Jacksonville Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
The Florida Supreme Court has set forth a three-part test to determine whether a defendant’s conduct amounts to a confinement crime under section 787.01(1)(a)(2) distinct from other criminal charges involving forcible felonies. Delgado v. State, 36 Fla. L. Weekly S220c (2011) (See Faison v. State, 426 So. 2d 963 (Fla. 1983)). Under the Faison Test, “if a taking or confinement is alleged to have been done to facilitate the commission of another crime, to be kidnapping the resulting movement or confinement:
“(a) Must not be slight, inconsequential and merely incidental to the other crime;
(b) Must not be of the kind inherent in the nature of the other crime; and (c) Must have some significance independent of the other crime in that it makes the other crime substantially easier of commission or substantially lessens the risk of detection.”
The Faison Test was “intended to narrow the circumstances under which those defendants convicted of an underlying forcible felony would be automatically convicted of kidnapping; its three-part test was not intended to expand the class of defendants who could be subject to a kidnapping conviction or as a substitute for satisfying the elements of the statute.” Delgado, 36 Fla. L. Weekly S220c.