State v. Carrasquillo

State v. Carrasquillo, 173 Vt. 557, 559, 795 A.2d 1141, 1145 (2002), involved a charge of kidnapping brought against a prison inmate who ordered another inmate to restrain a nurse during an attempt to escape. In Carrasquillo, defendant argued that the restraint of the nurse was not for a substantial period and could not support the kidnapping conviction. The Court held that the two to three minutes involved in these circumstances was sufficient to support the kidnapping conviction. In coming to this conclusion the Court made clear that the issue must be decided by a qualitative analysis of the factors surrounding the confinement. "One is confined for a substantial period if that "confinement is criminally significant in the sense of being more than merely incidental to the underlying crime." Whether a confinement is sufficiently substantial to support a kidnapping conviction depends upon a "qualitative" analysis of the factors surrounding the confinement. Such factors relevant to this analysis include: (1) whether the detention significantly increases the dangerousness or undesirability of the defendant's behavior; (2) whether the detention occurred during the commission of a separate offense; (3) whether the detention created a significant danger to the victim independent of that posed by the separate offense." (Id. at 560-61, 795 A.2d at 1146.) The Court concluded that "restraining or confining someone is not an essential or inherent component of an escape attempt and doing so only increased the level of risk and 'dangerousness' of [defendant's] action." Carrasquillo, 173 Vt. at 561, 795 A.2d at 1146. In affirming the kidnapping conviction, we held that the confinement of the nurse was not incidental to the attempted escape. Id.