KIDNAPPING

In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority. This may be done for ransom or in furtherance of another crime, or in connection with a child custody dispute. When it is done with legal authority, it is often called arrest or imprisonment.

In some countries such as the United States a large number of child abductions arise after separation or divorce when one parent wishes to keep a child against the will of the other or against a court order. In these cases, some jurisdictionsdo not consider it kidnapping if the child, being competent, agrees.

False imprisonment is a restraint of a person in a bounded area without justification or consent. False imprisonment is a common-law felony and a tort. It applies to private as well as governmental detention. When it comes to public police, the proving of false imprisonment is sufficient to obtain a writ of habeas corpus.

Imprisonment is a legal term. It refers to the restraint of a person's liberty.

The book Termes de la Ley contains the following definition:

Imprisonment is no other thing than the restraint of a man's liberty, whether it be in the open field, or in the stocks, or in the cage in the streets or in a man's own house, as well as in the common gaols; and in all the places the party so restrained is said to be a prisoner so long as he hath not his liberty freely to go at all times to all places whither he will without bail or mainprise or otherwise.

The following are false imprisonment scenarios.

1) The taking hostage of a bank's customers and employees by bank robbers.

2) The detention of a customer by a business owner (e.g., hotel operator, apartment owner, credit card company) for the failure to pay a bill.

3) Certain situations arising from controversial legislation, like California's Assembly Bill 1421, Laura's Law.

4) A robber in a home invasion ties hostage up and takes them to a separate room.

Under United States law, the police have the right to detain someone if they have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, and that the person is so involved, or if the officer has reasonable suspicion that the person has been, is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity based on specific and articulable facts and inferences.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 882