Opinion ID: 1546590
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Relevance of Federal Case Law

Text: The federal courts were faced with interpreting language in the federal carjacking statute (take from the person or presence of another) [20] that is the functional equivalent of the third element of the District's carjacking statute (take from another person immediate actual possession). In United States v. Perez-Garcia, 56 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir.1995), the court observed that the federal carjacking statute does not define `from the person or presence,' and neither do the robbery statutes upon which § 2119 was based. However, in United States v. Lake, 150 F.3d 269, 272 (3d Cir.1998), the court explained that [t]he carjacking statute's requirement that the vehicle be taken `from the person or presence of [another]' `tracks the language used in other federal robbery statutes' (citations omitted). Under these statutes, property is in the presence of a person if it is so within his reach, observation or control, that he could if not overcome by violence or prevented by fear, retain his possession of it. United States v. Burns, 701 F.2d 840, 843 (9th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 462 U.S. 1137, 103 S.Ct. 3123, 77 L.Ed.2d 1375 (1983) (internal quotation marks omitted); accord United States v. W.T.T., 800 F.2d 780, 782 (8th Cir.1986) (quoting Burns ); LAFAVE & SCOTT, SUBSTANTIVE CRIMINAL LAW § 8.11, at 443 (1986) (property taken in the robbery must be close enough to the victim and sufficiently under his control that, had the latter not been subjected to violence or intimidation by the robber he could have prevented the taking). The Third Circuit, in Lake, accordingly imported into the federal carjacking statute the test for presence, as formulated in Burns and the cited treatise, 150 F.3d at 272, and within a year the Eleventh Circuit had followed suit. See United States v. Kimble, 178 F.3d 1163, 1167, 1167-68 (11th Cir.1999) (car must be close enough for the victims to have prevented its taking had fear or violence not caused them to hesitate). [21] The Lake/Kimble formulation, therefore, does not merely require proximity to the car sufficient for the victim to retain actual physical control over it in the abstract. It also creates a visual imageto be applied to the evidencethat the victim must be close enough that, if nothing violent had stood in the way, the victim would have been able to reach the car in time for a confrontation when the would-be carjacker attempted to take possession. [22] This Lake/Kimble formulation has also been adopted by other federal circuits. [23] And, important for our purposes, it is an elaboration wholly consistent with, and supportive of, this court's proximity requirement in Winstead. We conclude, accordingly, that the Lake/Kimble formulation enhances our understanding of what close enough should mean under our local jury instruction and what is within the range for sufficiency purposes under the District's carjacking statute. [24]
We turn now to the facts. We have shown that instruction 4.51, without reference to the force or violence language in Winstead, cannot be found prejudicial to Sutton. Furthermore, we perceive no basis for questioning sufficiency of the evidence of immediate actual possession because of a failure to include the federal Lake/Kimble refinement in that instruction. In contemplating whether the victim was close enough to exercise physical control over his car, the juror who asks, Close enough to control for what purpose?, is more likely than not to answer intuitively and logically: close enough to stop the thief. Therefore, absent objection by Sutton, we are not troubled by omission of Lake/Kimble language from Instruction 4.51. Accordingly, we undertake our factual analysis by applying the instructional language used by the jury. Too loosely construed, of course, instruction 4.51 could be meaningless, for literally anyone with a car key in the pocket could be said to be close enough to exercise physical control over a vehicle parked blocks away, even at one's home. But the instruction, [25] in requiring such proximity that one could reasonably expect the complainant to exercise physical control over the vehicle, surely means close enough to exercise control at the time of the alleged taking of the car. In context, no other meaning would make sense. Thus, a victim's physical control over the key does not in itself suggest that the victim was close enough to the car, wherever located, to trigger the carjacking statute. It follows that, even if one could say that the assailants, including Sutton, took a person's motor vehicle when they stole Cox's car keys (thereby satisfying the fourth element of carjacking), this would not mean that they took the vehicle from Cox's immediate actual possession. The focus, then, must be on the victim's Cox'sproximity to the vehicle itself: what was close enough? As noted earlier, we initiate that inquiry in a context new to this court's jurisprudence: uncontradicted evidence demonstrating that Cox, the victim here, had left his parked car for an evening with friendsindeed, he was three car lengths (or roughly forty-five to fifty feet) away from it and intending to walk further when Sutton and the others accosted him. Sutton accordingly argues that, because Cox had parked the vehicle, intending to leave it unused as he walked to a social gathering some distance away, that scenario indicated an intent to relinquish possession for a while and thus limited the scenethe scope of the assaultto the vicinity of the holdup and robbery of his person after he had left the car. There is nothing in the statute, however, that would serve to constrict the immediate actual possession requirement by reference to the victim's intent upon leaving the vehicle. Clearly, the legal test governing a sufficiency inquiry, set forth both in instruction 4.51 and in Winstead is an objective one: immediate actual possession is retained if the car is close enough or within such range that the victim could not would have retained actual physical control over the car. 809 A.2d at 610. (Emphasis added.) We cannot say as a matter of law that the three car lengthsthe forty-five to fifty feetat issue here, in contrast with the very short distances at issue in Winstead and our other decisions, see supra note 13, take this case outside the carjacking statute. On the facts of record, and in light of relevant federal case law, see supra note 23, we must conclude that the jury reasonably could have found that at the time Sutton's cohort, Wright, drove away in Cox's Spyder, the Spyder was in Cox's immediate actual possession because the car was close enough that one could reasonably expect [Cox] to exercise physical control over it. Instruction 4.51, supra note 9. We accordingly can say that, at the time the Spyder was taken, it was within such range that [Cox] could, if not deterred by violence or fear, [have] retain[ed] actual physical control over it. Winstead, 809 A.2d at 610. And, finally, lest there remain any question about what it means to have exercised or retained actual physical control, we are satisfied that, but for the violence against Cox indeed, a threat of death pending throughout the time period until Wright drove Cox's Spyder awayCox remained close enough to the vehicle to have prevented its taking. Kimble, 178 F.3d at 1168. [26] To conclude: the evidence is sufficient for conviction of carjacking; the record supports the jury's finding that the victim, Cox, was in immediate actual possession of his vehicle at the time Sutton and the others took it away from him.