CARJACKING

CARJACKING

The criminal taking of a motor vehicle from its driver by force, violence, or intimidation.

The U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT categorizes
the crime of carjacking as a “completed or
attempted ROBBERY of a motor vehicle by a
stranger to a victim.” Carjacking incidents
emerged in increasing numbers in the 1980s and
1990s, after their initial appearances in Detroit.
According to a report filed with the Bureau of
Justice Statistics in 1999, an average of 49,000
carjackings occurred in the United States each
year between 1992 and 1996. During this time,
about half of all attempted carjackings were successful,
though the most carjackings (84 percent)
did not result in injuries to the victims.
Carjackers are often thought by the public to
target older persons, women, and tourists—
groups of conspicuous vulnerability. However,
statistics from 1992 to 1996 show that individuals
between the ages of 25 and 49 were more
likely to be the victims of such a crime (3.6 out
of every 10,000 persons) than individuals ages
50 or older (0.9 out of every 10,000 persons).
Moreover, males during this time span were
more likely to be victims (3.1 out of every 10,000
persons) than females (1.9 out of every 10,000
persons).
The makes and models of the cars targeted
for carjacking vary from city to city, and it is not
only the expensive, top-of-the-line cars that are
taken but also older and less pricey automobiles.
This may be because carjackings are more
crimes of opportunity than of premeditation.
Carjackers simply wait for an unaware driver, an
open window, or an unlocked door. According
to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report in 1999,
persons with an average annual income of
between $35,000 and $49,999 were more likely
to be victims (3.2 out of every 10,000) than
those who made $50,000 or more per year (2.4
out of every 10,000).
Carjacking was formally introduced to Congress
during its spring 1992 session by Representative
Charles E. Schumer (D-NY). Over the
next several months, a new law involving the
crime was discussed and developed into the
Anti-Car Theft Act of 1992 (18 U.S.C.A. § 2119).
The focus was not entirely on carjacking, but
rather on car theft, which had become the number
one property crime in the United States,
with automobiles constituting more than 50
percent of the property U.S. citizens lost to theft.
In the fall of 1992, Pamela Basu and her 22-
month-old daughter were carjacked in Maryland.
Basu was forced from her car by two men
and, in a struggle to keep her daughter from
being hurt, became caught in the seat belt outside
the car. She was dragged almost two miles
before she was freed from the seat belt; her
daughter, still in her car seat, was thrown from
the vehicle a short time later. Basu died of massive
internal injuries; her daughter was physically
unharmed. The publicity surrounding
this crime helped fuel the movement that led to
the passage of a provision in the Anti-Car Theft
Act of 1992 that made carjacking a federal
offense.
President GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH
signed the act into law on October 25, 1992. The
statute’s provision regarding carjacking was as
follows:
Whoever, possessing a firearm, as defined in
section 921 of this title, takes a motor vehicle
that has been transported, shipped or
received in interstate or foreign commerce
from the person or presence of another by
force and violence or by intimidation, or
attempts to do so, shall—1) be fined under
this title or imprisoned not more than 15
years, or both. 2) If serious bodily injury . . .
results, be fined under this title or be imprisoned
not more than 25 years, or both, and 3)
if death results, be fined under this title or
imprisoned for any number of years up to
life, or both.
Within a few months of its passage, the federal
carjacking statute was challenged under the
DOUBLE JEOPARDY Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
According to the FIFTH AMENDMENT, no
person shall “be subject for the same offence to
be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb,” meaning
that no one can be tried twice for the same
crime. After the carjacking statute was passed,
people who used a firearm during the commission
of a carjacking were not only subject to
punishment under that statute but also faced
mandatory punishment under 18 U.S.C.A. §
924(c), which outlaws the use or carrying of a
firearm in relation to a violent crime. The issue
came to a head in United States v. Singleton, 16
F.3d 1419 (5th Cir. 1994), when the presiding
judge ruled that both the firearm portion of the
carjacking statute and the gun statute proscribed
the same conduct, and Congress had not shown
that it would impose cumulative punishment
under these two statutes. Therefore, the gun
count in the carjacking statute violated the Double
Jeopardy Clause.
Within several months of Singleton, amendments
to the carjacking portion of the Anti-Car
Theft Statute were debated in the House of Representatives
and Senate. The result was a provision
in the VIOLENT CRIME CONTROL AND LAW
ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-
322, 108 Stat. 2119, which was signed by President
BILL CLINTON. The provision made two
significant amendments to 18 U.S.C.A. § 2119.
The first was that a death sentence can be
handed down in cases in which a carjacking victim
is killed. The second was that “possessing a
firearm, as defined under section 921 of this
title” was deleted and replaced with “with the
intent to cause death or serious bodily harm.”
This removed the double jeopardy problem
identified in Singleton.
Although carjacking has been made a federal
crime, several states also have legislation on the
subject. One is Florida, which has a big tourist
industry. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, an
increasing number of tourists, most of them foreign,
were victims of carjackings in Florida.
Because tourists in well-marked rental cars were
common carjacking victims, Florida passed legislation
in 1993 (F.S.A. § 320.0601) that outlawed
company logos and license plates that
made rental and leased cars obvious. Florida’s
legislators felt that tourists warranted this extra
protection for three main reasons. First, tourists
are, more often than not, unfamiliar with the
area and are more likely to become lost or end
up in a high-crime area. Second, tourists often
carry more cash than natives, which makes them
prime robbery targets.And finally, fewer tourists
are likely to return and testify in court about a
crime. By granting tourists the right to drive
unmarked rental cars, Florida made them less
vulnerable to the crime of carjacking.

FURTHER READINGS
Bodette, David C. 2001. “The Sixth Circuit Interprets the
‘Person or Presence’ Requirement of the Federal Carjacking
Statute.” The University of Memphis Law Review
32 (fall): 197–209.
Bureau of Justice Statistics. 1999. Carjackings in the United
States, 1992–96. Available online (accessed October 13, 2003).
Kretzmar, Allan Jon. 1998. “I Would Rather Face a Carjacker
in Court Than Have a Carjacker Come to My Funeral!
The debate over Carjacking, Legislation, and Anti-Theft-
Anti-Carjacking Devices.” University ofWest Los Angeles
Law Review 29 (annual): 291–325.
Michenfelder, Mary C. 1995. “The Federal Carjacking
Statute: To Be or Not to Be? An Analysis of the Propriety of 18 U.S.C. §2119.” Saint Louis University Law Journal
39 (spring).
Norborg, Chris. 2000. “Conditional Intent to Kill is Enough
for Federal Carjacking Conviction.” Journal of Criminal
Law and Criminology 90 (spring): 985.
Rand, Michael R. 1994. Carjacking: National Crime Victimization
Survey. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of
Justice.
Wing, F. Georgann. 1994. “Putting the Brakes on Carjacking
or Accelerating It? The Anti Car Theft Act of 1992.”University
of Richmond Law Review 28 (April).

CROSS-REFERENCES
Automobiles; Double Jeopardy.