False imprisonment is the unlawful violation of the personal liberty of another.
In my EEOC discrimination case, I complained of false imprisonment. As this is not protected in Title VII, nor covered under ADA, you may never see it on the EEOC website, nor see it in the final outcomes of my case. It is still important to show duress, emotional suffering, and can be used in a final award. There is direct evidence as to my claim.
PENAL CODE
SECTION 236-237
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=236-237 236. False imprisonment is the unlawful violation of the personal liberty of another. 236.1. (a) Any person who deprives or violates the personal liberty of another with the intent to effect or maintain a felony violation of Section 266, 266h, 266i, 267, 311.4, or 518, or to obtain forced labor or services, is guilty of human trafficking. (b) Except as provided in subdivision (c), a violation of this section is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for three, four, or five years. (c) A violation of this section where the victim of the trafficking was under 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the offense is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for four, six, or eight years. (d) (1) For purposes of this section, unlawful deprivation or violation of the personal liberty of another includes substantial and sustained restriction of another's liberty accomplished through fraud, deceit, coercion, violence, duress, menace, or threat of unlawful injury to the victim or to another person, under circumstances where the person receiving or apprehending the threat reasonably believes that it is likely that the person making the threat would carry it out. (2) Duress includes knowingly destroying, concealing, removing, confiscating, or possessing any actual or purported passport or immigration document of the victim. (e) For purposes of this section, "forced labor or services" means labor or services that are performed or provided by a person and are obtained or maintained through force, fraud, or coercion, or equivalent conduct that would reasonably overbear the will of the person. (f) The Legislature finds that the definition of human trafficking in this section is equivalent to the federal definition of a severe form of trafficking found in Section 7102(8) of Title 22 of the United States Code. (g) (1) In addition to the penalty specified in subdivision (c), any person who commits human trafficking involving a commercial sex act where the victim of the human trafficking was under 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the offense shall be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000). (2) As used in this subdivision, "commercial sex act" means any sexual conduct on account of which anything of value is given or received by any person. (h) Every fine imposed and collected pursuant to this section shall be deposited in the Victim-Witness Assistance Fund to be available for appropriation to fund services for victims of human trafficking. At least 50 percent of the fines collected and deposited pursuant to this section shall be granted to community-based organizations that serve victims of human trafficking. 236.2. Law enforcement agencies shall use due diligence to identify all victims of human trafficking, regardless of the citizenship of the person. When a peace officer comes into contact with a person who has been deprived of his or her personal liberty, a person suspected of violating subdivision (a) or (b) of Section 647, or a victim of a crime of domestic violence or rape, the peace officer shall consider whether the following indicators of human trafficking are present: (a) Signs of trauma, fatigue, injury, or other evidence of poor care. (b) The person is withdrawn, afraid to talk, or his or her communication is censored by another person. (c) The person does not have freedom of movement. (d) The person lives and works in one place. (e) The person owes a debt to his or her employer. (f) Security measures are used to control who has contact with the person. (g) The person does not have control over his or her own government-issued identification or over his or her worker immigration documents. 236.3. Upon conviction of a violation of Section 236.1, if real property is used to facilitate the commission of the offense, the procedures for determining whether the property constitutes a nuisance and the remedies imposed therefor as provided in Article 2 (commencing with Section 11225) of Chapter 3 of Title 1 of Part 4 shall apply. 236.5. (a) Within 15 business days of the first encounter with a victim of human trafficking, as defined by Section 236.1, law enforcement agencies shall provide brief letters that satisfy the following Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) endorsement regulations as found in paragraph (1) of subdivision (f) of Section 214.11 of Title 8 of the Code of Federal Regulations. (b) The LEA must be submitted on Supplement B, Declaration of Law Enforcement Officer for Victim of Trafficking in Persons, of Form I-914. The LEA endorsement must be filled out completely in accordance with the instructions contained on the form and must attach the results of any name or database inquiry performed. In order to provide persuasive evidence, the LEA endorsement must contain a description of the victimization upon which the application is based, including the dates the trafficking in persons and victimization occurred, and be signed by a supervising official responsible for the investigation or prosecution of trafficking in persons. The LEA endorsement must address whether the victim had been recruited, harbored, transported, provided, or obtained specifically for either labor or services, or for the purposes of a commercial sex act. (c) Where state law enforcement agencies find the grant of a LEA endorsement to be inappropriate for a victim of trafficking in persons, the agency shall within 15 days provide the victim with a letter explaining the grounds of the denial of the LEA. The victim may submit additional evidence to the law enforcement agency, which must reconsider the denial of the LEA within one week of the receipt of additional evidence. 237. (a) False imprisonment is punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment in the county jail for not more than one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment. If the false imprisonment be effected by violence, menace, fraud, or deceit, it shall be punishable by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170. (b) False imprisonment of an elder or dependent adult by use of violence, menace, fraud, or deceit shall be punishable as described in subdivision (f) of Section 368.
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The violation of another's personal liberty can consist of any type of confinement in the broadest sense of that term. Examples include detaining a person in a room, on the street, a moving vehicle, or even forcing a person to move from one place to another. And if this offense sounds similar to Penal Code 207 PC California's kidnapping law , (discussed below in Section 4. Related Offenses) that's because it is. In fact, false imprisonment is a lesser included offense of kidnapping, which means that you cannot commit the crime of kidnapping without also committing the crime of false imprisonment.8
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1.1. Restrained, confined, or detained Courts have held that "any exercise of force, express or implied, by which the other person is deprived of his liberty or is compelled to remain where he does not wish to remain, or to go where he does not wish to go, is an imprisonment."9 As Ventura criminal defense lawyer John Murray10 explains, "If the alleged victim's personal freedom of movement is limited, it isn't necessary that you actually confine him/her in an enclosed space.11 If you restrict another person's movement in any way or cause him to make any involuntary movements, you potentially violate California's false imprisonment law." 1.2. Consent If the alleged victim consents to the detention, restraint, or confinement, you are not guilty of false imprisonment. A person "consents" when he/she "acts freely and voluntary knowing the nature of the act."12 It therefore follows that a person cannot consent to detention, restraint, or confinement if he/she is induced by coercion or deception (and is therefore unaware of the nature of the act). Likewise, if the alleged victim is incapable of consenting, either because he/she suffers from mental illness or is a minor (people under 18 are unable to give legal consent), you may still be guilty of this offense even if the alleged victim "willingly" participates in the act.13
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