The Slight Movement Test

In Garza v. State, the Georgia Supreme Court overruled those cases endorsing the "slight movement test," id. at 702 (1), and adopted a test assessing four factors in determining whether the movement at issue constitutes asportation: (1) the duration of the movement; (2) whether the movement occurred during the commission of a separate offense; (3) whether such movement was an inherent part of that separate offense; (4) whether the movement itself presented a significant danger to the victim independent of the danger posed by the separate offense. Id. The test was to help decide whether the movement was of the kind that the kidnapping statute was intended to address, i.e., movement that substantially isolated the victim from protection or rescue, or merely a "'criminologically insignificant circumstance' attendant to some other crime. Garza, supra, 284 Ga. at 702." Brower v. State, 298 Ga. App. 699, 707 (2) (680 SE2d 859) (2009). After Garza, the legislature amended the kidnapping statute to provide that slight movement is sufficient to prove kidnapping as long as the movement was not incidental to another offense, and further defined what actions would not be incidental to another offense.