Opinion ID: 2654926
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Appellants’ Other Claims of Error

Text: In view of our disposition of the preceding issue, we find it unnecessary to decide whether some of appellants‘ other claims of error would entitle them to relief; and in our view, none of the rest require extended discussion. We address the latter claims first. 37 See, e.g., Walker v. United States, 982 A.2d 723, 738 (D.C. 2009) (reversing convictions of two appellants for insufficiency of the government‘s evidence, even though only one of the appellants challenged his convictions on that ground); Jennings v. United States, 431 A.2d 552, 555 n.3 (D.C. 1981) (same). 31 1. Sufficiency of the Evidence to Support Gilliam’s CPWL Conviction Gilliam argues that the government failed to present sufficient evidence to convict him of carrying a pistol without a license (―CPWL‖).38 Viewing the evidence, as we must, in the light most favorable to the government,39 we disagree. To convict Gilliam of CPWL, the government had to prove that he carried an operable pistol without a license to do so.40 Three witnesses at trial put a gun in Gilliam‘s hand: Holmes, who did not see it, but who heard Gilliam cock and load a gun apparently given to him by English; and two of the witnesses to the Branch Avenue shooting, who saw the passenger in Daniels‘s car reach out the window and fire a gun he was holding in his hand. (From Holmes‘s testimony, the jury could infer that the passenger in Daniels‘s car was Gilliam and that he brought the gun he fired on Branch Avenue into the District.) The government also presented 38 We address this contention on its merits inasmuch as Gilliam‘s retrial on the CPWL charge would be barred if the government‘s proof of that charge at his first trial was insufficient. 39 Rivas v. United States, 783 A.2d 125, 134 (D.C. 2001) (en banc). 40 See Campos v. United States, 617 A.2d 185, 187 (D.C. 1992) (listing elements of the offense). Subsequent amendments of the D.C. Code have abolished the requirement that the pistol be operable. See D.C. Code §§ 7-2501.01 (9), 7-2501.01 (12), & 22-4501 (6) (2012 Repl.). 32 competent and undisputed testimony that Gilliam was not licensed in the District of Columbia to carry a pistol. This evidence was enough to permit a reasonable jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Gilliam carried an operable gun in the District of Columbia without a license. For that gun to have been a ―pistol‖ for purposes of CPWL, its barrel had to be less than 12 inches in length.41 Although Gilliam argues there was no testimony about the barrel length of his weapon, the evidence allowed the jury to infer that it was less than a foot.42 Holmes‘s testimony, that the weapon Gilliam was handling in his SUV had been stowed with another handgun inside English‘s book bag and was unobtrusive enough that Holmes could not see it, implied that it was a small enough gun to be a pistol. The fact that witnesses saw the passenger in the green car on Branch Avenue (i.e., Gilliam) shooting a gun that he held in one hand sticking out the window also implied that the weapon was small enough to be a pistol. We conclude that the evidence permitted a reasonable jury to convict Gilliam of CPWL. 2. Daniels’s Second Amendment Claim 41 See former D.C. Code § 22-4501 (a) (2001). 42 See, e.g., Brown v. United States, 979 A.2d 630, 637-38 (D.C. 2009). 33 Daniels argues that because the jury acquitted him of the crimes committed on 37th Street, it convicted him of CPWL only for carrying a handgun innocently (albeit without a license) outside his home or place of business in the District of Columbia. Moreover, he asserts, there is no evidence that he carried the handgun in such a way as to conceal it from public view. Claiming that he had a Second Amendment right to carry a handgun openly on the city‘s streets, and given that the District‘s handgun ban at the time made it impossible for a citizen to obtain a handgun license, Daniels argues that under Heller v. District of Columbia43 the CPWL statute cannot constitutionally be applied to him.44 Daniels asserted his Second Amendment claim in the trial court, which denied it in accordance with then-governing precedent,45 so he preserved the claim for appellate consideration. Our review is de novo.46 43 554 U.S. 570 (D.C. 2008). 44 Daniels‘s claim concerns the CPWL statute as it existed in 2006. It is settled that this statute was not unconstitutional on its face. See Plummer v. United States, 983 A.2d 323, 339 (D.C. 2009). 45 The trial was conducted prior to the Supreme Court‘s decision in Heller. 46 See Gamble v. United States, 30 A.3d 161, 164 n.6 (D.C. 2011). We address this contention on its merits because, if Daniels is correct, the government would be precluded from reprosecuting him for the offense on remand. 34 The Supreme Court has not declared that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to carry a handgun openly outside the home.47 But if there is such a right, it is ―not unlimited.