{"id":156722,"date":"2025-03-26T00:29:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T00:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/legal\/redefining-kidnapping-in-cardozo-v-u-s\/"},"modified":"2025-03-26T00:29:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T00:29:16","slug":"redefining-kidnapping-in-cardozo-v-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=156722","title":{"rendered":"Redefining kidnapping in Cardozo v. U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The D.C. Court of Appeals has narrowed the definition of <a href=\"https:\/\/koehlerlaw.net\/criminal-defense-dc-kidnapping\/\">kidnapping<\/a> in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Previously, the prosecution was not required to prove that the complainant had been moved any particular distance or held for any particular time.\u00a0 It was only that the complainant had been \u201cheld or detained\u201d for some benefit to the defendant.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This led to what the Court described as an \u201cabsurd\u201d conviction for kidnapping in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dccourts.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2024-05\/Cardozo%20v%20US%2017-CF-07740ALLEDITS.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><em>Sergio Velasquez Cardozo v. United States<\/em><\/a>, __ A.3d. __ (D.C. 2024).\u00a0 \u00a0The defendant was accused of approaching the complainant from behind and groping her breasts and buttocks, interrupting her walk for \u201ca split second,\u201d before she shrugged him off and nearby police officers stepped in to arrest him.ove\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There was no doubt, the Court held, that this was a sexual assault.\u00a0 The question was whether it should also have been kidnapping with its far more serious penalty.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Court held no.\u00a0 Specifically, in an <em>en banc <\/em>decision, it overruled the precedents that held that any momentary seizure against another\u2019s will was a kidnapping.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It held instead that to \u201chold or detain somebody in the context of the District\u2019s kidnapping statute . . . means to detain them for a substantial period of time, so that the perpetrator could fairly be described as holding another captive like a hostage or a prisoner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In other words, the statute would apply to \u201clengthy detentions, not momentary grasps.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Court\u2019s reasoning:\u00a0 \u201cIf every momentary seizure were a kidnapping, that would transform virtually every battery, robbery, and groping into a thirty-year offense, despite legislative determination that those offenses do not merit that degree of punishment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The system should not have to rely on the prosecution\u2019s discretion to exercise restraint in the use of the statute.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Court refused to draw a bright-line rule with respect to what would constitute a \u201csubstantial period of time.\u201d\u00a0 At the same time, for frame of reference, it did state that it doubted detentions of less than thirty minutes would qualify unless there was some evidence that a lengthier detention was intended.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">***<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The opinion references a number of canons of statutory construction.\u00a0 Because those are always helpful, I cite them here for future reference.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIf the plain meaning of statutory language is clear and unambiguous and will not produce an absurd result, we will look no further.\u201d\u00a0 <em>Eaglin v. District of Columbia<\/em>, 123 A.3d 953, 956 (D.C. 2015).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A \u201cnarrow interpretation . . . would be consistent with our usual approach to the construction of criminal statutes.\u201d\u00a0 <em>Williams v. United States<\/em>, 458 U.S. 279, 290 (1982).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe are bound to avoid absurd statutory interpretations.\u00a0 When one possible interpretation would lead to absurd consequences which the legislature could not have intended, we reject it.\u201d\u00a0 <em>Velasquez Cardozo,<\/em> __ A.3d __ (D.C. 2024)(citing <em>James Parreco &amp; Son v. D.C. Rental Hous. Comm\u2019n<\/em>, 567 A.2d 43, 46 (D.C. 1989)(internal quotations omitted).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">***<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sean Hanover represented Velasquez at trial; Matthew Kaplan on appeal.\u00a0 Judge Lynn Leibovitz presided at trial.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The D.C. Court of Appeals has narrowed the definition of kidnapping in Washington, D.C. Previously, the prosecution was not required to prove that the complainant had been moved any particular distance or held for any particular time.\u00a0 It was only that the complainant had been \u201cheld or detained\u201d for some benefit to the defendant.\u00a0 This [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[64636,64635,15679,8134],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-156722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal","tag-cardozo","tag-kidnapping","tag-redefining","tag-u-s"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Redefining kidnapping in Cardozo v. 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