Court Opinion

ID: 9634247
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:07:05.132449+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:01.120679
License: Public Domain

KING, Associate Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
The court today holds that a drug dealer operating from a stash of crack cocaine who “kept [a] loaded gun inches from the drugs” in the stash, was not, as a matter of law, “armed with” that weapon during those instances when he retrieved contraband from the stash to resupply his street sellers. See ante at 205. Because I believe that in these circumstances this is a question of fact for the jury to resolve, and because I am satisfied that a reasonable jury could find on these facts that the drug dealer was “armed with” the weapon, I dissent from Part III of the court’s opinion. In all other respects, I join the opinion of the court.
There are two statutory provisions involved here. One allows the sentencing judge to impose a sentence of up to life imprisonment on an offender who commits certain specified offenses “when armed with or having readily available” certain dangerous weapons which includes various kinds of firearms or imitations thereof, as well as weapons having a blade and those intended for use as a bludgeon or to disfigure. D.C.Code § 22-3202(a) (1996 Repl.). The other provision, and the one directly applicable here, calls for, in addition to the possible life sentence, a mandatory-minimum five-year sentence if the underlying crime was committed by the offender while “armed with” a pistol or firearm that is not an imitation, ie., a real.pistol or firearm. D.C.Code § 22-3202(c) (1996 Repl.). No other kinds of weapons are specified. There is no serious dispute, and the court, in effect, so holds in Part IV, that when the defendant retrieved drugs from the stash with the pistol inches *208away, the firearm was “readily available” to him, thereby satisfying the provision that would allow a sentence up to life imprisonment. The majority also holds, however, that these circumstances are insufficient to satisfy the “armed with” provision which carries a mandatory-minimum sentence. The majority concludes that “armed with” is limited to those circumstances where the defendant has “actual physical possession” of the firearm. In my view, that interpretation is too restrictive.
In deciding that “armed with” means “actual physical possession,” my colleagues reject the government’s argument that the “armed with” provision “cannot reasonably have meant to distinguish between a gun lying on a table inches from the defendant’s hand and one kept in his pocket or on his lap (hence ‘on’ his person).” Ante at 205. The majority responds that where a defendant has a “gun ‘at hand’ for use if needed, the lay observer would say that he has armed himself with it” whether the weapon was in his grasp or whether, although not on the defendant’s person, the weapon was readily available for use by him. In short, the argument goes, there is a danger that the jury would blur the two concepts, effectively deciding there was no difference between the scope of “readily available” and “armed with,” a notion we have rejected on at least two occasions. See Morton v. United States, 620 A.2d 1338 (D.C.1993); Abrams v. United States, 531 A.2d 964 (D.C.1987). The majority is also concerned that accepting the government’s argument would create a “line-drawing problem.” See Bailey v. United States, — U.S. —, —, 116 S.Ct. 501, 509, 133 L.Ed.2d 472 (1995). In my view, neither rationale is a sufficient basis for not adopting the interpretation offered by the government.
I begin my analysis by noting that there is virtually nothing in the legislation itself, or in any of our cases,1 to guide us in determining what is meant by the term “armed with.” The provision was added by voter initiative in 1983, and there is no legislative history. See Abrams, supra, 531 A.2d at 966 n. 3. Nor does the statute provide any definitions of its operative terms. The Abrams court recognized, however, that, at minimum, “armed with” was a narrower concept than “readily available.” Id. at 971. The only clue to the meaning of “armed with” is found in those portions of the statute setting forth the description of the weapons covered by each separate provision. The life sentence section, i.e., “readily available,” applies for “any pistol or other firearm (or imitation thereof) or other dangerous or deadly weapon....” Section 22-3202(a).2 On the other hand, the mandatory sentence provision is limited to those “armed with any pistol or firearm.... ” Section 22-3202(a)(l). Thus, the “armed with” provision only applies where the weapon is a real pistol or firearm (as opposed to an imitation), while the life sentence provision applies to a wide variety of weapons, many of which are intrinsically less lethal than the weapons specified in the “armed with” provision. This difference suggests to me that the mandatory-minimum sentence provision was intended to cover only the most dangerous of circumstances: an offender capable of causing serious harm or death to another by the instant employment of a real firearm.
A weapon would be available for “instant employment,” of course, under the majority’s definition, i.e., where the weapon was in the offender’s hand, in the belt or a coat pocket, *209or on a seated offender’s lap. These would be examples of “actual physical possession.” In my view, a weapon would also be available for instant employment when a drug dealer was selling from a stash located on a table in front of him with a real firearm immediately next to the stash, the hypothetical suggested by the government. It would also include a dealer, selling from an automobile, with a real firearm on the seat beside him ready for instant use. The offender with a real firearm on the seat beside him, or on the table in front of him, is no less dangerous than the same offender who has the same firearm on his lap, or in his belt or pocket. Under the majority’s formulation, however, the latter would be “armed with” the firearm, but the former would not. I submit that such a result is blind to the reality of the kind of behavior that is dangerous and that which is less so.3 If the purpose of this law is to punish most severely the offender who poses the greatest threat to the public, and I think that is a fair reading of the “armed with” provision read as a whole, then it should include, within its scope, all offenders who are, in fact, the most dangerous, including those who can come by their firearm as quickly as if the firearm were on their person, as well as those who are in actual physical possession of the firearm.
Applying that definition would not, contrary to what the majority suggests, necessarily result in a jury deciding that there is no difference between the scope of “armed with” and “readily available”; nor would it present intractable line-drawing problems. The first concern can easily be remedied by an instruction to the jury along the lines of: “the term ‘armed with’ means that the firearm is as instantly available to the offender for use as it would be if it were actually on his person.” This instruction is fairly simple of application and juries regularly are asked to decide cases based on instructions like this one. As a matter of course, we presume that juries will follow the instructions that they receive. See Harris v. United States, 602 A.2d 154, 165 (D.C.1992) (en banc).
Further, we should not be deterred from adopting this definition because of any concerns about line-drawing. Courts wrestle with a wide variety of difficult line-drawing questions every day. One particularly troublesome example, similar to what we face here, is the case involving a defendant charged with possession of something that is not on his or her person, i.e., the so-called constructive possession case.4 The fact that constructive possession eases are often difficult to analyze, and often do not appear to square with each other, does not make us throw up our hands and say that because of the problems with line-drawing in those cases, we will define possession to mean only actual physical possession.5 Instead we deal with each fact pattern as it comes to us, resolving some in favor of the accused and some for the government. The same process could apply for the “armed with” provision, although I would expect that there will be far fewer such cases than would be encountered on the question of constructive possession.
In sum, because there are no compelling reasons for not adopting the definition sug*210gested, and because that definition would include, within the law’s coverage, only those offenders who pose the most danger, I would hold that “armed with” means: the weapon is on the person or so close at hand that it would be as instantly available for use as it would have been if it had been on the person, with “on the person” being defined as actual physical possession. Applying that definition to the facts of this case would compel an affirmance on the “while armed” element of the underlying offense.6 The stash and the loaded pistol were inches apart and a jury could reasonably find that the pistol was instantly available to Johnson for use when he reached into the stash to obtain the contraband. Therefore, at that point it can fairly be said that he was “armed with” the pistol.

