Court Opinion

ID: 9750941
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 15:50:16.573965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:29.511127
License: Public Domain

THOMPSON, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
It is clear under our case law that a presumption of vindictiveness can arise in the pretrial context where there is an appropriate “accumulation of circumstances.” United States v. Mahdi, 777 A.2d 814, 820 (D.C.2001). I cannot agree, however, that the record in this case presents an accumulation of circumstances that warrants such a presumption — a presumption that the government retaliated against Mr. Simms for exercising a protected right. Nor, in my view, did the sequence of events in this case create an appearance of vindictiveness that should have triggered a requirement that the government explain why it exercised its prosecutorial discretion to add a charge of assault on a police officer (“APO”).
A.
I begin by setting out a somewhat fuller description of the record in this case than is contained in the majority opinion. A bench trial on the marijuana possession charge against Mr. Simms was scheduled to begin on January 31, 2011. The tape of the proceedings on that day reveals that, after the case was called, the court asked counsel for the government whether the government was ready for trial, and counsel for the government responded that the government was “ready.” Mr. Simms’s counsel responded that the defense had some pretrial matters. The first was that defense counsel had not received a copy of the DEA-7 form (containing the laboratory report on the substance contained in the three bags that a police officer claimed to have seen Mr. Simms toss into a tree box in the 1100 block of Vermont Avenue). The court passed the case so that Mr. Simms’s counsel could look at the copy supplied to him in open court. When the case was recalled, Mr. Simms’s counsel said that the defense would waive as to the DEA-7, but that there was an additional issue of enforcement of a subpoena duces tecum that counsel had served on an individual at the Department of Homeland Services (“DHS”) building at 1120 Vermont Avenue on December 15, 2010, in an effort to obtain security videotapes from that location. The individual who was served had informed defense counsel that he was authorized to accept service of the subpoena duces tecum and had promised to forward it to DHS’s “legal department” along with defense counsel’s contact information. Defense counsel told the court that despite numerous phone calls and emails to DHS, he had received no response. He also told the court that “last week,” he had contacted counsel for the government and made a Super. Ct.Crim. R. 16 request for the DHS videotapes. The court responded that it would look at the subpoena duces tecum and consider enforcing it, but that the court did not believe the videotapes were in the government’s possession for Rule 16 purposes.
The court then inquired as to whether government counsel had any information about the videotapes. Government counsel responded that the government was made aware of the outstanding subpoena to DHS “last week” and had attempted to contact someone at that agency without success. He told the court that the government was willing to pursue efforts to contact the agency. After passing the case again and then resuming the proceedings, the court directed the government to try to find out what it could about DHS’s position. The court said that it would not try the case on that day, but would wait to *495see whether it needed to enforce the subpoena duces tecum. The court — appearing to understand the government counsel who was present was not the prosecutor assigned to the case — then asked government counsel which prosecutor was assigned to the case. Government counsel responded that the assigned prosecutor was Marvin Lett1 and said that he would speak with Mr. Lett and make sure that the process of contacting DHS was expedited. The court set February 10, 2011, as the date for a status hearing on the matter.
At the February 10 status hearing, the court asked the parties where matters stood with respect to the issue of the defense subpoena duces tecum. The tape of that proceeding reveals that defense counsel reported to the court that Mr. Lett had sent him an email stating that he (Mr. Lett) had contacted the individual who accepted service for DHS, who informed him that the videotape(s) for the date in question had been deleted. Defense counsel told the court that in light of that, there did not appear to be anything more that could be done with respect to the subpoena duces tecum and that the defense was requesting a new trial date. The trial court again stated that the videotape apparently had never come into the possession of the government and that there was no Rule 16 issue. Government counsel then told the court that before a trial date was set, the government wished to amend the information to include an APO charge. The court asked whether the additional charge arose out of the same nucleus of facts as the marijuana possession charge, whether the defense was aware of the potential for the additional allegation, and whether the defense had a need for additional discovery. Defense counsel responded that the court could go ahead and set a trial date. Thereafter, Mr. Simms was arraigned on the APO charge. The courtroom clerk asked whether defense counsel and Mr. Simms had been served with a copy of the amended information. Defense counsel responded that they had been served with the amended complaint and said that they would waive the formal reading of the complaint and enter a “not guilty” plea. The court then set a trial date of April 12, 2011, and afforded the defense two weeks within which to file any motions relating to the additional charge.
