Court Opinion

ID: 9764475
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:24:04.020042+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:57.298067
License: Public Domain

Supplemental Opinion on Rehearing
Dec. 4, 1992
Before FERREN, TERRY, and SCHWELB, Associate Judges.
SCHWELB, Associate Judge:
On August 14, 1992, this court reversed Ms. Whitaker’s conviction for possession of a firearm during a crime of violence (PFCV). The government has filed a petition for rehearing or, in the alternative, rehearing en banc. Its primary contention is that the reinstruction requested by Ms. Whitaker — namely, that the jury may not convict her of PFCV, the compound offense, unless she was convicted of assault with a dangerous weapon (ADW), the predicate offense — would have been contrary to law. We grant the petition for rehearing and now issue this supplemental opinion.
The government relies in substantial part on People v. Lewis, 415 Mich. 443, 330 N.W.2d 16 (1982), in which the court, with one justice dissenting, stated as follows:
The judge may and should instruct the jury that a person cannot be convicted of felony-firearm unless the jury finds that he committed or attempted to commit a felony. Because conviction of a felony or of an attempt to commit a felony is not an element of the offense, the jury may not be instructed that it must convict of an underlying felony in order to convict of felony-firearm.
Id. at 455, 330 N.W.2d at 21 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).1
As the government acknowledges, however, the approach of the Supreme Court of Michigan is not uniformly followed. In Mack v. State, 300 Md. 583, 479 A.2d 1344 (1984), the court recognized, relying on an earlier decision,2 that
when an accused is charged in a multi-count indictment with the commission of a crime of violence and use of a handgun in the commission of such a crime, a verdict of guilty of the crime of violence is a prerequisite to a verdict of guilty of use of a handgun in the commission of such a crime.
Id. at 593, 479 A.2d at 1349.
This court recently reiterated that decisions of the Maryland Court of Appeals are entitled, for historical reasons, to the most respectful consideration by this court. Roberts-Douglas v. Meares, 615 A.2d 1114, 1134 n. 27 (D.C. Nov. 3, 1992).3 Neverthe*507less, we need not and do not elect between Lewis and Mack as precedents, for in our view reversal is required under either doctrine.
In the context of the present case, the difference between the instruction approved in Lewis (that the defendant may not be convicted of the compound offense unless the jury finds that he or she has committed the predicate offense) and the instruction disapproved in that case (that he or she may not be convicted of the compound offense unless convicted of the predicate offense) ought not be of major consequence. The trial judge explicitly instructed the jury, in a separate portion of his charge, that
[i]f you find that the government has proven every element of an offense or offenses with which the defendant is charged beyond a reasonable doubt, then it’s your duty to find her guilty of that offense or those offenses.
(Emphasis added.) If the jurors carried out their sworn duty, then a finding that Ms. Whitaker committed the offense of ADW should have been inexorably followed by her conviction of that offense. Whether the judge gave the instruction approved in Lewis or the one disapproved in that case could thus make a difference here only if the jurors, intentionally or as a result of confusion, failed to follow the judge’s separate “duty to convict if guilty” instruction.
In any event, the judge’s refusal to rein-struct was not based on any imprecision or other deficiency in the language suggested by Ms. Whitaker’s attorney. On the contrary, the judge grounded his decision on his perception that “I’ve given the jury correct instructions in the law, [and] they have not expressed any confusion about it.” (Emphasis added.) He added that he knew of no justification for instructing the jury further. The essence of the judge’s ruling was that the jury’s notes to the court had provided no basis for concluding that the jurors were confused, so that no further instruction was called for.
Under these circumstances, we agree with the following passage in Ms. Whitaker’s opposition to the government’s petition:
The government reads too much into appellant’s statements to the trial court on reinstruction. Appellant would not ask nor expect the judge to give an improper reinstruction. The loosely worded suggestion by counsel for appellant had not been phrased with any particular specificity, nor did it represent the exact wording that appellant thought the trial court should give. It was merely a way of putting the issue on the table for further discussion. However, the trial court never even considered giving any sort of instruction whatsoever, much less the rough suggestion put forth by counsel. It was presumed by appellant’s counsel that, like any other instruction that is given to a jury, the court and both counsel would have discussed the appropriate wording of the instruction.
Because the trial judge did not base his ruling on the exact wording put forth by appellant, but rather on the issue of jury confusion, the precise terminology used by counsel is [not decisive],[4]
(Emphasis in original.)
Assuming, without deciding, that defense counsel’s proposed instruction was not phrased with sufficient precision, and that it ought not to have been given in counsel’s exact words, this did not obviate the necessity for some effective reinstruction {e.g., the repetition of the judge’s original instruction) which would have relieved the jury’s apparent confusion. If the language used by counsel in bringing up the subject was considered unsatisfactory, the proper remedy was to reinstruct the jury, but to do so with greater precision. “[E]ven a request for an instruction which is not entirely perfect may in some situations im*508pose upon the court the duty to give a more specific instruction on an issue, where it soundly appears that such an instruction is needful to enable the jury intelligently to determine the question.” Chicago & N.W. Ry. v. Green, 164 F.2d 55, 61 (8th Cir.1947); see also Sprinkle v. Davis, 104 F.2d 487, 490 (4th Cir.1939). “Although a specially requested charge may be defective, it still may serve to call the court’s attention to the need to charge on a defensive issue.” Williams v. State, 630 S.W.2d 640, 643 (Tex.Crim.App.1982) (en banc); see also Austin v. State, 541 S.W.2d 162, 166 (Tex.Crim.App.1976) (requested instruction, although it misallocated the burden of proof, held sufficient to require correct charge on affirmative defense).
We have recently observed that a request for an instruction may be sufficient even if it was not made with “consummate clarity.” Moore v. United States, 599 A.2d 1381, 1387 (D.C.1991); see also Freed v. United States, 49 App.D.C. 392, 396, 266 F. 1012, 1016 (1920).5 “Though [arguably] inaccurate, [Ms. Whitaker’s request to charge] was sufficient to direct the judge’s attention to the correct rule of law.” Salter v. Leventhal, 337 Mass. 679, 700, 151 N.E.2d 275, 286 (1958). It “directed] the mind of the court to the legal principle, and ... require[d] that a correct instruction be given with regard thereto.” Sprinkle, supra, 104 F.2d at 490. Accordingly, the proposed instruction “should have been corrected by the court and given.” Laird v. Moss, 173 Cal.App.2d 48, 53, 342 P.2d 463, 467 (1959).
We have held that defense counsel was right with respect to his main point (that the jury was evidently confused and that the judge was obligated to relieve the apparent confusion).6 Under these circumstances, to deny all relief unless counsel, on the spur of the moment, has dotted all of his i’s and crossed all of his t’s, would be to allow the tail to wag the dog.
Although the government sounds the alarm about perceived slippery slopes along which, it hints, litigants will slide to jurisprudential catastrophe if the division opinion is allowed to stand, our decision is a narrow one. We hold only that, where the jury is apparently about to render a verdict as to a compound offense, but unable to agree as to guilt or innocence of a predicate offense, the defense is entitled, upon request, to a reinstruction of the kind approved in Lewis and included the judge’s original charge in this case. We defer to another day any questions further down the dreaded slope. See, e.g., Khiem v. United States, 612 A.2d 160, 164 (D.C.1992).
The petition for rehearing is granted. For the reasons stated in our original opinion and in this supplemental opinion on rehearing, Ms. Whitaker’s conviction is reversed, and the case is remanded for a new trial on the ADW and PFCV counts.