. Although there are no cases directly on point, the United States Court of Appeals, in some old cases, at least one binding on us, has held that the term "immediate actual possession” in the robbery statute, 22 D.C.Code § 22-2901 (Supp. III 1970) means "an area within which the victim could reasonably be expected to exercise some physical control.” United States v. Spears, 145 U.S.App. D.C. 284, 293, 449 F.2d 946, 955 (1971); Spencer v. United States, 73 App.D.C. 98, 99, 116 F.2d 801, 802 (1940). That definition would result in a far broader scope of coverage than what is proposed here, and is, therefore, not particularly helpful in resolving the question before us.

. The weapons specified in that section are "any pistol or other firearm (or imitation thereof) or other dangerous or deadly weapon (including a sawed-off shotgun, shotgun, machine gun, rifle, dirk, bowie knife, butcher knife, switchblade knife, razor, blackjack, billy, or metallic or other false knuckles).” D.C.Code § 22-3202(a) (1996 Repl.).

. A firearm located in a deep pocket or strapped in some hard-to-reach place on the body would be in the offender’s "actual physical possession” but could be less instantly available than the firearm in the "on the table” or "on the seat” examples cited above.

. See Earle v. United States, 612 A.2d 1258 (D.C.1992); In re T.M., 577 A.2d 1149 (D.C.1990); Curry v. United States, 520 A.2d 255 (D.C.1987); United States v. Holland, 144 U.S.App.D.C. 225, 227, 445 F.2d 701, 703 (1971) (Tamm, J., concurring) ("The more cases one reads on constructive possession the deeper is he plunged into a thicket of subjectivity.”).

. Equating "armed with” and "actual physical possession” creates some line-drawing problems of its own. A firearm in the pocket of an outer-coat being worn by the offender presumably is in the "actual physical possession,” but what if the coat is carried folded over the forearm, or is held in the hand? Is an offender "armed with” a pistol which is located in a paper bag held in the hand? If the answer is yes, then a drug dealer who keeps his pistol and contraband in a paper bag on the ground is not “armed with” the pistol when he reaches into the bag to retrieve the contraband without grasping the pistol, but is "armed with” the pistol when he picks-up the bag. What about a firearm in a gym bag being carried by the offender? Does it matter whether the bag is zipped or unzipped? What about a firearm located in luggage being carried?

. The issue of whether Johnson was "armed with” the pistol when he reached for the drugs was not focused upon in any way by the parties at trial. No special instruction was requested and the defense did not argue to the jury that Johnson did not fall within the statutory definition. The issue of whether Johnson was "armed with” the firearm was raised for the first time in this appeal.