Best Criminal Defense Lawyers in Springfield, VA

Until recently, it was not necessary in a kidnapping case for the complainant to have been moved any particular distance or to have been held for any particular length of time. In fact, in a recent case, the defendant was convicted of kidnapping after a jury found that he “approached a woman from behind on a public sidewalk and groped her breasts and buttocks over the clothing, interrupting her walk for a ‘split second,’ before she shrugged him off and nearby police officers intervened.” This led to the D.C. Court of Appeals’ en banc decision in Sergio Velasquez Cardozo v. United States, __ A.3d __ (D.C. 2024) in which the Court substantially narrowed the scope of the offense. Specifically, the Court concluded that “to hold or detain” a person means to “detain them for a substantial period of time, so that the perpetrator could fairly be described as holding another captive like a hostage or a prisoner.”...