{"id":512,"date":"2026-05-04T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/california.shuster.info\/?p=512"},"modified":"2026-05-05T01:58:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T01:58:01","slug":"people-v-berch-felony-false-imprisonment-menace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/california.shuster.info\/?p=512","title":{"rendered":"People v. Berch \u2014 2nd District Holds Felony False Imprisonment by Menace Doesn’t Require Force Greater Than Restraint"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Case<\/dt>\n
People v. Berch<\/dd>\n
Court<\/dt>\n
2nd District Court of Appeal<\/dd>\n
Date Decided<\/dt>\n
2026-05-04<\/dd>\n
Docket No.<\/dt>\n
B339641<\/dd>\n
Status<\/dt>\n
Reported \/ Citable<\/dd>\n
Topics<\/dt>\n
felony false imprisonment, menace, domestic violence, jury instructions, great bodily injury enhancement<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Background<\/h2>\n

Brad Zack Berch and his estranged wife J. went for a drive in his pickup truck on California 101 in Santa Barbara County. Berch became enraged, drove erratically at high speeds, and ignored her repeated requests to be let out. He missed several exits to her home, drove toward an isolated dark road, and finally stopped near an elementary school. When J. opened the door to get out, Berch said "I’ll let you out when I get you to the house," called her sexually-charged epithets, then accelerated and made a sharp left turn. The door swung open and J. flew out onto the pavement, suffering a compression fracture of the vertebra, abrasions, bruises, and a hematoma.<\/p>\n

Berch had a documented history of domestic abuse against J., including pushing her, forcing her into rooms, preventing her from getting up, and slamming her head into the ground. A jury convicted him of false imprisonment by violence or menace under Penal Code section 236 and 237(a), and found true a great-bodily-injury enhancement involving domestic violence under section 12022.7(e). The trial court placed him on supervised probation including 210 days in county jail.<\/p>\n

On appeal, Berch argued the trial court’s instruction on "menace" was wrong because it didn’t tell the jury that the threatened force had to exceed what was necessary to effectuate the restraint. He also challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, asserted ineffective assistance of counsel for not requesting a mistake-of-fact instruction, and challenged the great-bodily-injury instruction.<\/p>\n

The Court’s Holding<\/h2>\n

In the published portion of its opinion, the Second District held that felony false imprisonment based on menace<\/em> \u2014 a threat of harm \u2014 does not require proof that the threatened force exceeded what was necessary to restrain the victim. The court drew a distinction between false imprisonment by force<\/em> and by menace<\/em>: when restraint is achieved through actual physical force, the "greater than necessary" element guards against treating ordinary detentions (a parent grabbing a child’s arm, for example) as felony imprisonment. But when restraint is achieved through a threat of injury, the menace itself supplies the criminal character, and asking whether the threat was "greater than necessary" doesn’t make doctrinal sense.<\/p>\n

Applied here, Berch’s words and conduct \u2014 refusing to let J. out, calling her abusive names, threatening her safety, and accelerating dangerously while she tried to exit \u2014 constituted menace. The court rejected Berch’s other claims in the unpublished portion of its opinion, finding the evidence sufficient, the great-bodily-injury instruction proper, and counsel not ineffective for failing to request a mistake-of-fact instruction. Conviction affirmed.<\/p>\n

Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n