Crimes against Property, People, and Public Order - Term Paper Example

nt in the case of kidnapping is that there should be a movement of the victim, the distance being immaterial although the laws have tired to distinguish kidnapping with other kinds of criminal acts like rape, assault or robbery wherein a certain degree of movement is also perceptible. Next, coming to the classification of this crime, it is indeed a crime against a person, or people, because what is being done in the case of kidnapping is the forceful movement of a person from one place to another, against his or her free will or consent.

The crime is against the person and not against property or public order, although these aspects could also form additional facets of kidnapping. However, in most cases, kidnapping is seen as a crime against a person. In the People v. Chessman case, the question of kidnapping is highlighted. Caryl Chessman was a noted criminal with a major track record and had spent most of his adult life in jail. At that time, under Californian Little Lindbergh laws, any crime that also involved kidnapping with physical harm was considered a capital offense and warranted the death penalty.

One of his crimes relates to dragging a young girl a short distance from her car. The courts felt that this movement of a short distance was enough to invoke kidnapping laws and thus made Chessman liable for the death penalty. “The jury verdicted that one of the kidnapping counts included bodily harm of the victim. Under Californias "Little Lindbergh" law passed in 1933, in cases involving kidnapping with bodily harm the sentence was either life in prison without possibility of parole or death.

The jury did not recommend mercy, so death in the gas chamber was the automatic sentence for Chessman” (Chessman 1958). Next, it is necessary to come to the aspect of first degree murder. This involves the deliberate and planned snuffing out of the life of another person with wicked intentions. The mens rea of first degree murder is premeditated and calculated