## Facts

- Jason Kroesen and Ron Groves were visiting friends of Groves, along with Carrie Weinmiller.
- During the afternoon, Kroesen, Groves, and Weinmiller ingested cocaine and marijuana.
- That evening, after returning from a bar, Groves received a telephone call that Kroesen believed was from Kroesen’s former girlfriend.
- Groves testified that when he tried to explain the call was not from Kroesen’s ex-girlfriend, Kroesen pulled a knife and forced Groves downstairs to check the caller-identification machine.
- Groves and Weinmiller testified that Kroesen then forced them back upstairs at knifepoint while threatening them.
- A struggle followed, and Kroesen stabbed Groves multiple times, causing wounds that required many stitches.
- Weinmiller’s account largely matched Groves’s description of the knife threats, movement, and stabbing.
- Kroesen claimed he became paranoid after using cocaine and, based on what he overheard during the call and what he had heard about neighborhood crime, believed Groves was about to rob him.
- A jury convicted Kroesen of felonious assault and kidnapping. At trial, Kroesen requested jury instructions on abduction and unlawful restraint; the trial court refused.

## Issues

1. Did the trial court err by refusing to instruct the jury on abduction (R.C. 2905.02) and unlawful restraint (R.C. 2905.03) as lesser offenses (or inferior-degree alternatives) to kidnapping (R.C. 2905.01)?
2. Was the evidence sufficient to support kidnapping, or was the restraint or movement merely incidental to the felonious assault?

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed the convictions and sentence.
- Abduction and unlawful restraint did not qualify as lesser-included offenses of kidnapping under Ohio’s Deem analysis, but they may function as offenses of inferior degree to kidnapping.
- The trial court properly refused to instruct on abduction and unlawful restraint because the evidence did not reasonably allow a jury to acquit on kidnapping while convicting on only the inferior-degree offenses.
- The evidence was sufficient to support kidnapping; the knife threats and forced movement and confinement (downstairs and back upstairs) supported the kidnapping elements and were not limited to the minimal restraint associated with the stabbing.

## Legal Principles

- Under Ohio law, an offense is a lesser-included offense only if it satisfies the Deem test, including that the greater offense cannot be committed without also committing the lesser.
- Even when an offense is not a lesser-included offense under Deem, it may be an “offense of inferior degree” when it describes similar conduct but includes mitigating or reducing elements compared to the charged offense.
- A defendant is entitled to an instruction on a lesser-included or inferior-degree offense only when the evidence would reasonably support both (a) an acquittal on the greater offense and (b) a conviction on the lesser or inferior-degree offense.
- On a sufficiency challenge, the question is whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational factfinder could find the essential elements proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Kidnapping may be supported by restraint or movement that is substantial and meaningfully separate from the force used to commit an assault, such as confinement, forced relocation, or threats that increase the victim’s risk and reflect a purpose to terrorize or to cause serious physical harm.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Kroesen’s kidnapping and felonious assault convictions because abduction and unlawful restraint were treated as inferior-degree offenses rather than true lesser-included offenses, and the trial evidence did not provide a reasonable basis for finding only a reduced restraint offense while rejecting kidnapping; the testimony about threats with a knife, forced movement to the caller-ID machine, and continued confinement before the stabbing also supplied legally sufficient proof of kidnapping separate from the assault.


State v. Kroesen, 2000 WL 1715764 (2000)