Opinion ID: 2815635
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Jury Instruction on CPWL in Gun-Free Zone

Text: The trial judge gave the following instruction to the jury on the offense of carrying a pistol without a license in a gun-free zone: The essential elements of the offense of carrying a pistol without a license, each of which the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt, are: number one, that Thomas Jones carried a pistol on or about his person; number two, that he did so voluntarily and on purpose, and not by mistake or accident; number three, that 45 Thomas Jones was not licensed to carry the pistol by the Chief of Police of the District of Columbia; and number four, he carried the pistol in a place other than his home, place of business, or land or premises possessed and controlled by him; that the pistol could fire a bullet; and that at the time he carried the pistol, he did so in a gunfree zone, that is, within 1,000 feet of Kenilworth Elementary School. The term “pistol” means a firearm that has a barrel less than 12 inches. Appellant contends that another essential element of the offense, omitted from the trial judge’s instruction, was the presence of a sign on the premises of Kenilworth Elementary School identifying the school and its surrounding area as a gun-free zone. Appellant argues that the judge’s failure to include this element in the instruction to the jury entitles him to the reversal of his conviction for carrying a pistol without a license in a drug-free zone. We agree that the instruction was incomplete. The statute defining the penalty enhancement for carrying a pistol without a license in a gun-free zone makes clear that the enhancement does not apply unless there is a sign on the premises identifying the building or area as a gun-free zone: All areas within[] 1000 feet of an appropriately identified public or private day care center, elementary school, vocational school, secondary school, college, junior college, or university, or any public swimming pool, 46 playground, video arcade, youth center, or public library, or in and around public housing . . . shall be declared a gun free zone. For the purposes of this subsection, the term “appropriately identified” means that there is a sign that identifies the building or area as a gun free zone. D.C. Code § 22-4502.01 (a) (2012 Repl.) (emphasis added). A proper instruction on the elements of carrying a pistol without a license in a gun-free zone therefore must inform the jury that the school (or other building or area) is a gun-free zone only if a sign on the premises identifies it as such. See Criminal Jury Instructions for the District of Columbia, No. 8.102 (5th ed. 2010) (including as an element of the gun-free zone enhancement that “[t]here was a sign identifying [the school or other qualifying building or area] as a gun-free zone”). The trial judge’s instruction lacked this essential information. Appellant, however, lodged no objection to the instruction in the trial court, and his claim of instructional error is therefore subject to plain error review on appeal. See Bellamy v. United States, 810 A.2d 401, 406 (D.C. 2002). Under the plain error standard, an incomplete jury instruction to which no objection was made at trial “will not be a cause for reversal where . . . no rational jury, shown by its verdict to have found the facts necessary to convict the defendant under the 47 instructions as given, could have failed, if fully instructed on each element, to have found in addition the facts necessary to comprise the omitted element.” Id. Appellant is not entitled to reversal. The parties stipulated at trial that Kenilworth Elementary School “has a sign placed on the east side of the school on 44th Street that states that illegal firearms may not be within 500 feet of the school” and that a “custodian of the school would testify that the sign has been posted at that location for several years, which time includes July 3 rd, 2009, and July 4th, 2009.” The parties read this stipulation (and others) to the jury during the trial, and the judge later provided a written copy of all of the stipulations to the jury during the jury’s deliberations. In addition, a photograph of the school grounds admitted in evidence clearly showed the sign identifying the school and its surrounding area as a gun-free zone. In these circumstances, there is no basis for concern that the jury, acting rationally, would have declined to find appellant guilty of carrying a pistol without a license in a gun-free zone had the trial judge’s instruction properly included the requirement that there be a sign on the premises identifying the school building and its surrounding area as a gun-free zone. There was no dispute at trial over whether the area surrounding Kenilworth Elementary School was properly identified as a gun-free zone, and the omission from the judge’s instruction thus could not have had any prejudicial impact on the outcome of the case. See 48 (Marques An’Rico) Johnson v. United States, 2015 D.C. App. LEXIS 264, No. 13CF-929, slip op. at 15-16 (D.C. June 18, 2015) (“on plain-error review, incorrect jury instruction was not reversible error because there was no reasonable probability that it had a prejudicial impact on the outcome of the trial”) (citing Kidd v. United States, 940 A.2d 118, 128 (D.C. 2007)).