsen, 76 Utah 181, 289 P. 92, decided in 1930. On the other hand, the state asserts that the information sufficiently charges and the evidence supports the conviction of the crime of kidnapping in the second degree, and that it is not necessary to set forth in the indictment and prove that the act of seizing, confining and inveigling or kidnapping was committed with the intent that such person be secretly kept or detained. The state cites and relies principally on Ex parte McDonald, 50 Mont. 348, 146 P. 942, decided 1915; State v. Taylor, 70 N.D. 201, 293 N.W. 219, decided 1940, and State v. Croatt, 227 Minn. 185, 34 N.W.2d 716, decided 1948, to support its position.

In all five states the statutes involved are almost identical with the statutes in Idaho. The statute was first enacted in New York. The Montana statute was enacted in 1895 and appears to have been adopted from the statute of New York. The Utah statute appears to have been adopted from the Montana statute in 1917 and was first construed as to this matter in 1930 in the case of State v. Olsen, supra. Both the New York statute and the Montana statute, but not the Utah statute, had been construed before the present Idaho statute was enacted.

It is the contention of appellant that if it be charged in the indictment and proven at the trial that the defendant kept and detained another rather than secretly kept and detained another, the indictment charges and the proof sustains, at most, a conviction of false imprisonment; that there must be a distinction between the crime of false imprisonment and kidnapping, and *462 that the element of “secrecy” supplies this distinction.

At common law kidnapping consisted'of the forcible abduction or stealing or carrying away of a person from his own country to another; the common law definition has been greatly extended, enlarged, and broadened by statute 51 C.J.S., Kidnapping, § 1, p. 431. The crime, both under the common law and by statute, embraces all the elements of false imprisonment. 2 Bishop on Criminal Law, 9th Ed., Sec. 750 ; People v. Camp, supra.

Secrecy is not an element of the crime of kidnapping under the common law; it is not an element of the statutory offense of seizing a person with intent to keep or detain him against his will unless the statute so expressly provides. Ex parte McDonald, supra; State v. Taylor, supra; State v. Croatt, supra; 51 C.J.S., § 1, sub-sec. 7, Kidnapping, p. 437 ; 68 A.L.R., 720; 21 Am.Jur., Sec. 12, p. 816.

The question actually decided m the case of People v. Camp, supra, by the New York court was whether or not, in order to sustain a conviction under the statute, it must be made to appear that the imprisonment or confinement was secretly done. There it was held that it must so appear; however, the clause of our statute, similar to a like clause of the New York statute, Pen.Code, § 211, providing for one of the four alternative methods of committing the offense of second degree kidnapping, that is, by keeping or detaining a person against his will and without authority of law, was not considered by the New York court and the case of People v. Camp is not in point in support of the contention herein asserted by the appellant; the question for determination in the New York case was not whether or not secrecy was an essential element of every one of the four acts denounced under subdivision 1 of the statute, but whether it was an essential element under the first act denounced thereunder, that is, confining or imprisoning another within the state; that secrecy is such an essential element under the first act denounced cannot seriously be questioned under the Act of any of the states, because it is expressly provided for therein.

In the case of Ex parte McDonald, supra, the charging part of the information was, for all practical purposes, identical to the charging part of the indictment in the instant case and the particular question there for consideration was whether or not secrecy was an essential element of the crime of kidnapping accomplished by keeping and detaining a person without authority of law and against his will; there, as. here, it was contended by ■ the defendant that the information did not set forth sufficient facts to constitute a public offense under the statute, Rev.Code 1907, § 8306, for the reason that it did not charge the defendant with having secretly kept and detained the person, but simply alleged that the defendant kept and detained such per *463 son. The Supreme Court of Montana concluded that the word “secretly” modifies only the words “confined or imprisoned”, and that each clause is separated by the disjunctive “or”, and that each and all of them are complete within themselves and that whether the act of kidnapping be accomplished by sending another out of the state, or holding one for service, or keeping or detaining one, be done secretly or openly, the offense is completed.

The Supreme Court of Utah, in the case of State v.

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Bluebook (online)
243 P.2d 975, 72 Idaho 458, 1952 Ida. LEXIS 193, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-evans-idaho-1952.