Opinion ID: 2557897
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Risk to Human Life under the Facts of This Case

Text: Having determined that in order for Lewis' arson conviction to stand, the government must prove that he acted with a conscious disregard of a substantial risk to human life when setting the fire, we turn now to the evidence adduced at trial to assess its sufficiency on that issue. Because we believe that a conviction for arson under the facts in this case would eviscerate any distinction between arson and MDP, we hold that the evidence failed to meet its burden and reverse Lewis' arson conviction, mindful of the fact that Lewis has already been convicted of MDP and has not challenged that conviction. None of our opinions assessing the sufficiency of evidence in arson cases is particularly instructive or comparable to the instant case because those opinions involve arsons in which the defendant unquestionably disregarded a substantial risk of endangering human life. See, e.g., In re D.M., 993 A.2d 535 (D.C.2010) (schoolchildren lit fire in occupied school); Phenis, supra, 909 A.2d at 138 (defendant set fire in occupied apartment building); Gilmore, supra, 742 A.2d at 862 (defendant threw Molotov cocktail at occupied house); Byrd v. United States, 705 A.2d 629, 631 (D.C. 1997) (defendant set fire in attic where children were sitting). In the instant case, there is no controversy over whether a fire was set or the identity of the igniter, and these cases offer no real guidance to resolve the mens rea issue now before us. In contrast, our precedents regarding the offense of MDP, as opposed to arson, do offer some insight regarding the mens rea issue. As stated above, the distinction between arson and MDP is that arson protects against endangerment of human life whereas MDP merely protects against endangerment of property. See Logan, supra, 460 A.2d at 37. With this distinction in mind, a review of this court's decision in Thomas v. United States, 557 A.2d 1296 (D.C.1989), is instructive. In Thomas, the defendant was a demonstrator who set fire to a wooden contraption he had constructed and placed on the sidewalk in front of the Old Executive Office Building in order to protest nuclear proliferation. When the defendant set the contraption ablaze, it caused significant damage to stone columns and walls of the building, and the defendant was convicted of MDP as a result. The defendant did not dispute setting the fire, but claimed that he had no idea that the granite column would be damaged by any blaze and, therefore, did not possess the requisite mens rea of maliciousness. In Thomas, we undertook an extensive review of the meaning of the term malicious in the context of the offense of MDP, ultimately remanding the case for a new trial because the prosecutor had improperly argued the standard of maliciousness in his closing argument. Id. at 1305. In the MDP context, we held that: `Malice' in the legal sense imports (1) the absence of all elements of justification, excuse or recognized mitigation, and (2) the presence of either (a) an actual intent to cause the particular harm which is produced or harm of the same general nature, or (b) the wanton and willful doing of an act with awareness of a plain and strong likelihood that such harm may result. Id. at 1299 (citing Charles v. United States, 371 A.2d 404 (D.C.1977)). The difference between general recklessness and recklessness which displays depravity and such extreme and wanton disregard for human life as to constitute `malice' ... lies in the quality of the awareness of the risk. Id. (citing Carter v. United States, 531 A.2d 956, 963 (D.C.1987) (discussing difference in context of murder vs. manslaughter)). Because of this distinction, the ultimate issue in determining malice is that of the subjective state of mind of the defendant, rather than that of a reasonable person. Id. What a reasonable person would have thought is still relevant, though, since in situations when the defendant himself does not testify, a reasonable person standard is often the best available evidence that the defendant was aware of the risk. Id. Nevertheless, the prosecutor must still further show ... that the defendant was subjectively aware of the risk in question to find malice. Id. In sum, the Thomas court held that a proper instruction to the jury (to cure the prosecutor's closing argument misstatements regarding a reasonable person standard) should have stated that the ultimate issue was [the defendant's state of mind], and that what a reasonable man would have foreseen, while relevant as to what [the defendant] could have foreseen, was not conclusive. Id. at 1304. Applying this malice standard to the crime of arson, which, as discussed above, contains an element of endangerment of human life, to sustain a conviction for arson, the prosecutor must show that Lewis was subjectively aware of the risk of endangerment of human life when he set the fire and that he consciously disregarded that risk. What a reasonable person would have foreseen in Lewis' situation is relevant to this determination but is not conclusive. While in Thomas we had the opportunity to hear the defendant's own testimony regarding his state of mind at the time of the fire, Lewis did not take the stand in his own defense, and therefore his subjective belief is much more difficult to discern in the instant case. Nevertheless, even viewing the evidence provided at trial in the light most favorable to the government, we cannot find that the prosecution adduced sufficient evidence that Lewis was aware of a substantial risk to human life and consciously disregarded it, and therefore, under the narrow confines of the facts of this case, we reverse his arson conviction. If we were to affirm Lewis' arson conviction under the facts of this case, any meaningful distinction between arson and MDP would be effectively destroyed. Lewis used gasoline to set fire to Stewart's body in a vacant home next to, but detached from, other vacant homes. The government argues that there is no evidence that [Lewis] actually knew that the house was vacant and that crime scene photographs of debris near the adjacent house indicate that the fire could have posed a risk to human life. Because the house that Lewis burned and the adjacent house [did] not appear ... to be obviously vacant, the government argues, Lewis consciously disregarded a risk of endangering any persons inside those houses. This argument fails because none of this evidence demonstrates Lewis' subjective state of mind when setting the fire, which, as we noted above, is the ultimate issue. See Thomas, supra, 557 A.2d. at 1299. While the evidence cited by the government may indicate what a reasonable person might have thought when setting an identical fire, it is far from conclusive as to what Lewis himself believed the risks to be when setting the fire. To convict Lewis of arson under these facts would elevate all incidents of burning property in an urban settingwhich encompasses nearly all of our jurisdiction from offenses of MDP into arson. In order to maintain any meaningful distinction between those two offenses, there must be some additional evidence from which a factfinder can infer a conscious disregard of a risk of endangering human life. The prosecution failed to carry its burden to present such evidence in this case, and therefore, we are compelled to reverse Lewis' arson conviction. [8]