The paper record reveals that on February 4, 2011, the amended information was signed by an Assistant United States Attorney (someone other than Mr. Lett, and someone other than the person who had signed the original information). On February 24, 2011, the defense filed a motion for an extension of time to file pretrial motions. It served that motion on Assistant United States Attorney Sarita Fratta-roli (whose name does not appear on any of the previous documents in the record). The defense filed its “Motion to Dismiss Information for Vindictive Prosecution” on February 28, 2011. The trial court denied the motion in an order dated April 7, 2011, explaining that it had “reviewed the circumstances of this case and ... decided that the prosecutor’s actions do not give rise to a realistic likelihood of prosecutorial vindictiveness.”
During trial on April 12, 2011, the government called a single witness, Officer Kimberly Selby. The DEA-7 report was admitted without a chemist having testified, and without objection from the defense. During cross-examination by defense counsel, Officer Selby testified that she believed she had spoken with only one prosecutor — “one female prosecutor”— *496about the case prior to April 12. She also testified that on April 12, she spoke with the (male) prosecutor who tried the case “just to go over the stuff here.” The record does not contain the name of the prosecutor who tried the case on April 12.
B.
As the majority opinion explains, this courts review of whether a presumption of prosecutorial vindictiveness was warranted on the foregoing undisputed facts is de novo. In conducting that de novo review, I have borne in mind the following.
The Supreme Court has characterized a presumption of vindictiveness as a “sever[e]” presumption that courts should be “cautious” about applying in a pretrial setting. United States v. Goodwin, 457 U.S. 368, 373, 102 S.Ct. 2485, 73 L.Ed.2d 74 (1982) (“Given the severity of such a presumption, ... which may operate in the absence of any proof of an improper motive and thus may block a legitimate response to criminal conduct[,] the Court has [presumed an improper vindictive motive] only in cases in which a reasonable likelihood of vindictiveness exists.”); see also id. at 381, 102 S.Ct. 2485 (“There is good reason to be cautious before adopting an inflexible presumption of prosecutorial vindictiveness in a pretrial setting”). Caution is warranted, the Court explained, because “[a] prosecutor should remain free before trial to exercise the broad discretion entrusted to him to determine the extent of the societal interest in prosecution” of a defendant. Id. at 382, 102 S.Ct. 2485. The Court recognized that an initial decision by a prosecutor as to what offense(s) to charge “should not freeze future conduct,” and that “the initial charges filed by a prosecutor may not reflect the extent to which an individual is legitimately subject to prosecution.” Id.
The Court instructed in Goodwin that the mere fact that the government has added a charge after the defendant has asserted a protected right does not give rise to a reasonable likelihood of vindictiveness; rather, “[t]he nature of the right asserted” must be taken into account. Id. If the right asserted is one that defendants routinely assert pretrial, it is difficult to justify a presumption that a subsequent additional charge reflects vindictiveness. Id. at 382, 102 S.Ct. 2485 (“The nature of the right asserted by [Goodwin — i.e., his demand for a jury trial] confirms that a presumption of vindictiveness is not warranted in this case.”). As the Supreme Court explained,
[A] defendant before trial is expected to invoke procedural rights that inevitably impose some “burden” on the prosecutor. Defense counsel routinely file pretrial motions to suppress evidence; to challenge the sufficiency and form of an indictment; to plead an affirmative defense; to request psychiatric services; to obtain access to government files; to be tried by jury. It is unrealistic to assume that a prosecutor’s probable response to such motions is to seek to penalize and to deter.
