Opinion ID: 1546590
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Application to Carjacking of Immediate Actual Possession under the Robbery Statute

Text: This case, more than any other we have decided, see supra note 13, forces us to consider how far away a car must be from the victim before we can say, as a matter of law, that it is far enough to deprive the victim of immediate actual possession, and thus too far away to turn a car thief into a carjacker. Our analysis is informed by the fact that, as explained in Winstead, the Council of the District of Columbia borrowed the term `immediate actual possession' from the robbery statute. 809 A.2d at 610. Thus, armed carjacking is, conceptually, a subset of armed robbery: the armed theft of a motor vehicle from the immediate actual possession of another person. [14] In this court's decision in Rouse v. United States, 402 A.2d 1218 (D.C.1979), we defined immediate actual possession under the robbery statute by adopting the following language from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit: [A] thing is within one's immediate actual possession so long as it is within such range that he could, if not deterred by violence or fear, retain actual physical control over it. That construction is harmonious with holdings elsewhere that the invasion of personal possession essential to robbery sufficiently appears where the property is so far under the personal protection of the victim that violence or intimidation is necessary to sever his control. (Emphasis added.) [ United States v. Dixon, 152 U.S.App. D.C. 200, 204, 469 F.2d 940, 944 (1972)]. Rouse, 402 A.2d at 1220. A few years later, however, we said more simply, without reference to deterrence by violence or fear: Immediate actual possession refers to the area within which the victim can reasonably be expected to exercise some physical control over the property. Head v. United States, 451 A.2d 615, 624 (D.C.1982). Head's formulation is derived from a D.C. Circuit case decided before Dixon [15] and is reflected in the standard jury instruction, No. 4.51, see supra note 9, quoted above and approved in Winstead. As the Rouse and Head formulations make clear, immediate actual possession has an elastic quality, reaching somewhere beyond actual possession at common law [16] into the realm of constructive possession. [17] Accordingly, we confront this question: how far beyond literal actual possession is this elastic definition intended to go before particular facts trigger its snapping point? When this court decided Winstead, approving standard jury instruction 4.51 reflecting Head, we also adopted language from Gilliam, see supra note 13, that incorporated the federal circuit court's earlier ruling in Dixon and our corresponding formulation in Rouse. More specifically, to evaluate evidentiary sufficiency, we held, in agreement with the D.C. Circuit, that under the [District of Columbia] carjacking statute, immediate actual possession `is retained if the car is within such range that the victim could, if not deterred by violence or fear, retain actual physical control over it.' Winstead, 809 A.2d at 610 (quoting Gilliam, 167 F.3d at 639-40) (emphasis added). In sum, in Winstead we approved leaving the violence or fear language out of the standard jury instruction, No. 4.51, while incorporating those words into the rule announced to govern sufficiency analysis.