U.S. v. Acevedo, 77 M.J. 185

Core Criminal Law Subjects: Crimes: Article 134 -- Kidnapping Pre-2019 offenses

1. the elements of the offense of kidnapping are: (1) that the accused seized, confined, inveigled, decoyed, or carried away a certain person; (2) that the accused then held such person against that person’s will; (3) that the accused did so willfully and wrongfully; and (4) that, under the circumstances, the conduct of the accused was to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces or was of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces
2. for kidnapping, the term inveigle means to lure, lead astray, or entice by false representations or other deceitful means; as such, a person who entices another to ride in a car with a false promise to take the person to a certain destination has inveigled the passenger into the car
3. for kidnapping, the term holding against that person’s will means the victim was held involuntarily; the involuntary nature of the detention may result from force, mental or physical coercion, or from other means, including false representations; furthermore, evidence of the availability or nonavailability to the victim of means of exit or escape is relevant to the voluntariness of the detention, as is evidence of threats or force, or lack thereof, by the accused to detain the victim
4. for kidnapping, the term willfully means that the accused must have specifically intended to hold the victim against his or her will, and an accidental detention will not suffice; the intent can be shown by circumstantial evidence
5. a prosecution for kidnapping under the theory that appellant willfully and wrongfully inveigled the victim and held her against her will was legally sufficient where the victim was inveigled by appellant into entering a taxi under the false representation that she was being taken to base, where appellant’s threat of disciplinary action against the victim, who only recently had entered the service and was significantly lower in rank than appellant, mentally coerced her into staying in the taxi against her will, and where appellant specifically intended to hold the victim against her will through mental coercion by (1) separating the victim from her boyfriend, who was also her ride home, (2) not asking the victim if he could share the taxi with her, (3) giving the taxi driver his home address after he was previously adamant that the victim needed to return to base, (4) pulling the victim close during the taxi ride and holding her hand, and (5) not talking to the victim during the duration of the trip

Trial Stages: Appeals: Standards of Review, Burdens, etc.

1. an appellate court reviews challenges to the legal sufficiency of the evidence de novo; the standard for determining the legal sufficiency of evidence supporting a guilty verdict is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt; in applying this test, all inferences and credibility determinations must be drawn in favor of the prosecution