Vacendak v. State

340 N.E.2d 352, 264 Ind. 101, 1976 Ind. LEXIS 438
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 22, 1976
Docket674S121
StatusPublished
Cited by81 cases

This text of 340 N.E.2d 352 (Vacendak v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Vacendak v. State, 340 N.E.2d 352, 264 Ind. 101, 1976 Ind. LEXIS 438 (Ind. 1976).

Opinion

Arterburn, J.

The Appellant, Michael Vacendak, was convicted on November 14, 1973, of kidnapping one Brenda Burkland of Hammond, Indiana. Testimony at trial revealed that the two first met in October, 1972, at a restaurant near the high school in which the prosecutrix was enrolled. Between October, 1972, and January, 1973, they met numerous times at the school, at the restaurant, at the Appellant’s place of employment, and on several occasions in the prose-cutrix’s home. The visits to the Burkland home were not known to or approved by the parents of the prosecutrix. The prosecutrix testified that there was nothing romantic between *103 them and that when they met they generally discussed the parental problems they each had.

Between the first of the year and July 15, 1973, they did not see each other. On that latter day, a neighbor informed the prosecutrix that the appellant wished to see her. Because her parents were home and because she had to leave for work, she told her neighbor to tell the Appellant to meet her as she walked to work.

The prosecutrix was to be at work at 4:00 p.m. She left her house at about 3:50 p.m. and began walking the three or four blocks to the store in which she clerked. The Appellant suddenly appeared out of some bushes along the sidewalk. After some casual conversation, he offered to give her a ride to work. Since she was running late, she accepted. They got into a two-door sedan driven by a friend of the Appellant, John King. King was referred to as “Chuck” throughout the following events.

The prosecutrix rode in the rear seat, the Appellant and King in the front. When the car reached the corner across from the store in which the prosecutrix worked, the Appellant refused to let her out of the car. According to the prosecutrix’s testimony,

“. . . I said well, I would walk from here and he said your — you are not going to work you are going with me on a little vacation or you may just go for the rest of your life. ... You are not going to work you are going to call off and you are going to Bloomington.”

The prosecutrix demanded to be let out of the car. King slowed down and asked the Appellant if he wanted to go through with it. The Appellant replied, “Never mind, just keep going.”

They drove to the toll road a few blocks away and proceeded to Bloomington. The prosecutrix made no attempt to attract attention of the toll booth attendant. She testified that she did kick and cry hysterically during the trip. The Appellant admitted saying “I should have brought a club, it would *104 have made it a lot easier.” No attempt to flee was made since the Appellant and King blocked the only two doors of the car.

The Appellant and King drank beer during the trip. There was testimony that all three stopped at a rest stop along the way to use the restroom facilities. The prosecutrix denied making this stop. She did say that they stopped at a self-service station just outside Bloomington, where King relieved himself. The Appellant, however, stayed in the car with the prosecutrix.

The prosecutrix was taken to a large house in the countryside in Monroe County. Later that night the Appellant had sexual intercourse with her, allegedly a rape. Just before daybreak, she left the house while King and the Appellant slept. She was picked' up by one Steve Dowling, who took her to the house of a friend from which she called her parents.

I.

The Appellant’s first challenges are constitutional in nature. Challenged are the mandatory penalty of life imprisonment provided by Indiana’s kidnapping statute, Ind. Code §35-1-55-1 (Burns 1975), and the breadth of that statute as it defines the crime of kidnapping.

Four grounds are asserted for the unconstitutionality of the life sentence imposed for kidnapping: that the sentence is disproportionate to the nature of the Appellant’s acts; that it is disproportionate to the punishment of other crimes in this state; that it is disproportionate to the punishment of the same crime in other states; that the' kidnapping is arbitrarily enforced and its mandatory penalty is thus unconstitutionally arbitrary.

The first three of these grounds are essentially based upon the prohibition of “cruel and unusual” punishment contained in the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 16 of the Constitution of the State of Indiana. That section of our State Constitution expressly *105 provides that “penalties shall be proportioned to the nature of the offense.” Article 3, Section 16 thus specifically provides for proportionality of a crime to a punishment, something the words “cruel and unusual” alone have been interpreted to include in our federal constitution. See Weems v. United States, (1910) 217 U.S. 349, 30 S.Ct. 544, 54 L.Ed 793.

This court has upheld the sentence of life imprisonment for the crime of kidnapping in the face of cruel and unusual-proportionality challenges. Beard v. State, (1975) 262 Ind. 643, 323 N.E.2d 216; Cox v. State, (1931) 203 Ind. 544, 177 N.E. 898, rehearing denied, (1932) 181 N.E. 469. The arguments presented here do not merit a different result.

The record reveals that this crime was carried out by at least an implied threat of violence. The asportation covered a great distance and was separated from the subsequent alleged rape by a period of hours. The nature of the particular acts involved with this crime are thus not as innocuous as the Appellant would have us believe. The severity of punishment compared to other crimes can be explained by the degree to which the legislature has deplored this crime. See the discussion of kidnapping in Cox v. State, supra. While it is true that only three states mandate life imprisonment for simple kidnapping, this is a potential sentence in a number of other states, and sentences of twenty-five or more years are possible in still more. The Appellant’s claim of arbitrariness merely couches his other arguments in different terms and does not acquire merit by its different label.

The determination of appropriate penalties for crimes committed in this State is a function properly exercised by the legislature. Rowe v. State, (1974) 262 Ind. 250, 314 N.E.2d 745; Lowe v. State, (1973) 260 Ind. 610, 298 N.E.2d 421. The Judiciary will disturb such a determination only upon a showing of clear constitutional infirmity. We do not find such here.

*106 The Appellant also asserts that the kidnapping statute is overbroad. The Appellant contends that the only crime committed here, if any, is that of rape.

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Bluebook (online)
340 N.E.2d 352, 264 Ind. 101, 1976 Ind. LEXIS 438, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vacendak-v-state-ind-1976.