• Robbery & Moving a Victim a short distance
• Simple Kidnapping 
• Aggravated Kidnapping

Moving a victim short distances around his house during a robbery doesn’t meet the definition of “substantial distance” required to prove a simple kidnapping.

In a San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department case, the defendant and two others (Crips gang members) committed a home invasion robbery. The defendant and co-principals burst into the home at gunpoint, forced the victim to go upstairs to open a safe, where rifles, jewelry, and camera equipment were located, then go back downstairs while they continued to ransack the house and attempted to start a vehicle in the garage. The victim was tied to a chair in the kitchen and pistol-whipped. The defendant and co-principals left with the firearms, cash, jewelry, a potted cannabis plant, and jar of cannabis seeds.  

The defendant was convicted of multiple counts and sentenced to 15 years to life. On appeal, his argument was that the victim was not moved a “substantial distance” for the purpose of simple kidnapping, 207 P.C. 

The 4DCA ruled, with one dissent, that the forced movement of the victim was an insufficient distance for the “asportation element” of kidnapping. The movement around the premises was “relatively short” and done for the purpose of committing a robbery. 

Kidnapping is defined as “carrying someone away into another part of the county.” Any “asportation element” involved was done for the purposes of committing a robbery. Slight or trivial movement within a building to facilitate the commission of another crime doesn’t involve “substantial distance.” 

The defendant’s kidnapping conviction was overturned.