‖48 As the Supreme Court emphasized, ―we do not read the Second Amendment to protect the right of citizens to carry arms for any sort of confrontation[.]‖49 Rather, the right recognized in the Second Amendment derives from ―the inherent right of self-defense‖ (including, especially if not exclusively, defense of the home).50 Thus, for Daniels (who was not at home) to have even a colorable constitutional claim, he must be able to point to evidence that he carried his handgun for legitimate self-defense.51 There is no such evidence in the record of this case. Furthermore, in response to a jury note inquiring whether appellants 47 Cf. id. at 164-66 (holding that there is no Second Amendment right to carry a concealed weapon). 48 Heller, 554 U.S. at 595. 49 Id.; see also id. at 626 (―Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.‖). 50 Id. at 628; see also Smith v. United States, 20 A.3d 759, 764 (D.C. 2011) (noting that Heller‘s focus was on the right to use firearms ―in defense of hearth and home‖) (internal quotation marks and emphasis omitted). 51 See Smith, 20 A.3d at 764 (holding that ―appellant‘s Second Amendment contention [that he had a constitutional right to carry a firearm for innocent, workrelated reasons] fails‖ for want of ―indicia in the record‖ that he was carrying the weapon for self-defense); see also Snell v. United States, 68 A.3d 689, 693 n.5 (continued…) 35 could be found guilty of CPWL for carrying pistols without a license in the Branch Avenue incident or only in connection with the murder of Knight, the court specifically instructed the jurors that ―with respect to [the CPWL counts], you may not convict unless you find beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant carried a pistol without a license in the District of Columbia on January 5, 2006, in connection with the homicide of Anthony Knight.‖ Because we presume that the jury followed this instruction,52 we are confident that it found Daniels carried a handgun in anticipation of committing a crime of violence, which clearly is not a purpose protected by the Second Amendment.53 Daniels therefore has not shown (continued…) (D.C. 2013) (―In any case, there was no evidence that on July 4, 2010, Snell carried a gun for the purpose of self-defense.‖); Kachalsky v. Cnty. of Westchester, 701 F.3d 81, 100 (2d Cir. 2012) (―In light of the state‘s considerable authority— enshrined within the Second Amendment—to regulate firearm possession in public, requiring a showing that there is an objective threat to a person‘s safety—a ‗special need for self-protection‘—before granting a carry license is entirely consistent with the right to bear arms. Indeed, there is no right to engage in selfdefense with a firearm until the objective circumstances justify the use of deadly force.‖). 52 ―[W]e must presume that a jury follows the court‘s instructions, absent any indication to the contrary.‖ Daniels v. United States, 2 A.3d 250, 264 (D.C. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). 53 See United States v. Greeno, 679 F.3d 510, 520 (6th Cir. 2012) (stating that ―[n]othing in Heller, the common law, or early case law suggests‖ that ―the Second Amendment protects an individual‘s right to possess a weapon for criminal purposes‖). 36 that the Second Amendment prohibits the application of the CPWL statute to his conduct on the morning of January 5, 2006. 3. Jury Instruction Regarding the Conspiracy Charge Gilliam and English have argued that the trial court improperly allowed the jury to convict them for conspiracy based solely on acts occurring outside the District of Columbia over which (they contend) the Superior Court lacked jurisdiction. Although we are reversing their conspiracy convictions on another ground, the trial court likely will need to deal with the issue appellants have raised in the event of a retrial. We therefore address the issue briefly. Under D.C. law, a conspiracy requires proof of both agreement and action: an agreement to commit a criminal offense and, ―during the life of the conspiracy, and in furtherance of its objective, the commission by at least one conspirator of at least one of the overt acts specified in the indictment.‖54 The indictments in this case charged that appellants entered into an agreement within the District of Columbia to murder Anthony Knight, and that on the morning of January 5, 2006, they committed nine overt acts during and in furtherance of that conspiracy—four 54 Gibson v. United States, 700 A.2d 776, 779 (D.C. 1997). 