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No Period of Confinement is Too Small for Kidnapping Charge

By Baker Associates

When most people think of the crime of kidnapping, they envision someone being abducted from their home and taken to some remote location and held for ransom. In the real world, however, kidnapping scenarios often don't play out that way and Tennessee law allows for kidnapping to be charged when the period of confinement is as short as a few seconds. In Tennessee, kidnapping is defined as knowingly removing or confining another person unlawfully so as to interfere substantially with that person's liberty (this is the definition of the offense of false imprisonment) under circumstances that expose that person to substantial risk of bodily injury (this additional element is what turns false imprisonment into kidnapping). It is noteworthy then, that there is no duration requirement whatsoever and that Tennessee courts have not read one into the statute as of yet...continue to full post

Full post as published by Tennessee Criminal Lawyer Blog on August 30, 2010 (boomark / email).