Opinion ID: 1547441
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Evidence of Serious Bodily Injury for Aggravated Assault

Text: Appellants Franklin and Sampson argue that there was insufficient evidence that Buford sustained serious bodily injury, an element that must be proven for an aggravated assault conviction. In Nixon v. United States, 730 A.2d 145, 150 (D.C.), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 899, 120 S.Ct. 233, 145 L.Ed.2d 196 (1999), we determined that serious bodily injury for purposes of the aggravated assault statute should be defined as the term is defined in the sentencing portion of the sexual abuse statute, now codified at D.C.Code § 22-3001(7) (2001). Under that statute, serious bodily injury is bodily injury that involves a substantial risk of death, unconsciousness, extreme physical pain, protracted and obvious disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ or mental faculty. Nixon, 730 A.2d at 149. This exact wording was given to the jury in their instructions. The government argued here that there was evidence of serious bodily injury under the extreme physical pain prong and the trial court determined that there was enough evidence to support such a finding. Appellants assert that the evidence was insufficient to establish extreme physical pain, [26] Nixon, 730 A.2d at 150-51, and knife wounds are not per se serious bodily injuries, Zeledon v. United States, 770 A.2d 972, 977 (D.C.2001). We cannot say that where a man has suffered wounds as severe as Buford, necessitating 40 staples in his left forearm and 35 to 40 staples in his abdomen, and there is corroborating evidence of severe blood loss from testimony of the responding police officers and paramedics, that the trial court erred in finding that there was sufficient evidence of extreme physical pain to support a conviction for aggravated assault. See Gathy v. United States, 754 A.2d 912, 918 (D.C.2000) (where victim never described [his pain] in terms that would indicate it was `extreme'... a reasonable juror could infer from the nature of his injuries, and from his reaction to them, that the pain was extreme). [27]