Opinion ID: 2330422
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Challenge to the Instruction

Text: Appellant's main challenge is to the instruction that informed the jury that the absence of any fingerprint evidence, standing alone, does not constitute reasonable doubt as to the firearm charges here. He argues, first, that the judge imposed her view of what was or was not reasonable doubt on the jury, thereby violating his Sixth Amendment right to have a fair and impartial jury determination of all facts essential to establishing guilt. Second, appellant contends that this instruction, when coupled with the instructions advising the jury that the government had no duty to collect fingerprint evidence and did not need to negate all possible inferences of innocence, was at odds with the reasonable doubt instruction. Specifically, he argues that they had the effect of lowering the government's burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt  thereby depriving him of his right under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to be convicted only on proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Appellant objected solely to the no duty instruction (the first two of the four sentences in the instruction he challenges on appeal, discussed supra ), and no objection was made to the last two of the four sentences in the instruction. Objection to one portion, of an instruction does not suffice to preserve an objection to another. See 1 KEVIN F. O'MALLEY ET AL., FEDERAL JURY PRACTICE AND INSTRUCTIONS § 7.04 (5th ed. 2000) ([A]n instruction cannot be objected to on one ground in the trial court and attacked in the appellate court on a different ground, nor will an objection to one portion of the charge permit a party to assert error on appeal on a different part of the charge.) (collecting cases). Superior Court Criminal Rule 30 provides that, No party may assign as error any portion of the charge or omission therefrom unless that party objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict, stating distinctly the matter to which that party objects and the grounds of the objection. Super. Ct.Crim. R. 30. The obvious reason for requiring that objections to instructions be made before the jury retires is to afford the trial court an opportunity to correct any instructional defect and thereby avoid error which otherwise might necessitate a new trial. Watts v. United States, 362 A.2d 706, 708 (D.C.1976) (en banc). If a party fails to raise a timely objection at trial, our review is limited to plain error. See Green v. United States, 718 A.2d 1042, 1056 (D.C. 1998) (citing Robinson v. United States, 649 A.2d 584, 586 (D.C.1994)). Appellant maintains that application of the plain error standard is unwarranted here because at trial he objected on the ground that the instruction overall was not a correct statement of law. He claims that although he did not articulate his objection as extensively as he has in this appeal, the court was sufficiently on notice that the instruction was legally deficient. But not any objection will suffice to ensure plenary appellate review. Because the purpose of Rule 30 is `to give the trial court the opportunity to correct errors [in] and omissions' from the charge to the jury, Green, 718 A.2d at 1056 (quoting ( Linwood ) Johnson v. United States, 387 A.2d 1084, 1089 (D.C.1978) (en banc)), the rule requires a distinct statement of what was wrong with the instruction and a precise explanation of the grounds for the objection. Id.; see also ( Joyce) Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 465, 117 S.Ct. 1544, 137 L.Ed.2d 718 (1997) (This Rule [30] is simply the embodiment of the `familiar' principle that a right `may be forfeited in criminal as well as civil cases by the failure to make timely assertion of the right before a tribunal having jurisdiction to determine it.') (quoting United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 731, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993)). This is in keeping with our policy of having arguments presented first to the trial court, so that the trial judge is given the opportunity to consider and decide the question presented. ( James) Brown v. United States, 726 A.2d 149, 154 (D.C. 1999). We recognize that trial counsel may not have had the time to reflect and articulate an objection during the press of an ongoing trial that appellate counsel is afforded in preparing a brief on appeal. Given the requirement of a distinct objection, however, defense counsel's generic assertion at trial that the instruction misstated the law because there is no law that says they have to or don't have to collect fingerprint evidence, without more, was too imprecise to put the court on notice of the claimed error. See Dotson v. Scotty's Contracting, Inc., 86 F.3d 613, 616 (6th Cir.1996) (A global objection of the sort offered here  an objection, on unspecified grounds, to everything in the charge other than what had been proposed by the objecting party  is hardly an objection `stating distinctly the matter objected to and the grounds of the objection.'); O'MALLEY, at § 7.04 (collecting cases). Therefore, this claim of instructional error is subject to plain error review.