37 acts in Maryland (each relating to the Branch Avenue shooting) and five acts in the District (each relating to the shooting on 37th Street).55 The problem of which appellants complain materialized for two reasons: First, as the government tacitly conceded, there was no evidence that appellants entered into any conspiracy before they met up on the night of January 4, 2006, at the Tradewinds Club in Maryland.56 Rather, as the prosecutor said in her opening, the government‘s theory at trial was that the conspiracy began when appellants 55 Specifically, the indictments alleged the following four overt acts in Maryland: (1) after encountering Knight at a Maryland nightclub, Daniels positioned his car next to a gold Cadillac identical to the one Knight was driving, as it was stopped at a red light on Branch Avenue at Silver Hill Road in Suitland, Maryland; (2) Gilliam, the front seat passenger in Daniels‘s car, discharged a firearm at the gold Cadillac; (3) English exited Holmes‘s Tahoe and opened fire on the gold Cadillac as it attempted to escape; and (4) Daniels and Gilliam chased the Cadillac for several blocks on Silver Hill Road. The indictments charged five overt acts in the District of Columbia: (5) English and Gilliam thereafter went to English‘s home at 1730 A Street S.E. to retrieve more weapons while Holmes and Daniels, who were already armed, waited outside; (6) Holmes then drove appellants to 37th Street in his Tahoe to continue looking for Knight; (7) English identified Knight standing in the street in the 400 block of 37th Street, and appellants and Holmes fired handguns at Knight and his companions; (8) Holmes then drove appellants away while appellants reloaded their weapons; and (9) after leaving the scene, appellants and Holmes cleaned out the Tahoe, removing and discarding firearms evidence found in the vehicle. 56 For this reason, the trial court ruled that statements made by appellants before they visited the Tradewinds Club on January 4, 2006, would not be admissible under the co-conspirator exception to the rule against hearsay. 38 arrived at the intersection of Branch Avenue and Silver Hill Road. Nor did the government contend that an agreement was made or renewed thereafter in the District of Columbia. Second, the court instructed the jury on all nine of the charged overt acts—the ones committed in Maryland as well as those committed in the District of Columbia—and stated that proof of any one of them would support a conviction for conspiracy.57 As a result, the jury could have convicted appellants of conspiracy based solely on a finding that they entered into an agreement in Maryland and that they committed an overt act in Maryland—i.e., without finding any conspiratorial agreement made or joined, or overt act committed, within the District of Columbia.58 Which overt act or acts the jury actually found to have 57 Thus, after enumerating the overt acts, the court instructed that The Government need not prove that all of these overt acts were taken. But in order to find the defendants guilty, you must all agree on at least one overt act that was done. . . . For any defendant to be convicted of the crime of conspiracy, the Government must prove . . . that one of the people involved in the conspiracy did one of the overt acts charged. Appellants did not object to this instruction or request the court to instruct the jury that it would need to find at least one of the overt acts allegedly committed in the District of Columbia. 58 Although, as mentioned earlier, the court instructed the jury that it had to find that appellants carried pistols in the District of Columbia in connection with Knight‘s homicide to convict them of CPWL, the court gave no comparable instruction with respect to the conspiracy count; and because simply carrying a (continued…) 39 been committed is unknown, as the verdict was a general one, but since the jury acquitted appellants of all the offenses on 37th Street, it is plausible that the jury may have relied solely on overt acts in Maryland in convicting appellants of conspiracy. The criminal conspiracy statute, D.C. Code § 22-1805a, specifically addresses the situation when the alleged conspiratorial agreement was not made in the District of Columbia.59 Subsection (d) provides that [a] conspiracy contrived in another jurisdiction to engage in conduct within the District of Columbia which would constitute a criminal offense under an act of Congress (continued…) pistol in the District was not charged as an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy, we cannot say that appellants‘ convictions on the CPWL counts mean the jury necessarily found that they committed one of the charged overt acts in the District. The acquittals on the substantive counts may be understood to suggest otherwise. 59 The statute also addresses the situation, not presented in this case, in which ―the object of a conspiracy contrived within the District of Columbia is to engage in conduct in a jurisdiction outside the District of Columbia which would constitute a criminal offense under an act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia if performed therein‖; such a conspiracy is a violation of the statute if ―(1) [s]uch conduct would also constitute a crime under the laws of the other jurisdiction if performed therein; or (2) [s]uch conduct would constitute a criminal offense under an act of Congress exclusively applicable to the District of Columbia even if performed outside the District of Columbia.