Definition
The carrying away of property from one place to another. Asportation is a required element of common law larceny: a taking alone does not complete the offense unless the property is also moved, however slightly, from its original position. The movement need not be substantial — courts have consistently held that any removal from the place where the goods were found satisfies the element.
In the law of kidnapping, asportation refers to the movement of a person from one location to another, distinct from the initial seizure or confinement.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "The illegal movement of goods or carrying away of a person."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "The felonious removal of goods from the place where they were deposited."
Both common definitions track the legal meaning closely, but they overstate it in one critical respect: the legal definition does not require the movement to be substantial or to reach a different "place" in any commonsense geographic sense. A single inch of movement has been held sufficient for larceny at common law. Researchers relying on ordinary intuitions about "carrying away" will miss this fine point entirely.
Common Confusion
Asportation is sometimes confused with the taking element (caption) of larceny, but the two are analytically distinct. Caption is the initial seizure or assumption of dominion over the property. Asportation is the subsequent carrying away. Both must be proven separately at common law. In modern statutory theft offenses, many jurisdictions have collapsed this distinction, but historical sources treat them as independent elements. See also CAPTION.
Asportation in kidnapping law carries a different doctrinal weight than in larceny. In kidnapping, courts have developed a substantiality requirement — asking whether the movement was merely incidental to another crime or constituted independent criminal conduct — that has no parallel in larceny's minimal movement rule. Conflating the kidnapping and larceny uses of the term produces analytic error.
Core Elements
In larceny, asportation requires:
1. Physical movement of the property — any movement, however slight, from the position where it rested
2. Movement accomplished by the defendant (or a co-principal acting in concert)
3. Movement occurring without the owner's consent
The classic formulation from Blackstone (4 Bl. Comm. 231), cited in every major historical dictionary entry, states that a bare removal from the place where goods are found is sufficient. The goods need not leave the premises, the room, or even the owner's presence.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in historical larceny materials must keep the caption/asportation distinction front of mind because it drove a significant body of case law now largely invisible in modern statutory sources. Disputes over whether a defendant had "carried away" or merely touched and repositioned goods generated detailed judicial analysis that shaped later theft doctrine.
The minimal movement rule is itself a research trap. When historical sources say "a bare removal is sufficient," they mean it literally — but the outer edge of what counts as movement was litigated extensively. Cases involving goods picked up and immediately set down, items lifted from shelves and dropped, or packages shifted within a locked space all tested the doctrine. Modern theft statutes that consolidate larceny, embezzlement, and false pretenses into a single "theft" offense often eliminate asportation as a distinct pleading requirement, making the term largely irrelevant for modern statutory research while remaining essential for any historical common law analysis.
In kidnapping research, asportation's role has evolved significantly across the twentieth century. Many state courts developed a meaningful asportation requirement to distinguish kidnapping from incidental movement during robbery or assault. The Model Penal Code approach and subsequent state legislative revisions modified this in varied directions. Researchers comparing pre- and post-MPC kidnapping law must treat asportation as a term of art whose substantive content changed materially around mid-century.
Corpus researchers should note that Latin case tags — cepit et asportavit ("he took and carried away") — appear frequently in older pleading records and are the procedural signature of this element in historical indictments.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are in close agreement on the core definition and its larceny context. All four sources anchor asportation to 4 Blackstone's Commentaries 231, treating it as the authoritative foundation. Burrill is the most precise, noting that asportation is one of the "circumstances requisite to constitute the offence of larceny" — implicitly acknowledging that it is one element among several rather than sufficient on its own. Anderson adds the most practical gloss, supplying the Latin pleading formula cepit et asportavit and explicitly stating the minimal movement rule. Black's (2nd ed.) provides the only case citations among the historical sources.
What the historical dictionaries miss: none address asportation in the kidnapping context, reflecting the fact that kidnapping's asportation doctrine is largely a twentieth-century development. Researchers should not assume the kidnapping use of the term has any historical dictionary support — it does not in these sources.
Jurisdictional Note
Modern statutory theft offenses in most U.S. jurisdictions have eliminated asportation as a separately pleaded element, subsuming it into a broader "unlawful taking or exercise of control" standard. Asportation retains independent significance in jurisdictions that preserve common law larceny or in states whose theft statutes explicitly require carrying away. In kidnapping law, jurisdictional variation is pronounced: some states retain a robust asportation requirement, others have reduced or eliminated it by statute.