Opinion ID: 1890965
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: issue raised by both appellants: immediate actual possession

Text: A person commits ... carjacking if, by any means, that person ... shall take from another person immediate actual possession of a person's motor vehicle. D.C.Code § 22-2903(a)(1) (1996). [5] Beaner filed a pre-trial motion to dismiss the armed carjacking count (in which Baham joined at the hearing on the motion), arguing that Brown was not in immediate actual possession of the Mazda. Citing Mobley v. State, 111 Md.App. 446, 681 A.2d 1186 (1996), the trial court denied the motion. [6] Appellants again moved for judgment of acquittal after the government's case, but those motions were also denied. Before this court, appellants argue that Brown did not have immediate actual possession of the Mazda because he was not inside the car or just getting in or out. Appellants emphasize that Brown was talking on the telephone several feet from the car, with his back turned, and that the car doors were closed. An argument very similar to the one appellants make here was rejected by the court in United States v. Gilliam, 334 U.S.App. D.C. 391, 167 F.3d 628 (1999). In Gilliam several masked men, in order to procure a getaway car for a bank robbery, confronted a bank manager with a gun as he opened the bank's parking lot gate to park his car. The car was nearby with the driver's door open and the engine running. Id. at 395, 167 F.3d at 632. After robbing the bank, the masked robbers fled in the manager's car. On appeal they argued that there was insufficient evidence of carjacking under D.C.Code § 22-2903 because the bank manager was several feet away from his car at the time he was assaulted. The court rejected this argument, ruling that immediate actual possession, an element borrowed from the crime of robbery . . . 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. Id. at 402-403, 167 F.3d at 639-640 (citations omitted). Because the bank manager left the car with the engine running and the driver's door open, [t]he jury could reasonably find that the bank manager intended to get back into his car . . . but the robbers prevented him from doing so, and thus deprived the manager of immediate [actual] possession of his car. Id. at 403, 167 F.3d at 640 (emphasis added). We recently adopted the Gilliam holding in Winstead v. United States, 809 A.2d 607 (D.C.2002). In that case the defendant ordered a security guard at gunpoint to leave her booth, grabbed her keys out of her purse, led her to her car in a parking lot a few feet away, and directed her to drive him across town. On appeal, the carjacking conviction was challenged on the ground that the victim was not in immediate actual possession of the car because she was not in it when the assault was initiated. We held that the legislature borrowed the term `immediate actual possession' from the robbery statute on which the carjacking statute is patterned. Id. at 610 (footnote omitted). Thus, for purposes of carjacking, immediate actual possession refers to the area within which the victim can reasonably be expected to exercise some physical control over the property. ... [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. Id. (citations omitted); [7] see also Mobley v. State, 111 Md.App. 446, 455, 681 A.2d 1186, 1190 (1996) (interpreting actual possession in Maryland's carjacking statute to mean that the victim need only be entering, alighting from, or otherwise in the immediate vicinity of the vehicle); Price v. State, 111 Md.App. 487, 500, 681 A.2d 1206, 1212 (1996) (citing Mobley ). The Gilliam and Winstead cases are dispositive of appellants' argument. Brown left his car running only a few feet away when he stopped to make an urgent phone call, keeping an eye on it as he placed the call. Thus it was certainly reasonable for the jury to conclude that he intended to get back into the car when he completed the phone call, and would have done so had he not been assaulted. Appellants emphasize that this case is different from Gilliam because here the car doors were closed, whereas in Gilliam the doors were left open. Such factual hairsplitting is of no legal significance, since immediate actual possession is determined not by whether the doors were open or closed, but by whether the victim remained in the vicinity of the car and evinced an intention to return to the car. See Winstead, 809 A.2d at 610-611. Furthermore, appellants argue that the taking of the Mazda was an afterthought and a purely tangential part of the armed robbery, or a separate  but uncharged  theft. This argument is also unpersuasive, for we made clear in Winstead that [a] carjacker may take immediate actual possession ... at any point during a continuous course of assaultive conduct, not just at the starting point. Id. at 611. Appellants' reliance on language from the legislative history of the carjacking statute does not dissuade us from our holding. To support their argument that a victim must be getting into or alighting from a car, appellants cite the following excerpt from a legislative committee report: For the victim, carjacking is an especially traumatic experience. First, most feel that being inside of their car offers some protection from the outside world. Carjacking invades their zone of privacy in a way that perhaps is similar only to burglary. COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, REPORT ON BILL 10-16, at 2 (1993). In Winstead we discerned the meaning of immediate actual possession solely by examining the statutory language. See 809 A.2d at 610 (By employing the same term in the closely related carjacking statute, the Council evidently intended that it be given the same scope; there is no reason to think otherwise.). By delving into the legislative history before establishing that the statutory language is ambiguous, appellants violate a fundamental principle of statutory interpretation. In interpreting a statute, we first look to the plain meaning of its language, and if it is clear and unambiguous and will not produce an absurd result, we will look no further. In re D.H., 666 A.2d 462, 469 (D.C.1995) (citations omitted). We therefore hold that there was ample evidence to prove that the car was within the immediate actual possession of Mr. Brown at the time appellants took it and drove it away.