Pinning a robbery victim to the ground for 30 minutes, holding a gun to his head and threatening to kill him if he tries to get away sufficiently constitutes a separate crime of kidnapping and isn’t just incidental to the crime of robbery, the state Supreme Court said in an opinion issued Thursday.
The state’s high court reinstated kidnapping convictions for Daylan E. Berg and Jeffrey S. Reed. The two Portland men were arrested in 2009 for robbing the owner of a medical-marijuana grow house in the Vancouver Heights and then shooting Vancouver police Sgt. Jay Alie after Alie pulled over their fleeing vehicle.
Alie was shot in the chest, but the bullet lodged in his protective vest. He sustained only minor injuries.
In June 2010, a Clark County jury convicted Berg and Reed of first-degree attempted murder, first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary, first-degree kidnapping and intimidating a witness. Three of the charges came with five-year firearm enhancements, and Clark County Superior Court Judge Robert Lewis had the flexibility to go beyond state sentencing guidelines because one of the victims was a law enforcement officer.
Lewis sentenced each defendant to 62 years, four months in prison.
The Court of Appeals later threw out the kidnapping convictions, concluding that holding the property owner at gunpoint was incidental to the robbery and not a separate crime.
The property owner was licensed to grow and use medical marijuana.
On April 15, 2009, Berg and Reed broke into the back door of the man’s garage while the man was watering his plants.
While Berg restrained him, Reed took the man’s wallet and phone and ripped up his plants.
Alie, among the officers who responded to the scene, pulled over the suspects’ vehicle and was shot by Berg.
Chief Justice Barbara Madsen wrote in Thursday’s opinion that Reed instructed Berg to hold down the property owner, and Berg complied and held the man at gunpoint for approximately 30 minutes.
Both men, she wrote, threatened to kill the property owner if he contacted police.
“This proof of restraint by threat of death was sufficient for a jury to conclude an abduction occurred,” Madsen wrote.
According to the Department of Corrections, Berg, now 28, is at the Clallam Bay Corrections Center while Reed, now 32, is at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.
