Opinion ID: 2318646
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: english's appeal

Text: Claiming, inter alia, evidentiary insufficiency, English has appealed from all of his convictions, presumably including his conviction for reckless flight from a law enforcement officer. It is not clear whether his claim that the evidence was insufficient is intended to extend to the flight count. In any event, such a claim is entirely lacking in merit. During closing argument at the trial, in arguing that English was not involved in the shooting or the criminal enterprise, English's attorney asserted that his client could not have been intentionally fleeing from a police officer because he was unaware that the police were in pursuit. During oral argument before this court, which also focused on the assault and weapons counts and English's claimed lack of participation in the other defendants' concerted criminal conduct, his appellate counsel made a similar claim, contending that English had panicked, that English may have been under coercion by his passengers, and (apparently) that the government had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt English's guilt of the fleeing offense. In his brief, however, counsel wrote: It is true that by driving like a bat out of hell, to quote the prosecutor, appellant sought to elude the police.    [I]n the case at bar, appellant's rapid flight from the crime scene evidenced only a not unreasonable fear of apprehension because of the violent acts that had just been committed by his passengers. Thus, insofar as English's claims in the trial court and at oral argument in this court apply to the reckless fleeing count, they are starkly contradicted by his own brief. Points not urged in a party's initial brief are treated as abandoned. In re Shearin, 764 A.2d 774, 778 (D.C.2000) (citations omitted). This is so, because the failure to raise an issue in one's brief prevents the opposing party from briefing the issue, and it prevents both this court and opposing counsel from preparing for its consideration at oral argument, contradicting the very purpose of that stage of the appellate process. Id. (quoting George Washington Univ. v. Waas, 648 A.2d 178, 182 n. 6 (D.C.1994) (citations omitted)). Moreover, even if English's claim had been preserved, which it was not, this court must view the record in the light most favorable to the prosecution, defer to the jury's assessment of credibility, and draw all reasonable inferences in the government's favor. Rivas v. United States, 783 A.2d 125, 134 (D.C.2001) (en banc); Blaize v. United States, 21 A.3d 78, 82-83 (D.C.2011). In light of the admissions in English's brief and the uncontroverted and compelling proof of flight from the police, including, inter alia, the fact that English, having slowed down before the shooting, sped off with his lights turned off immediately thereafter, English has failed to show that there is no evidence upon which a reasonable mind might fairly conclude guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. . . . Kaliku v. United States, 994 A.2d 765, 786 (D.C.2010) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).