Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-09-03044/USCOURTS-caDC-09-03044-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Everett M. Purvis
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 5, 2012 Decided February 12, 2013

No. 09-3044

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

EVERETT M. PURVIS, ALSO KNOWN AS MAN-MAN,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:08-cr-00245-1)

Sandra G. Roland, Assistant Federal Public Defender,

argued the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs was A.J.

Kramer, Federal Public Defender. Neil H. Jaffee and Lisa B.

Wright, Assistant Federal Public Defenders, entered

appearances. 

James A. Petkun, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause

for appellee. With him on the brief were Ronald C. Machen Jr.,

U.S. Attorney, and Roy W. McLeese III, Matthew P. Cohen, and

Courtney Denise Spivey, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Elizabeth

Trosman, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance.

Before: ROGERS and GARLAND, Circuit Judges, and

RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge.

USCA Case #09-3044 Document #1419952 Filed: 02/12/2013 Page 1 of 11
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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.

GARLAND, Circuit Judge: Everett Purvis appeals his

convictions for assault with a dangerous weapon, possession of

a firearm during dangerous offenses, and being a felon in

possession of a firearm. Purvis appeals on the ground that the

district court improperly instructed the jury with respect to his

claim of self-defense. We affirm the judgment of the district

court. 

I

On May 14, 2008, a gunfight broke out in front of an

apartment building in the Anacostia neighborhood of

Washington, D.C. Appellant Everett Purvis was one of the

shooters; the other was Phillip Blake. Although neither man

was hit, a witness to the confrontation was injured when a stray

bullet shattered a window and grazed her face. Purvis was

subsequently indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of

assault with intent to kill while armed, in violation of D.C. Code

§§ 22-401 and 22-4502; one count of assault with a dangerous

weapon, in violation of D.C. Code § 22-402; three counts of

possession of a firearm during a crime of violence or dangerous

offense, in violation of D.C. Code § 22-4504(b); and one count

of possession of a firearm and ammunition by a person

previously convicted of a felony, in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§ 922(g)(1). 

At trial, Blake testified that Purvis walked over to him,

accused him of being a government snitch, and pointed a gun at

his head. Trial Tr. 89-90 (Feb. 3, 2009 p.m.). When Purvis told

Blake he was going to kill him, Blake began backing away. Id.

at 90-91. When Blake turned around to run, Purvis started

shooting at him. Id. at 91. “[T]hat’s when I managed to get my

gun from my pocket,” Blake said, “and I shot at him . . . , behind

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my back while I was running.” Id. at 92. The injured witness

gave testimony corroborating this account; she, too, said that

Purvis had called Blake a snitch and then fired the first shot. 

Trial Tr. 31-32, 37-38 (Feb. 4, 2009 p.m.).

Purvis also testified. According to his testimony, it was

Blake who initiated a verbal confrontation and the resulting

shootout. Trial Tr. 104-07 (Feb. 4, 2009 p.m.). Purvis testified

that Blake approached him and “said something -- he was like,

after -- I can’t remember exactly what he said.” Id. at 104. 

After a couple of minutes of argument, Purvis said, Blake

“walk[ed] off and like when he got a distance, he just turned

around and started firing.” Id. at 107. Purvis testified that he

then grabbed a gun from a friend and started shooting back at

Blake in self-defense. Id. at 108-09.

The district court instructed the jury that self-defense could

be a defense to a number of the charges against Purvis.1

 And it

told the jury the following with respect to Purvis’ claim of selfdefense:

Mr. Purvis is not required to prove that he acted in selfdefense. Where evidence of self-defense is present, the

government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that

1

The court instructed that self-defense could be a defense to the

D.C. Code offenses of assault with intent to kill while armed, assault

with a dangerous weapon (a lesser included offense), and possession

of a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence or

dangerous offense. Trial Tr. 27 (Feb. 9, 2009 a.m.). It also instructed

that self-defense could be a defense to the federal offense of

possession of a firearm or ammunition by a person previously

convicted of a felony, but only “if you find that the defendant came

into possession of a firearm or ammunition during the actual exercise

of actual self-defense.” Id. at 26.

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the defendant did not act in self-defense. If the

government has failed to do so, you must find the

defendant not guilty of the applicable offense.

There has been testimony both that Phillip Blake was

the aggressor and that the defendant was the aggressor. 

You must first determine from the evidence whether,

in fact, the defendant was the aggressor. If you find

that the defendant was the aggressor or if he provoked

the conflict himself, he cannot rely upon the right of

self-defense to justify his use of force.

Trial Tr. 27-28 (Feb. 9, 2009 a.m.).

After a five-day trial, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on

two lesser included offenses of assault with a dangerous

weapon, as well as on three possession counts. On April 30,

2009, the district court sentenced Purvis to consecutive 63-

month and 48-month terms of imprisonment. Purvis challenges

the district court’s judgment on the single ground that its selfdefense instruction erroneously diluted the government’s burden

of proof.

II

Purvis did not object to the self-defense instruction in the

district court. To the contrary, his trial counsel pronounced

himself “satisfied” with the instruction. Trial Tr. 40 (Feb. 6,

2009 a.m.). Accordingly, we review his claim only for plain

error. United States v. Simpson, 430 F.3d 1177, 1183 (D.C. Cir.

2005). Under that standard: “‘[T]here must be (1) error, (2) that

is plain, and (3) that affect[s] substantial rights. If all three

conditions are met, an appellate court may then exercise its

discretion to notice a forfeited error, but only if (4) the error

seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of

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judicial proceedings.’” Id. (quoting Johnson v. United States,

520 U.S. 461, 467 (1997)); see also FED. R. CRIM. P. 52(b).

Purvis challenges only one sentence of the jury instruction: 

“You must first determine from the evidence whether, in fact,

the defendant was the aggressor.” Trial Tr. 28 (Feb. 9, 2009

a.m.).2

 He contends that, rather than requiring the jury to decide

whether the government had proven beyond a reasonable doubt

that he did not act in self-defense, this sentence erroneously

suggested that the jury should engage in a “simple weighing of

each party’s evidence against the other,” Appellant’s Br. 18, in

order to “determine [the] historical truth . . . as [to] whether Mr.

Purvis shot first,” id. at 19. This, Purvis maintains, “sent the

jury veering away from the more subtle and complex inquiry

whether the government had . . . disproved Mr. Purvis’ selfdefense claim” beyond a reasonable doubt, thereby violating

Purvis’ right to due process. Id. at 22; see id. at 16. 

At oral argument, Purvis’ counsel acknowledged that he

would not have claimed error if the challenged sentence had

read: “You must first determine beyond a reasonable doubt

whether, in fact, the defendant was the aggressor.” Oral Arg.

Recording at 10:20; see also supra note 2. But that is

2

Purvis does not dispute the instruction that, “[i]f you find that the

defendant was the aggressor or if he provoked the conflict himself, he

cannot rely upon the right of self-defense to justify his use of force.” 

Trial Tr. 28 (Feb. 9, 2009 a.m.). See generally Rorie v. United States,

882 A.2d 763, 775 (D.C. 2005) (holding that this instruction “is

appropriately given when there is both evidence of self-defense and

evidence that the defendant provoked the aggression from which he

was defending himself”); United States v. Grover, 485 F.2d 1039,

1042 (D.C. Cir. 1973) (noting that there are exceptions, not present in

the instant case, to the rule that “generally the defense of self-defense

is not available to one who provokes the difficulty” (internal quotation

marks omitted)).

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effectively what the judge did charge. As set out in Part I above,

just three sentences earlier the court had stated in unequivocal

terms that “the government must prove beyond a reasonable

doubt that the defendant did not act in self-defense.” Trial Tr.

27-28 (Feb. 9, 2009 a.m.). The follow-up instruction to

determine “whether, in fact, the defendant was the aggressor,”

id. at 28, merely highlighted what Purvis acknowledges was the

only element of his self-defense claim that was in dispute at

trial. Oral Arg. Recording at 24:40.3

In urging the contrary position, Purvis necessarily asks us

to view a single sentence of the court’s jury instructions in

isolation. This we may not do. To the contrary, “[i]t is well

established that [an] instruction may not be judged in artificial

isolation, but must be considered in the context of the

instructions as a whole and the trial record.” Estelle v. McGuire,

502 U.S. 62, 72 (1991) (internal quotation marks omitted); see

United States v. Toms, 396 F.3d 427, 436 (D.C. Cir. 2005). 

Here, not only did the district court specifically instruct the jury

that the government bore the burden of proving the absence of

self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt, Trial Tr. 27-28 (Feb. 9,

2009 a.m.), it repeatedly instructed that the government bore the

burden of proving each of the elements of the charged offenses

beyond a reasonable doubt, see, e.g., id. at 9-10. It also

specifically instructed that the “burden of proof never shifts

throughout the trial.” Id. at 9.

Moreover, in deciding whether a jury instruction was

erroneous, we must consider not only “the content of the entire

jury instruction,” but also “the arguments of counsel.” United

States v. Chan Chun-Yin, 958 F.2d 440, 444 (D.C. Cir. 1992). 

3

For example, the government did not dispute that the force

Purvis used would have been reasonable if it had been used in selfdefense.

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And here, the closing arguments of both the prosecution and the

defense specifically referenced the government’s burden to

disprove Purvis’ self-defense claim beyond a reasonable doubt. 

See Trial Tr. 43, 57 (Feb. 9, 2009 a.m.). Given this context, it

would be hard to conclude there was a “reasonable likelihood”

that the jury “applied the challenged instruction in a way that

violates the Constitution.” Jones v. United States, 527 U.S. 373,

390 (1999) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Even if the district court’s instruction were in error, Purvis

could still prevail only if the error were plain, in the sense of

being “‘clear’ or ‘obvious.’” United States v. Bryant, 523 F.3d

349, 353 (D.C. Cir. 2008). This would be so if the instruction

“failed to follow [an] absolutely clear legal norm,” United States

v. Andrews, 532 F.3d 900, 909 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (internal

quotation marks omitted), or “tread upon a well-established

constitutional or legal principle,” United States v. Laureys, 653

F.3d 27, 33 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

But that did not happen here. The district court’s self-defense

instruction reproduced verbatim language from the then-current

version of the model Criminal Jury Instructions for the District

of Columbia (colloquially known as the “Redbook”). See

YOUNG LAWYERS SECTION OF THE BAR ASS’N OF THE DISTRICT

OF COLUMBIA,CRIMINAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE DISTRICT

OF COLUMBIA, No. 5.16(A) (4th ed. 1993). The District of

Columbia Court of Appeals has held that this language,

including the very sentence disputed by Purvis, “adequately

inform[s] the jury of the controlling legal principles” governing

self-defense. Stewart v. United States, 687 A.2d 576, 581 (D.C.

1996); see also Tyler v. United States, 975 A.2d 848, 857-59

(D.C. 2009). If anything, this suggests that the challenged

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instruction constituted rather than contravened a clear legal

norm.4

The instruction might also have been plainly erroneous if it

had “contradict[ed] circuit or Supreme Court precedent.” 

Laureys, 653 F.3d at 32 (citation omitted). But there is no such

precedent. Indeed, we have twice declined to reverse similar

instructions on plain error review.

In United States v. Spencer, we reviewed an instruction

stating that the jury “must decide whether the officers were lying

or [the defense witnesses] were lying.” 25 F.3d 1105, 1110

(D.C. Cir. 1994). We held that instruction was not plain error

because the district court had “immediately followed up with an

explanation of the [government’s] burden of proof,” and “[t]he

jury could not have construed the court’s remark to mean that

the defendant had the burden of proof, unless it ignored the

court’s other instructions.” Id. Four years later, we affirmed

that holding in United States v. Wilson, 160 F.3d 732 (D.C. Cir.

1998). There, we held that instructing a jury to “determine

where the truth lies” did not by itself impermissibly shift the

burden to the defense, particularly where the district court had

“repeatedly and correctly instruct[ed] the jury that the

government had the burden of proof beyond a reasonable

doubt.” Id. at 747. 

4

We note that fidelity to the Redbook cannot alone shield an

instruction from plain error. The Redbook reflects the views of one

committee of one section of the District of Columbia Bar Association,

and “we have never suggested that the Redbook instruction is

mandatory.” United States v. Taylor, 997 F.2d 1551, 1556 (D.C. Cir.

1993). For the same reason, however, the committee’s decision to

withdraw the challenged instruction from the Redbook after Purvis’

trial, as noted in the Appellant’s Reply Br. at 4-5, cannot suffice to

show that the instruction was plainly erroneous. 

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The instruction at issue here falls comfortably within the

holdings of Spencer and Wilson. As in those cases, the district

court highlighted for the jury the main factual issue to be

decided -- “whether, in fact, the defendant was the aggressor” --

but did so in the context of other instructions that properly set

forth the government’s burden of proof. Indeed, whereas the

district court in Spencer merely addressed the government’s

ultimate burden of proof, here the trial court specifically

instructed the jury that the government had to disprove Purvis’

self-defense claim beyond a reasonable doubt.

Purvis points to two D.C. Circuit cases in support of his

plain error argument. Both are readily distinguishable. In

United States v. Rawlings, we found plain error where the

court’s instructions “required [the jury] to decide whom to

believe or what actually occurred,” noting that “[t]he court’s

emphasis on resolving the factual dispute was plainly

inconsistent with its otherwise adequate burden of proof and

reasonable doubt instructions.” 73 F.3d 1145, 1148-49 (D.C.

Cir. 1996). We expressly noted, however, that our reversal did

not rest on the ground that the instruction “by itself

impermissibly shifted the burden of proof to the defendant.” Id.

at 1148 n.4. Rather, “[a]ny confusion” the instruction caused

“was compounded by [a] clumsy instruction on the elements of

the charged offense . . . [that] purported to establish a hierarchy

among the offense elements.” Id. at 1149. It was the “combined

effect” of the challenged instructions that “divert[ed] the jurors’

focus” from the crucial question of whether the government had

proven the elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Id.; accord Wilson, 160 F.3d at 747 (explaining that the reversal

in Rawlings “turned on a combination of errors”).

Our decision in United States v. Alston, 551 F.2d 315 (D.C.

Cir. 1976), is also distinguishable. There, the trial court

expressly invited a weighing exercise by instructing jurors to

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“analyze the testimony presented by [the defendant] in

contradistinction to the testimony presented by the Government”

regarding the defendant’s alibi defense. Id. at 317. Those

instructions were erroneous, we said, because “‘[a] defendant is

entitled to specific instructions on the burden of proof on alibi

issues because the jury is likely to become confused about the

burden of proof when an appellant offers this type of evidence.’”

Id. at 319 (quoting United States v. Booz, 451 F.2d 719, 723 (3d

Cir. 1971)). Here, the district court specifically instructed the

jury that the government bore the burden of proving the absence

of self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt. Hence, unlike the

district court in Alston, the court “adequately emphasize[d] that

the burden of proof does not shift when a defendant voluntarily

undertakes to present a specific defense.” Id. at 317. 

Finally, Purvis points to Holloway v. United States, in

which the District of Columbia Court of Appeals considered a

challenge to a jury instruction on the defendant’s theory of

defense -- accident -- in an arson case. 25 A.3d 898 (D.C.

2011). There, the trial judge had instructed that “[t]he question

is whether or not [the fire] was intentionally set or whether it

was an accident.” Id. at 902. The Court of Appeals

acknowledged that it had previously “identified a heightened

risk” that a jury might not understand that the government

retains its burden of proof “when a defendant presents an

affirmative defense such as alibi, self-defense, or (as in this

case) accident.” Id. at 903. But it explained that “[t]he standard

way of dealing satisfactorily with the problem is for the trial

court to . . . explicitly inform[] the jury of the government’s

burden to disprove the defense beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id.

Concluding that the trial court had effectively done so, the Court

of Appeals held, as we do here, that there was “no reasonable

likelihood that the jury was confused or misled into diluting the

government’s burden of proof or shifting the burden of proof”

to the defendant. Id. at 905.

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In short, the instruction that Purvis challenges did not

contradict any precedent of this court or the Supreme Court. 

Nor did it contravene any clear legal norm. If anything, cases

from our circuit and the D.C. Court of Appeals point in the

opposite direction. That is sufficient for us to conclude that the

instruction was not plainly erroneous, and there is no need to

consider the remaining elements of the plain error standard. See

United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993).

III

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court

is 

Affirmed.

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