State v. Richardson

• Decision Date: 07 May 2008
• Docket Number: No. M2005-01161-SC-R11-CD,M2005-01161-SC-R11-CD
• Citation: 251 S.W.3d 438
• Parties: STATE of Tennessee v. Antonio D. RICHARDSON.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

251 S.W.3d 438

STATE of Tennessee v. Antonio D. RICHARDSON.

No. M2005-01161-SC-R11-CD

Supreme Court of Tennessee, at Jackson.

October 3, 2007 Session.

May 7, 2008.

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General; C. Daniel Lins, Assistant Attorney General; and Pamela Sue Anderson, Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellant, State of Tennessee.

Ross Alderman, Public Defender, and Emma Rae Tennent, J. Michael Engle, and Graham Prichard, Assistant Public Defenders, Nashville, TN, for the appellee, Antonio D. Richardson.

OPINION

JANICE M. HOLDER, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which WILLIAM M. BARKER, C.J., and CORNELIA A. CLARK, and WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., JJ., joined. GARY R. WADE, J., not participating.

The defendant, Antonio Richardson, was convicted of two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, one count of felony reckless endangerment, one count of aggravated assault, and one count of burglary. In addition, the defendant pleaded guilty to attempted especially aggravated robbery. The Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that the kidnappings were essentially incidental to the attempted especially aggravated robbery and therefore the kidnapping convictions violated due process under the principles stated in State v. Anthony. We reverse the intermediate appellate court and reinstate the convictions.

Facts

Allison Howell ("Howell") and Johnnie Lucas ("Lucas") were managers at a Calhoun's restaurant in Nashville. Antonio Richardson ("Richardson") was a line cook for the restaurant. On January 12, 2003, both managers were on duty. Richardson finished his shift and watched football games in the restaurant from mid-afternoon until late in the evening. At some point that evening, Richardson went into the bathroom and waited for the restaurant to close. After the restaurant closed for the night, Lucas went upstairs to the manager's office located directly above the kitchen and deposited the night's receipts in the office safe. Shortly thereafter, Richardson, wearing a ski mask and white latex gloves, emerged from an employees' bathroom under the stairway. He moved past two kitchen employees, grabbed Howell, put a gun to her head, and pushed her up the stairs toward the manager's office.¹ He asked Howell who was in the office, and Howell replied that Lucas was there. Richardson took Howell past the office door to a partially caged area in the stock room. He struck Howell in the head with the gun, injuring her and causing her to fall to the floor.

Richardson went to the office door and knocked on it. When Lucas opened the door, Richardson pointed his gun at her and pushed her to the floor. Richardson asked her where the money was, and Lucas replied that she had already put it in the safe. Richardson dragged Lucas to the safe and demanded that she open it. Lucas testified that the safe was very old and difficult to open. While Lucas attempted unsuccessfully to open the safe, Richardson struck her repeatedly with a metal three-hole punch. Lucas sustained injuries to her head and hand from the beating. At some point, Richardson asked Lucas for the combination to the safe, which Lucas provided. When Lucas continued to fail in her attempts to open the safe, Richardson threatened to shoot her. Richardson then straddled Lucas as she lay on the floor, striking her repeatedly with the gun. Howell testified that she could hear Richardson beating Lucas for approximately twenty minutes.

While Richardson and Lucas were in the office, Richardson's accomplice² went to the stock room and bound Howell's hands behind her with duct tape. Later, the accomplice returned to the stock room and asked Howell for the safe combination. He returned to the manager's office with that information.

Richardson dragged Lucas by her hair to the "fan room," a little-used room through which the exhaust fans are vented. There, he struck Lucas in the face with the gun, severing her right optic nerve and causing the loss of her eye. Before leaving, Richardson threatened to kill Lucas if she moved. Richardson and his accomplice were apparently unable to open the safe and left the restaurant without obtaining any money.

Lucas left the fan room and found Howell lying in the caged area of the stock room. Lucas helped Howell stand and assisted in removing the duct tape from her hands. They briefly returned to their prior positions after hearing a noise. After a short time, Howell and Lucas ran to the unoccupied office and locked the door. They called 911 and hid under the desk to wait for the police.