So ordered.

.The Lewis decision provides less than unequivocal support for the government's position on this appeal. In Lewis, the defendants were convicted of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, but acquitted of the underlying felony. The court recognized that the jury might have compromised, and analyzed the problem as follows:
If it compromised, there is the risk that some of the jurors who agreed to the compromise did not believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed a felony, but nonetheless agreed to convict the defendant of felony-firearm (although commission of a felony is an element) in exchange for the agreement of other jurors to acquit the defendant of the underlying felony. If that is what occurred, then the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on both charges. The remedy, where a jury is unable to agree on a unanimous verdict, is not dismissal of the charges, but the declaration of a mistrial, and the defendant can be required to stand trial again on the charges in respect to which the jurors were unable to agree.
415 Mich, at 451-52, 330 N.W.2d at 19. Noting, however, that the defendants were not seeking a new trial on all charges but an acquittal of the compound offense, the court rejected their position, correctly observing that "[a] compromise is indivisible. We cannot properly enforce only part of it." Id. at 453, 330 N.W.2d at 20.

. Ford v. State, 274 Md. 546, 550-51, 337 A.2d 81, 84-85 (1975).

. The government contends that we should not follow Mack because "the Maryland courts are far more hostile to inconsistent verdicts than is this court.” The court in Mack reiterated, however, that "verdict inconsistency ... has been consistently rejected as forming the basis for voiding a conviction.” 300 Md. at 594, 479 A.2d at 1349 (quoting Ford, supra, 274 Md. at 552, 337 A.2d at 85). The court also quoted Justice Holmes’ statement for the Supreme Court in Dunn v. United States, 284 U.S. 390, 393, 52 S.Ct. 189, 190, 76 L.Ed. 356 (1932) that “[c]onsistency in the verdict is not necessary.” We are satisfied that the Maryland cases do not represent any polarized extreme.
The court further stated that an instruction directing consistent verdicts does not impair the jury’s function because, "[ejven after such an instruction has been given, the jury retains its *507power to err, either fortuitously or deliberately, and to compromise or exercise lenity." Mack, supra, 300 Md. at 597, 479 A.2d at 1351. To the extent that this analysis rejects the jurisprudence of other jurisdictions, see, e.g., Commonwealth v. Stegmaier, 247 Pa.Super. 159, 162, 371 A.2d 1376, 1377 (1977), we have no occasion in this case to join either camp.

. We have substituted the words "not decisive” for the word "irrelevant” in the original.

. At least in a criminal case in which a defendant’s liberty is at stake and in which counsel has had to improvise a request for reinstruction in response to unanticipated developments during trial, we reject the notion that "a request to charge must be correct and perfect.” T.G. & Y. Stores Co. v. Waters, 175 Ga.App. 884, 885, 334 S.E.2d 910, 911 (1985).

. We note that the judge had remarked at an earlier stage of the proceedings, in response to defense counsel’s comment on the inconsistency that would characterize a conviction of PFCV while the jury could not agree on ADW, that ’’[jjuries can do remarkable things.... They have alchemy after all.” At a subsequent hearing, the judge recognized the jury's confusion more explicitly:
[i]t did take me personally three jury notes to realize what the jury was thinking, but finally the third time it finally hit even me. And I realized at that point that they were confused and — or if I couldn't be sure a hundred percent that they were confused, it would certainly appear that they were confused.