‖ D.C. Code § 221805a (c). 40 exclusively applicable to the District of Columbia if performed in the District of Columbia is a violation of this section when an overt act pursuant to the conspiracy is committed within the District of Columbia.[60] We understand this provision to mean that when a prosecution for conspiracy is predicated on an agreement made in another jurisdiction, the government must prove that an overt act pursuant to the conspiracy was committed within the District of Columbia in order to prove the offense. This statutory requirement was overlooked in the present proceedings; the trial court was not asked to instruct the jury in accordance with subsection (d), and it did not do so. Subsection (d) should be borne in mind if appellants are retried for conspiracy to murder Anthony Knight and the theory of the prosecution remains the same (i.e., that the conspiratorial agreement was ―contrived‖ in Maryland). In that event, to comply with subsection (d) and avoid the possibility of a jury verdict based on an improper theory of liability,61 the trial court should focus the jury on 60 D.C. Code § 22-1805a (d) (emphasis added). 61 See Coghill v. United States, 982 A.2d 802, 808 (D.C. 2009) (―[W]henever various alternative theories of liability are submitted to a jury, any one of which is later determined to be improper, the conviction cannot be sustained.‖) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Chiarella v. United States, 445 U.S. 222, 237 n.21 (1980) (―We may not uphold a criminal conviction if it is impossible to ascertain whether the defendant has been punished for noncriminal (continued…) 41 the five overt acts that allegedly were committed after appellants returned to the District of Columbia. The court should instruct the jury specifically that it must find that one of the conspirators committed at least one of those five overt acts in order to find a defendant guilty of conspiracy. 4. Remaining Claims of Error Appellant‘s remaining claims of error relate to rulings by the trial court with respect to the admission or exclusion of evidence and the denial of a mistrial for alleged prosecutorial misconduct. First, Daniels and Gilliam argue that the court erred in admitting certain out-of-court statements recounted by Holmes—notably, English‘s statement that, when he ran out of bullets, Daniels and Gilliam were ―right there to finish [Knight] off,‖ which the court ruled admissible against them under the co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rule.62 Appellants contend the (continued…) conduct.‖); Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298, 312 (1957) (―[W]e think the proper rule to be applied is that which requires a verdict to be set aside in cases where the verdict is supportable on one ground, but not on another, and it is impossible to tell which ground the jury selected.‖); cf. Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46, 59 (1991) (adhering to rule of Yates but not extending it to situations where one possible basis of conviction was neither unconstitutional nor illegal, but merely unsupported by sufficient evidence). 62 See Butler v. United States, 481 A.2d 431, 439 (D.C. 1984). 42 statement was not made in the course of and in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy, as the hearsay exception requires.63 Second, English claims the trial court erred by precluding him from crossexamining Holmes about Knight‘s alleged assault on Damian Turner. English contends the questioning should have been permitted to explore Holmes‘s possible motive to falsely implicate him in order to protect Turner from suspicion,64 and because evidence of the assault would have supported a third-party perpetrator defense.65 Lastly, Daniels and Gilliam claim the trial court should have granted their motions for a mistrial after the prosecutor, in her opening statement and closing argument, allegedly made an improper appeal to the emotions and passions of the jury.66 63 See Williams v. United States, 655 A.2d 310, 313 (D.C. 1995). 64 See Hager v. United States, 791 A.2d 911, 914 (D.C. 2002); Newman v. United States, 705 A.2d 246, 251-54 (D.C. 1997); Jolly v. United States, 704 A.2d 855, 860 (D.C. 1997). 65 See Winfield v. United States, 676 A.2d 1, 4-5 (D.C. 1996) (en banc). 66 See Daniels v. United States, 2 A.3d 250, 263 (D.C. 2010). 43 Because we reverse appellants‘ convictions on a different ground, it is unnecessary for us to reach these claims of error. We consider it inadvisable to do so because the issues appellants raise may not arise at all in any retrial and, if they do, it may be on a materially different factual record that we cannot predict. The legal principles that would guide the trial court if the issues arise in a future trial are well established; only the application of those principles to the particular (as yet unknown) factual context would need to be determined. Consequently, a discussion of appellants‘ claims now would have little utility.