RICHARD EARL WALKER, PETITIONER,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, RESPONDENT

Fla. | 1992-08-27
No. 78759
BARKETT, C.J., and OVERTON, McDonald, SHAW, KOGAN and HARDING, JJ., concur.
604 So. 2d 475 Florida Supreme Court (1992) Caution
Cited by 71 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Synopsis

The Florida Supreme Court reviewed a case where a defendant was convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping. The court clarified the legal standard for kidnapping convictions when they occur during another felony, holding that the movement of victims within a store during a robbery was too slight to constitute kidnapping.


Holding

No, the movement of the victims within the store was slight, inconsequential, and merely incidental to the commission of the armed robbery, and therefore did not meet the legal standard for kidnapping.


Headnotes

[1] A defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of the State's case is not waived by the subsequent introduction of evidence if the motion is renewed at the c…

[2] Movement or confinement during the commission of another felony is insufficient to justify an additional conviction for kidnapping if the movement or confinement is sligh…

Previewing 2 of 5 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Key Quotes

“Because a literal construction of the kidnapping statute would convert almost every forcible felony into kidnapping, this Court has adopted a three-prong test to determine whether movement or confinement during the commission of another felony is sufficient to justify an additional conviction for kidnapping.”

Establishes the legal framework for analyzing kidnapping charges when they occur during another felony.

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

Richard Walker entered a convenience store, robbed a customer and the register, and ordered the four occupants to move to the back of the store. Three…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
GRIMES, Justice.

GRIMES, Justice.

We have for review Walker v. State, 585 So. 2d 1107 (Fla. 2d DCA 1991), because of direct conflict with Kirtsey v. State, 511 So. 2d 744 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987). We have jurisdiction under article V, section 3(b)(3) of the Florida Constitution.

Walker was convicted of two counts of armed robbery, three counts of kidnapping with a weapon, and one count of kidnapping. On appeal, Walker contended that the evidence was insufficient to support the convictions of kidnapping. The district court disagreed and affirmed the convictions, relying on our decisions in Ferguson v. State, 533 So. 2d 763 (Fla.1988), and Faison v. State, 426 So. 2d 963 (Fla.1983). The court held that in light of Walker’s admissions, whether the movement of the victims was of such a degree as to constitute kidnapping became a factual question.

At approximately 9:30 p.m., Walker entered a convenience store. After taking money from the cash register and from a customer, Walker ordered all four of the occupants of the store to go to the back of the store and lie on the floor. Three individuals moved a distance of thirty to forty feet but did not lie down. The fourth individual moved a distance of ten feet after Walker threatened to shoot him. Walker immediately left the store, and the clerk locked the door to the store and called the police.

At the close of the State’s case, Walker’s motion for judgment of acquittal was denied. In his defense, Walker testified that he instructed the occupants to move to the rear of the store in order to make his escape and reduce the risk of getting caught. After the defense rested, a renewed motion for judgment of acquittal was again denied.

At the outset, we note that the district court of appeal’s reliance on Walker’s testimony was error. This Court has ruled that a defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of the State’s case is not waived by the defendant’s subsequent introduction of evidence if the motion is renewed at the close of all the evidence. State v. Pennington, 534 So. 2d 393 (Fla.1988). Thus, we must decide whether the evidence presented during the State’s case was legally sufficient to support the convictions of kidnapping.

Because a literal construction of the kidnapping statute would convert almost every forcible felony into kidnapping, this Court has adopted a three-prong test to determine whether movement or confinement during the commission of another felony is sufficient to justify an additional conviction for kidnapping. Faison v. State, 426 So. 2d 963, 965-66 (Fla.1983). According to Faison, for a kidnapping conviction to stand, the resulting movement or confinement (a) must not be slight, inconsequential, and merely incidental to the other offense; (b) must not be of the kind inherent in the nature of the other offense; and (c) must have some significance independent of the other offense in that it makes the other offense substantially easier to commit or substantially lessens the risk of detection.

In Kirtsey, the defendant and a confederate forced their way into a restaurant as two employees were closing. One of the employees was tied up while the other was forced to open the safe and threatened with a gun. The movement and confinement of both employees were limited to the interior of the restaurant. The Third District Court of Appeal acknowledged that the acts were not inherent in the offense of robbery and arguably may have made the attempted robbery easier to commit. However, in reversing Kirtsey’s kidnapping convictions, the court held that the acts were slight and merely incidental to the robbery. At least with respect to the employee who was not tied up, the pertinent facts of Kirtsey are virtually the same as those in the instant case.

We do not believe that the facts of this case fulfill the first prong of the Faison analysis. The limited movement and confinement of the four occupants within the interior of the store were not significant. See Jackson v. State, 436 So. 2d 1101 (Fla. 4th DCA 1983). Unlike in Faison, the victims were not dragged from room to room. They were not bound and blindfolded for half an hour as in Marsh v. State, 546 So. 2d 33 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989). They were not barricaded inside the bathroom like in Johnson v. State, 509 So. 2d 1237 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987), nor were they taken out of the store and put in the restroom located in the rear as in Ferguson. Further, the facts relied upon to support the kidnapping occurred within a matter of seconds.

Because the movement and confinement were slight, inconsequential, and merely incidental to the robberies, Walker cannot be convicted of kidnapping. We quash the decision below to the extent that it affirmed the kidnapping convictions and remand with directions that they be vacated.

It is so ordered.

BARKETT, C.J., and OVERTON, McDonald, SHAW, KOGAN and HARDING, JJ., concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By (33 total)

  • Germaine Berry v. State, 668 So. 2d 967 (Fla. 1996)
    …nd moving the employee about the interior of the store and forcing another employee to open the safe by threatening that employee with a gun. The court held that the confinement and movement were incidental to the robbery. Later, in Walker v. State, 604 So. 2d 475 (Fla.1992), we reversed a kidnapping conviction where the defendant and another had moved several employees to the back of the store and ordered them to lie down on the floor during the course of the robbery. We concluded that, as in Kirtsey, the mo…
  • Black v. State, 630 So. 2d 609 (Fla. 1st DCA 1993)
    …so, it is apparent that since the robbery had already been effectuated, the movement and confinement had “some significance independent of’ the robbery. Faison, 426 So. 2d at 966. We believe the instant case is distinguishable from Walker v. State, 604 So. 2d 475 (Fla.1992), because of the distance trav-elled and locale where the store employees in the instant case were left. In Walker, an armed robber ordered the four occupants of the store to go to the back of the store and lie down; three of the occupants…
  • Desmond Rohan v. State, 696 So. 2d 901 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997)
    …long with other crimes, courts have applied the Faison test to avoid a literal interpretation of the two statutes that would “convert almost every forcible felony” into an additional crime. Berry v. State, 668 So. 2d 967 (Fla.1996); Walker v. State, 604 So. 2d 475, 477 (Fla.1992); see State v. Lindsey, 446 So. 2d 1074 (Fla.1984)(supreme court cited Faison in holding that false imprisonment was separate from robbery); Perez v. State, 566 So. 2d 881 (Fla. 3d DCA 1990)(applies Faison to false imprisonment); Kell…

Previewing 3 of 33 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw