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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

No. 15-CT-583

JAMES CRAWFORD, APPELLANT,

 

v. 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, APPELLEE.

Appeal from the Superior Court 

of the District of Columbia

(CTF-18758-13)

(Hon. Yvonne Williams, Trial Judge)

(Submitted September 28, 2017 Decided September 6, 2018)

Rupa Ranga Puttagunta was on the brief for appellant.

Karl A. Racine, Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Todd S. Kim, 

Solicitor General at the time the brief was filed, Rosalyn C. Groce, Deputy 

Solicitor General, and John D. Martorana, Assistant Attorney General, were on the 

brief for appellee.

Before BLACKBURNE-RIGSBY, Chief Judge, MCLEESE, Associate Judge, and 

NEBEKER, Senior Judge. 

Opinion for the court by Chief Judge BLACKBURNE-RIGSBY.

Dissenting opinion by Senior Judge NEBEKER, at page 7.
2

BLACKBURNE-RIGSBY, Chief Judge: Appellant Crawford James Jr.1 appeals 

his conviction for one count of leaving after colliding with property damage (LACPD) in violation of D.C. Code § 50-2201.05c (2013 Supp.).

2 On appeal, appellant 

alleges that there was insufficient evidence to satisfy the mens rea element of the 

offense, which requires that the appellant “know[] or ha[ve] reason to believe that 

his . . . vehicle has been in a collision.” D.C. Code § 50-2201.05c (a). Because we 

have no basis for determining whether the trial court’s verdict properly 

incorporated the mens rea element, we vacate appellant’s conviction and remand 

the case for the court to reweigh the evidence and to render a new verdict.

 

I.

On October 15, 2013, around 10:25 p.m., appellant was attempting to move 

his car out of a parallel parking space near the 1700 block of Bay Street, Southeast, 

Washington, D.C. At this same time, Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) 

Officers Naples and Barriteau were on the same block responding to a family 

disturbance call when they heard a “loud crash.” Officer Naples turned around and 

 1

 The case caption and record erroneously invert appellant’s first and last

names. At trial, appellant stated his name as “Crawford James Junior.” 

2

 Appellant was found not guilty of one count of driving under the influence 

of alcohol in violation of D.C. Code § 50-2206.11 (2013 Supp.). 
3

observed a burgundy Ford Explorer “up against the vehicle in front of it” and 

stated that it looked like the Ford Explorer had “collided” with this vehicle. He 

observed the driver of the Ford Explorer, later identified as appellant, put the 

vehicle in reverse, move out of the parking space, and start driving away at about 

ten miles per hour. 

The officers chased after the Ford Explorer, which stopped halfway down 

the block. Officer Naples instructed appellant to exit the vehicle. As appellant 

exited the vehicle, Officer Naples noticed that appellant’s balance was unsteady 

and his eyes seemed heavy and bloodshot. The officers advised appellant that they 

believed he had struck a vehicle, and Officer Naples testified that appellant “had 

no idea what we were talking about[,]” and that “[h]e didn’t know that he had 

collided with a vehicle.” Officer Naples also testified that he noticed an alcoholic 

beverage odor coming from appellant’s person, and thus, proceeded to conduct the 

standard field sobriety tests. Appellant failed the field sobriety tests and was 

placed under arrest. 

At trial, the owner of the Volvo, Robert Southern, testified that he noticed, 

sometime during the week of October 15, 2013, that someone had hit his car as he 

observed “a white streak along the back left side rear bumper that had not been 
4

there before.” Appellant testified that he did not hit the Volvo. The trial court 

found appellant guilty of LAC-PD.

II.

In evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence, “we view the evidence in the 

light most favorable to the government, giving full play to the right of the 

[fact-finder] to determine credibility, weigh the evidence, and draw justifiable 

inferences of fact, and making no distinction between direct and circumstantial 

evidence.” Medley v. United States, 104 A.3d 115, 127 n.16 (D.C. 2014) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). “Where the evidentiary record is sufficient to support 

the verdict in a bench trial, but the findings of fact underlying the verdict are 

insufficient, we therefore have deemed it appropriate to remand for the judge to 

augment those findings as necessary to clarify whether the verdict can stand.” 

Warner v. United States, 124 A.3d 79, 89 (D.C. 2015).

Appellant contends that there was insufficient evidence of the requisite mens 

rea to find him guilty of leaving after colliding with property damage. The statute 

requires that the person operating the vehicle must “know[] or ha[ve] reason to 

believe” that their vehicle was in an accident. D.C. Code § 50-2201.05c (a). In 
5

ruling, the trial court expressed doubt about whether appellant knew that his car 

had been in a collision, stating: 

[T]his happens to me, quite frankly, and maybe, perhaps 

when [appellant] was pulling out he didn’t realize he had 

hit the car because the damage to the bumper is so slight 

that what it looks like is, while it’s being described as a 

crash, I mean, it’s not the crash in, it can’t be a crash in 

the stereotypical way that we think of a crash . . . . Here, 

the bumper is fully intact, it just has scratch marks on it, 

which is consistent with sort of someone pulling out of a 

parking space and, and sliding by the car in front of it and 

so that, so you’re both, so you’re rubbing by the car in 

front of you, which is technically a collision but, you 

know, that sort of problem, that probably happens every 

day in this city given the parking constraints that we are 

faced with.

