Tennessee Criminal Lawyer Blog

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.

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Kidnappings seem to be increasingly dominating the national headlines, partly due to the fact that kidnapping is a serious crime that often has devastating effects, but also partly due to the fact that the kidnappings themselves are usually carried out in a bizarre manner. One bizarre kidnapping case from Tennessee has recently found a prominent place on the national news scene.

A baby in Nashville was kidnapped after a lady posed as an immigration official to gain entrance into the mother’s home, stabbed the mother several times, and fled with the baby. Remarkably, the baby was found a few days later and is alive and well. Apparently, immigrant families are frequent targets for such ploys, because the attackers feel that immigrants are less likely to report the kidnappings to the police since they may be illegal immigrants themselves. According to the linked article, the perpetrators of such kidnappings are often women who have faked a pregnancy in order to salvage a relationship or for some other reason and then have to find a way to acquire a baby in order to maintain the façade. This may seem like a good idea to someone who feels like they are in a desperate situation, but kidnapping in Tennessee is met with serious consequences.

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