## Facts

- A robbery occurred at a White Castle restaurant in Clarksville, Tennessee, on January 8, 2008.
- Police identified Jason Lee White as a suspect after reviewing security video.
- Employee Denise Wright was checking restrooms near closing when White approached from behind, forced her to the floor, kicked her, and ordered her to stay down.
- Using Wright’s keys, White went to the safe and then, at gunpoint, led Wright from the restroom area to the safe so she could open it.
- White took cash and property and left.
- White was indicted for burglary, aggravated robbery, and especially aggravated kidnapping based on his confinement and movement of Wright during the robbery.

## Issues

1. Whether Tennessee kidnapping statutes apply when a victim’s removal or confinement is essentially incidental to an accompanying felony such as robbery.
2. Whether the due-process limit on dual kidnapping/accompanying-felony convictions should be implemented through appellate review independent of the jury verdict, or through a jury instruction requiring a finding that the restraint was more than incidental.
3. Whether White’s especially aggravated kidnapping conviction could stand where the jury was not instructed to determine whether the restraint was essentially incidental to the robbery.

## Decision

- The Tennessee Supreme Court held that the legislature did not intend kidnapping liability where the victim’s removal or confinement is essentially incidental to an accompanying felony.
- The Court reaffirmed the due-process concern that kidnapping cannot be based solely on restraint inherent in the accompanying offense.
- The Court rejected a freestanding appellate “due process” test separate from ordinary sufficiency review and held the incidental-vs.-independent restraint determination is for the jury under proper instructions.
- Because the jury in White’s trial did not receive the required instruction, the especially aggravated kidnapping conviction was vacated and the case remanded for a new trial on that charge with the mandated instruction.

## Legal Principles

- In dual-offense prosecutions (kidnapping plus an accompanying felony such as robbery or rape), a kidnapping conviction requires proof that the victim’s removal or confinement was not essentially incidental to the accompanying felony.
- The incidental-restraint limitation is enforced by a specific jury instruction directing jurors to determine whether the restraint was sufficiently independent to warrant separate punishment.
- Appellate review of the jury’s determination proceeds under the standard sufficiency-of-the-evidence framework, rather than an additional appellate-only due-process inquiry.
- Failure to provide the required instruction in a dual-offense case requires vacatur of the kidnapping conviction and a new trial on that charge.

## Conclusion

The court maintained the rule that incidental restraint inherent in an accompanying felony cannot alone support a kidnapping conviction, but it shifted implementation to the jury through a mandatory instruction and vacated White’s kidnapping conviction because that instruction was not given.


State v. White, 362 S.W.3d 559 (Tenn. 2012)