Nevertheless, the trial court found appellant guilty of LAC-PD because it believed 

that lack of knowledge was not a sufficient defense to this crime.3

This, however, was an erroneous statement of the law—not being aware of 

the collision constitutes a proper defense if the operator of the vehicle did not 

 3

 The trial court stated:

And the notion that you weren’t aware of the fact that 

you hit the car is not necessarily a defense that I’m aware 

of under the law, that I’ve been told about. So I find the 

defendant guilty of leaving after colliding and there’s not 

even been an allegation made that he didn’t know he hit 

the car. The allegation made was that he didn’t hit the 

car, period.
6

know or have reason to believe that he or she had collided with another vehicle. 

From the trial court’s statements, it is evident that the trial court had some doubt as 

to whether appellant had actual knowledge of the crash, especially in light of 

appellant’s testimony that he did not hit the car. The trial court, however, made no 

factual findings as to whether appellant should have known that he had been in an 

accident, another means to satisfy the mens rea element required under D.C. Code 

§ 50-2201.05c (a). “In a bench trial, . . . the trial court will often reveal the precise 

basis for the decision. We think that if that particular basis is erroneous but other 

bases not addressed by the trial court would sustain a conviction, the proper course 

of action is to remand rather than reverse outright.” Foster v. United States, 699 

A.2d 1113, 1116 n.5 (D.C. 1997). “Therefore, ‘we are constrained to remand this 

case for the court to weigh the evidence in the record afresh and render a new 

verdict.’” Grayson v. United States, 953 A.2d 327, 328 (D.C. 2008) (quoting 

Shewarega v. Yegzaw, 947 A.2d 47, 54 (D.C. 2008)). 

Accordingly, we vacate appellant’s conviction and remand the case to the 

Superior Court for further proceedings in accordance with our opinion.

So ordered.
7

NEBEKER, Senior Judge, dissenting: I respectfully dissent from my 

colleagues’ remand to flesh out an already fleshy post-trial, pre-verdict monologue. 

Despite no request for a special verdict, the trial judge, none-the-less, delivered a 

prolonged and rambling monologue in which she discredited the 

officers’ testimony about hearing and seeing a crash. She also went into her 

personal experiences driving and parking in this city. She then dwelt on 

Crawford’s testimony and concluded that “perhaps” and “maybe” he did not have 

knowledge or cause to know that he collided with the other parked car. She 

described the testimony of the owner of that car as a minor “scratch” on his 

bumper. She then concluded that Crawford was “technically” guilty. Of course, 

there is no such verdict; there is either guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, or not 

guilty. See Super. Ct. Crim. R. 23 (c). 

As Aristotle so opined, “what has happened cannot be made not to have 

happened. Hence Agathon is right in saying ‘This only is denied even to God, the 

power to make what has been done undone.’” 19 ARISTOTLE, NICOMACHEAN 

ETHICS, Book VI, § 2 (H. Rackham trans., Harvard University Press 1934). 

However, this is precisely what my colleagues seek to do in remanding this case, 

instead of ruling on the record present before us. This is an error because, in 

modern jargon, once an expression of innocence is conveyed by the trial judge, that 
8

expression is “in the cloud,” i.e. it cannot be taken back or unsaid. The trial judge 

was permitted to render a general verdict, as she was not asked to render a special 

verdict. A general verdict implicates The Prevailing Party Rule where on appeal 

we read the record in the light most favorable to that party. Cherry v. District of 

Columbia, 164 A.3d 922, 929 (D.C. 2017). The language used by the trial judge in 

issuing the verdict is not to be taken lightly, particularly when an expression of a 

finding in favor of acquittal tips the balance of the evidence. See Fong Foo v. 

United States, 369 U.S. 141, 143 (1962) (upholding “the entry of a final judgment 

of acquittal” by the trial judge due to “supposed improper conduct on the part of 

the [prosecutor], and a supposed lack of credibility in the testimony of the 

witnesses for the prosecution” due to double jeopardy concerns). 

Standards of proof operate to “instruct the factfinder concerning the degree 

of confidence our society thinks he should have in the correctness of factual 

conclusions” for a particular type of case and are “more than [] empty semantic 

exercise[s].” Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418, 423, 424 (1979) (internal 

quotations omitted). Three types of standards operate on a continuum of certainty 

in order to “allocate the risk of error between the litigants.” Id. at 423. For a 

preponderance of the evidence, the risk of error is “share[d] . . . in roughly equal 

fashion”; “the clear and convincing standard” shifts the burden to the party with it; 
9

and the burden beyond a reasonable doubt places the risk “almost [] entire[ly]” on 

the government. Id. at 423-24. Criminal cases require “the factfinder to reach a 

subjective state of near certitude of the guilt of the accused.” Davis v. United 

States, 834 A.2d 861, 867 (D.C. 2003) (internal quotations omitted); In re Winship, 

397 U.S. 358, 364 (1970) (“[T]he reasonable-doubt standard is indispensable, for it 

impresses on the trier of fact the necessity of reaching a subjective state of 

certitude of the facts in issue.”) (internal quotation omitted). Here, the trial court 

placed Crawford’s state of mind in his favor by stating that “maybe” “perhaps [he] 

didn’t realize he had hit the car” and she further characterized his testimony as 

being “[un]aware” that he was involved in a collision. Therefore, I construe this 

record as reflecting the trial judge’s doubt as to proof of an essential element of 

this offense and that doubt is, per force, the equivalent of “not guilty” as a matter 

of law. I would reverse and remand with directions to enter a judgment of 

acquittal. But perhaps or maybe the trial judge will construe this remand of the 

case to be plenary and see fit to acquit Crawford.