State v. Chapman
| Decision Date | 26 June 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 15284,15284 |
| Citation | 108 Idaho 841,702 P.2d 879 |
| Parties | STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John Reynolds CHAPMAN, Defendant-Respondent. |
| Court | Idaho Court of Appeals |
Jim Jones, Atty. Gen., Lynn E. Thomas, Sol. Gen., A. Rene Fitzpatrick, Deputy Atty. Gen., Boise, for plaintiff-appellant.
Gar Hackney, Boise, for defendant-respondent.
Before BAKES, Acting C.J., and McFADDEN and TOWLES, Acting JJ., Special Panel.
Defendant was charged with second degree kidnapping, a violation of I.C. § 18-4501(2). The district court dismissed the action based upon a legal interpretation of the statute and lack of jurisdiction. We reverse.
Defendant's wife filed for divorce and was awarded temporary custody of their five year old daughter on April 30, 1982. Defendant was present at the temporary custody hearing and was represented by legal counsel. On the afternoon of May 7, prior to the final divorce decree and award of permanent custody to the wife, defendant picked the child up at her day care center according to his weekend visitation rights. The next day defendant and the child flew out of the country to eventually arrive at London, England. Defendant failed to return the child to school on Monday morning, May 10, 1982, as required by the temporary custody order.
The final divorce decree and award of permanent custody was entered on July 2, 1982.
For more than a year defendant repeatedly called the mother refusing to reveal his whereabouts and further refusing to let the mother talk to the child except on one occasion. Under threats of never allowing the mother to see the child again, defendant attempted to have the mother reconcile the marriage, drop the criminal charges, pay certain debts for the storage of his property, move out of the State of Idaho, and transfer legal custody to him. With the aid of private investigators and law enforcement authorities, the mother was able to locate the defendant. The mother conceded to certain demands and feigned compliance with others so that defendant and the child eventually returned to the United States where he was immediately arrested for kidnapping in a New York airport, and physical custody of the child was returned to the mother.
The district court stated that "the objective facts of this case present one of the most outrageous acts of child-napping by one parent over another that this court has been privy to...." Nevertheless, the district court dismissed the charge, holding that a violation of the kidnapping statute, I.C. § 18-4501, could not be charged against a parent for the violation of a temporary custody order and that, in any event, the district court was without jurisdiction to prosecute the defendant since he was not in Idaho on May 10, the day when the child should have been returned to school, or July 2, the date of the permanent custody award, the violation of which, in the district court's opinion, could support a kidnapping charge. We reverse.
The case of State v. Cochran, 96 Idaho 862, 538 P.2d 791 (1975), is distinguishable from the present case and therefore not controlling. In Cochran, a mother was convicted of kidnapping after taking her children on a Christmas vacation trip to Montana and failing to return the children on the designated date to the state agency which had been awarded temporary custody. On appeal the conviction was reversed for lack of jurisdiction. There was insufficient evidence in Cochran to establish that any essential element of the alleged kidnapping crime occurred in Idaho, and therefore the jurisdiction did not exist in the State of Idaho to try the case. However, in the present case there was substantial evidence produced by testimony at the preliminary hearing and made in an offer of proof to the district court that the...
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State v. Doyle
...occurred in Kootenai County, Idaho, jurisdiction did not exist in the State of Idaho to try this case."); State v. Chapman, 108 Idaho 841, 843, 702 P.2d 879, 881 (Ct.App.1985) ("Where the element of intent to keep or conceal the child was committed within Idaho, the defendant may be charged......
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...criminal contempt of court. We affirm both the principal appeal and the cross-appeal. This case was on appeal in State v. Chapman, 108 Idaho 841, 702 P.2d 879 (Ct.App.1985). As therein indicated, the then wife of Chapman initiated divorce proceedings in early 1982, and obtained an order awa......
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