Review the case example given in . Change the facts so that after fifty miles of driving, Shawna asks Thomas to pull over and let her out. Thomas pulls over but thereafter locks all the doors and refuses to let Shawna out for twenty minutes, in spite of her begging and pleading for him to unlock the doors. In this case, Thomas might have committed false imprisonment. Although Shawna’s entrance into Thomas’s vehicle was consensual, when Thomas confined Shawna to his vehicle by locking the doors, he deprived her of her liberty against her will. Thomas did not move Shawna without her consent because he pulled over and stopped the vehicle at her request. However, asportation is not required for false imprisonment. Although Thomas’s actions do not indicate specific intent or purposely to injure Shawna, commit a separate offense, or seek ransom, often general intent or knowingly to commit the criminal act is sufficient for false imprisonment. Thus these facts indicate the lower-level crime of false imprisonment rather than kidnapping, and Thomas may be charged with and convicted of this offense.
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