When the police arrived, they found Richardson hiding in the bushes outside the restaurant. He was covered in blood. The police also found a ski mask, a bloody white latex glove, and a bloody gun with a broken grip in the bushes where Richardson was found. Richardson admitted to being involved in the robbery. Richardson told the police that he struck Howell to knock her out and prevent her from calling the police. He also stated that his accomplice struck Lucas in the fan room "to shut her up." The accomplice was never found.

Richardson pleaded guilty to the charge of attempted especially aggravated robbery. A jury convicted him of the burglary of the restaurant and the especially aggravated kidnappings of Lucas and Howell. Richardson was convicted of reckless endangerment and aggravated assault of the two employees located in the kitchen when he targeted Howell. Only the especially aggravated kidnapping convictions are at issue on appeal.

The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the convictions for the especially aggravated kidnappings of Lucas and Howell, holding that the kidnappings were essentially incidental to the attempted especially aggravated robbery and therefore the kidnapping convictions violated the due process principles announced in State v. Anthony, 817 S.W.2d 299 (Tenn.1991).³ We granted the State's application for permission to appeal.

Analysis

Anthony

We begin our review with a discussion of State v. Anthony. In State v. Anthony and State v. Martin, this Court heard consolidated appeals to address whether a kidnapping conviction, separate from an accompanying offense, would violate due process. Both defendants in the consolidated cases were convicted of aggravated kidnapping and armed robbery. In Anthony, the defendant entered a restaurant and ordered two employees at gunpoint to an office, while his accomplice detained three other employees at dumpsters outside the restaurant. The defendant demanded that the employees in the office open the safe. When the employees informed the defendant that the safe was in a different part of the restaurant, he instructed one of the employees to remain in the office. The defendant and the second employee went to the location of the safe where the defendant was successful in obtaining money. He then encountered a third employee inside and instructed him to return to the restroom from which he had emerged. The defendant and his accomplice fled. The entire episode lasted approximately five minutes. In Martin, the defendant entered an insurance agency and robbed two people at gunpoint. He ordered the two individuals into a bathroom and left the building with approximately two hundred dollars he had obtained. The episode took about four minutes.

We held that due process principles, specifically article I, section 8 of the Tennessee Constitution, require us to determine "whether the confinement, movement, or detention is essentially incidental to the accompanying felony ... or whether it is significant enough, in and of itself, to warrant independent prosecution." Anthony, 817 S.W.2d at 306. We determined that the convictions for aggravated kidnapping were "essentially incidental" to the robberies and thus violated due process. We held that the kidnappings were "essentially incidental" based upon the following factors: (1) the removal or confinement did not substantially increase the risk of harm to the victims; (2) the victims' movement was slight; (3) the confinement was brief; and (4) the victims were not harmed. Id. at 307.

Our holding in Anthony was prompted by amendments to the kidnapping statutes that no longer require the common law elements once necessary to a conviction for kidnapping. In 1990, the General Assembly amended the kidnapping statute to more broadly define kidnapping as "false imprisonment ... [u]nder circumstances exposing the other person to substantial risk of bodily injury." Act of Apr. 30, 1990, 1990 Tenn. Pub. Acts ch. 982, § 1 (codified as amended at Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-303(a) (2006)). False imprisonment is to "knowingly remove[] or confine[] another unlawfully so as to interfere substantially with the other's liberty." Tenn.Code Ann. § 39-13-302(a) (2006). This definition of false imprisonment codifies the common law and "broadly addresses any situation where there is an interference with another's liberty." Id. § 39-13-302, Sentencing Comm'n Cmts.⁴

Anthony recognized that the modern definition of kidnapping "could literally overrun" crimes such as robbery and rape because detention and confinement against the will of the victim necessarily accompany these crimes. 817 S.W.2d at 303 (quoting People v. Levy, 15 N.Y.2d 159, 256 N.Y.S.2d 793, 204 N.E.2d 842, 844 (1965)). We noted that a victim is commonly confined "briefly at gunpoint," "bound and detained," or "moved into and left in another room or place." Id. (quoting Levy, 256 N.Y.S.2d 793, 204 N.E.2d at 844). The legislature did not intend, however, "that every robbery should also constitute kidnapping, even though a literal reading of the statute might suggest otherwise." Id. at 306.

Whether a separate kidnapping conviction violates due process is a question of law to be determined initially by a trial court. State v. Cozart, 54 S.W.3d 242, 247 (Tenn.2001). We review the trial court's determination de novo with no presumption of correctness. See ...