State v. Butler
Annotate this Case
The Supreme Court reversed the decision of a panel of the court of appeals vacating Defendant's conviction for aggravated kidnapping, thus reaffirming that the three-part test fashioned in State v. Buggs, 547 P.2d 720 (Kan. 1976), to ensure that a defendant is not convicted of two crimes for identical conduct when a person confines someone with the intent to facilitate the commission of another crime, did not apply to circumstances such as those presented in this case.
Under the Buggs test, a kidnapping conviction cannot stand if the confinement was "incidental to" or "inherent in the nature of" the other crime or if the confinement did not make commission of the other crime "substantially easier." The court of appeals concluded that the test applied to kidnappings, like Defendant's, committed with the intent to inflict bodily harm to terrorize a person. The court of appeals panel concluded that, under the Buggs test, insufficient evidence supported Defendant's aggravated kidnapping conviction. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Buggs test did not apply to this case, where Defendant had confined the victim with the intent to inflict bodily harm or terrorize her.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.