Concept

Working Through a Problem

Model Penal Code Kidnapping

Working Through a Problem

Each element of § 212.1 has now been taught on its own, and a problem on the exam asks for all of them at once. The definition joins the elements conjunctively: the actor must unlawfully remove or confine the victim in one of the three qualifying ways, and must do so with one of the listed purposes.¹ Because every element is required, the absence of any one means there is no kidnapping under the section, and the conduct falls to a lesser offense. That structure is the reason to analyze the elements separately. A frightening seizure is vivid and tempts a reader to treat the whole offense as proved, but a strong showing on one element cannot stand in for a missing one, such as a missing listed purpose. Taking the elements one at a time makes each of them earn its place on the facts.

Exam Analysis Steps

The order below follows the way the section is built, with the elements that establish the offense first and the grade last, because a grade has meaning only once a kidnapping exists. The steps are these:

Ask whether the movement or confinement qualifies, meaning a removal from the victim's residence or business, a removal a substantial distance from where the victim was found, or a confinement for a substantial period in a place of isolation.
Ask whether the means made the removal or confinement unlawful, which for most victims requires force, threat, or deception, and for a victim under 14 or an incompetent victim is satisfied by the absence of consent from a parent, guardian, or other person responsible for the victim's supervision.
Ask whether the actor acted with one of the four listed purposes: holding the victim for ransom or reward or as a shield or hostage, facilitating a felony or flight after it, inflicting bodily injury on or terrorizing the victim or another, or interfering with a governmental or political function.
Grade the offense as a felony of the first degree, or as a felony of the second degree if the actor voluntarily released the victim alive and in a safe place before trial.

The first three steps decide whether a kidnapping exists at all, so a stem that fails any of them ends the § 212.1 analysis at that step.² The fourth step assumes a completed offense and fixes only its grade, which is why a release, however generous, never repairs a gap in the earlier steps.

Hypothetical Illustration

At dawn an armed man orders a bank manager out of her home and into his car, telling her he will shoot if she refuses. He drives her to the bank and makes her open the vault so he can rob it.

Step one is met because the removal came from her place of residence. Step two is met because the threat of the gun accomplished the removal. Step three is met because he moved her to facilitate a felony, the robbery. At step four the facts show no release by the man, so the offense is a felony of the first degree. Had he later released her voluntarily, alive and in a safe place, before trial, the grade would drop to second degree.

Now change one fact. The bank manager is a secret partner in the plot and leaves with the man willingly, and the rest of the morning unfolds as before. Step one still describes a removal from a residence, and step three is still satisfied by the robbery. At step two, however, no force, threat, or deception was used, so the removal is not unlawful. There is no kidnapping, and step four never arises.

Two features of the first version are worth isolating. Step one was satisfied through the victim's residence, and the text attaches the "substantial distance" language only to the second route, so the length of the drive never entered the analysis.³ Step three was satisfied by purpose (b) because the robbery is a felony the man moved her to facilitate, and that felony is a different offense from the kidnapping itself. Each step was answered by a specific fact in the stem, and each answer had to come out the right way before the next question mattered.

The second version removed the offense by changing a single fact, the manager's real consent, while the movement, the purpose, and the planned robbery stayed exactly as they were. That result follows from the definition of unlawful: for an adult victim, a removal is unlawful only if it is accomplished by force, threat, or deception.⁴ A removal that the victim joins willingly involves none of the three, so the trip can look identical on a map and still fail step two. Consent produced by the actor's own trickery would not help the actor, because deception is itself one of the unlawful means, which is why the changed fact specifies that the manager's agreement is genuine. The man may still face liability for the robbery and for other offenses, since those rest on their own elements, but § 212.1 is not among them.

The trap in this problem type is letting a strong showing on one element carry the others. The secret-partner version still contains a dawn departure, a vault, and a robbery plan, details that feel like kidnapping even though the one fact that matters, the absence of force, threat, or deception, defeats the charge. The habit that avoids the trap is to attach a specific fact from the stem to each step and to stop at the first step that has no supporting fact. A grade that sounds right at step four cannot repair a gap at step one, two, or three, because the grade is reached only after the offense is established.

Working Through a Problem

Endnotes5