A legal Blog explained it this way before the case was decided.
Sorry about the bad cut and paste job.

The Nevada kidnapping statute is Nev. Rev. Stat.

Ann. 200.310 and reads that:

1. A person who willfully
seizes, confines, inveigles, entices, decoys,
abducts, conceals, kidnaps or carries away a
person by any means whatsoever with the intent
to hold or detain, or who holds or detains, the
person for ransom, or reward, or for the purpose
of committing sexual assault, extortion or
robbery upon or from the person, or for the
purpose of killing the person or inflicting
substantial bodily harm upon him, or to exact
from relatives, friends, or any other person any
money or valuable thing for the return or
disposition of the kidnaped person, and
a person who leads, takes, entices, or carries
away or detains any minor with the intent to
keep, imprison, or confine him from his
parents, guardians, or any other person having
lawful custody of the minor, or with the intent
to hold the minor to unlawful service, or
perpetrate upon the person of the minor any
unlawful act is guilty of kidnaping in the first
degree which is a category A felony.

2. A person who willfully and without
authority of law seizes, inveigles, takes,
carries away or kidnaps another person with the
intent to keep the person secretly imprisoned
within the state, or for the purpose of
conveying the person out of the state without
authority of law, or in any manner held to
service or detained against his will, is guilty
of kidnaping in the second degree which is a
category B felony.


Although the statute does not say it, Nevada law--like most jurisdictions in the United States--imposes the additional element of "asportation" to the crime of kidnapping. Asportation means that the victim must be confined in a bounded area and then moved. Almost any amount of movement will suffice, but it usually must be movement outside the bounded area.


Two recent Nevada cases are good examples of asportation.


In Pasqua v. Nevada, 2006 Nev. LEXIS 115 (2006), 3 defendants entered the victim's apartment to rob him of a casino sports book ticket worth $44,000. The robbery started in the kitchen. When the victim denied that he had the ticket, defendants hit him over the head and dragged him in his bedroom. The movement from the kitchen to the bedroom satisfied the asportation requirement. In fact, defendant did not even raise the issue directly on appeal.

In Wright v. Nevada, 1978 Nev. LEXIS 580 (1978), the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the life sentence of Eddie Dean Wright. With 2 accomplices, Wright robbed a Las Vegas motel. In the course of the robbery, Wright moved 3 hotel employees from one year to another. Asportation satisfied.

Nevada law is further complicated by its consideration of kidnapping in conjunction with robbery or other crimes. Both Pasqua and Wright concerned kidnappings associated with robberies.

The general rule on how to handle this issue is stated in Mendoza v. Nevada, 2006 Nev. LEXIS 30 (2006). The Mendoza Court presented this jury instruction:


In order for you to find the defendant guilty of both first-degree kidnapping (or second-degree kidnapping) and an associated offense of robbery, you must also find beyond a reasonable doubt either:

(1) That any movement of the victim was not incidental to the robbery;

(2) That any incidental movement of the victim substantially increased the risk of harm to the victim over and above that necessarily present in the robbery;

(3) That any incidental movement of the victim substantially exceeded that required to complete the robbery;

(4) That the victim was physically restrained and such restraint substantially increased the risk of harm to the victim; or

(5) The movement or restraint had an independent purpose or significance.

"Physically restrained" includes but is not limited to tying, binding, or taping.

How does all of this play out in Simpson's case? Well, the facts developed to date are that Simpson and his gang went into the room and confined the occupants in a bounded area. Orders were issued to the effect that no one was allowed to leave the room. Asportation requirement #1 completed. But did Simpson move the victims sufficiently to satisfy the movement requirement?

The evidence on this issue is that he ordered them up against the wall in the same room. There was no movement from room to room.

The questions arising under Mendoza are:

1. Was the movement of the victims incidental to the robbery or did it have an independent purpose or significance?

Karen and I believe that it was only incidental to the robbery.

2. Did the movement of the victims substantially increased the risk of harm to the victim over and above that necessarily present in the robbery?

Again, we believe that the answer is no.

3. Did the movement of the victims substantially exceed that required to complete the robbery?

Again, no.

All of this adds up, in our view, to a weak kidnapping charge. And, we should add, we did not find any Nevada case when the asportation occurred in the same room as the kidnapping.

__________________
People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.
James A. Baldwin