Id. at 381, 102 S.Ct. 2485. A presumption of vindictiveness may be warranted where the prosecution has added a charge after the defendant, having asserted a protected right, thereby caused “duplicative expenditures of prosecutorial resources before a final judgment may be obtained,” or caused the government to have to “do over what it thought it had already done correctly,” or required the government to do something against which there is an “institutional bias.” Id. at 383, 102 S.Ct. 2485 (footnote, citation, and internal quotation marks omitted). But the mere fact that the defendant’s invocation of his right has occasioned some additional burden for the government is not enough to justify a pre*497sumption that the additional charge was vindictive. See id. at 383, 102 S.Ct. 2485 (explaining that even though “[t]o be sure, a jury trial is more burdensome than a bench trial,” the “distinction between a bench trial and a jury trial does not compel a special presumption of prosecutorial vindictiveness whenever additional charges are brought after a jury is demanded,” observing that a prosecutor has “no personal stake” in a bench trial, and reasoning that therefore “[t]he possibility that a prosecutor would respond to a defendants pretrial demand for a jury trial by bringing charges not in the public interest that could be explained only as a penalty imposed on the defendant is so unlikely that a presumption of vindictiveness certainly is not warranted”) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
In Mahdi, this court reaffirmed the procedure that a trial court should follow when presented with a claim of prosecuto-rial vindictiveness:
The appropriate procedure is that ... [t]he trial court should ... review the accumulation of circumstances of record and decide, without more, as a threshold matter whether the allegations as to a prosecutor’s actions give rise to a realistic likelihood of prosecutorial vindictiveness. If this examination results in a negative finding, the trial court should go no further, but need only enter the appropriate ruling. If, however, the examination results in an affirmative finding, the obligation is then on the government to answer or explain the allegations.
777 A.2d at 820 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In Mahdi, we also reaffirmed that “the rule against prosecutorial vindictiveness requires the elimination of even the appearance of vindictiveness from the operation of the legal process.” Id. at 820 (quoting United States v. Schiller, 424 A.2d 51, 56 (D.C.1980) (internal quotation marks omitted)).
C.
I now turn to an assessment of Mr. Simms’s motion, and of the record in this case, in light of the foregoing principles.
In his memorandum in support of his “Motion to Dismiss Information for Vindictive Prosecution,” Mr. Simms argued that:
On January 31, 2011, the original trial date, the government had expended all of the resources that would be included in preparing for a single-day misdemeanor bench trial: the prosecutor had spent time and effort readying himself and his witnesses for trial, and the government had expended financial resources to secure the testimony of its police officer and chemist witnesses. The defendant’s request that the Court enforce the subpoena for the security camera footage caused the trial to be continued, and “exacted from the prosecution the effort and expense of a new trial”: in all likelihood, a new prosecutor would have to spend time and effort preparing for the trial, and the government would have to spend “duplicative” financial resources to secure the testimony of its police and chemist witnesses.2 Because “the prosecution has taken actions against the defendant after the defendant exercised a protected statutory or constitutional right,” the Court “should presume[ ] an improper vindictive motive.”3
Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Motion to Dismiss Information *498for Vindictive Prosecution, at 6-7.4
My first observation is that while addition of the APO charge did follow Mr. Simms’s exercise of his right to ask the court to “enforce the subpoena for the security camera footage” and also followed his (January 26, 2011) request to the government to produce the DHS videotape pursuant to Rule 16, I see no basis for meaningfully distinguishing either of these pretrial requests from what the Supreme Court recognized in Goodwin as “routine[ ] ... pretrial motions” to “obtain access to government files.” 457 U.S. at 381, 102 S.Ct. 2485. Without more, “[i]t is unrealistic to assume that a prosecutor’s probable response to such motions is to seek to penalize and to deter.” Id.
An additional important fact is that the trial was indeed a “single-day misdemean- or bench trial.” Thus, this was not a matter in which the prosecution had been required to prepare for a possible “challenge [to] the selection of the [jury] veni-re,” or to prepare witnesses and arguments “more carefully to avoid the danger of a mistrial.” Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 383, 102 S.Ct. 2485. This surely minimized any burden the assigned prosecutor had been required to undertake in the days before the trial was continued as a result of Mr. Simms’s efforts to enforce the subpoena duces tecum — meaning that the prosecutor had very little “personal stake” in going to trial on January 31.
The trial also was one in which a single witness testified for the government. And, importantly, it appears that the government had reason — both at the time the trial court continued the January 31 scheduled trial date, and on February 10 when the government moved to amend the information to add the APO charge — to anticipate that the trial would be just that. When the court announced toward the close of the proceedings on January 31 that it would continue the trial date, the defense had already said that it would “waive” as to the DEA-7 (and, as described above, the DEA-7 report was admitted at trial without testimony from the chemist and without any defense objection). Thus, contrary to Mr. Simms’s assertion in his motion that the government incurred the burden of spending duplica-tive financial resources to “secure the testimony of its ... chemist witnesses,” the government knew on January 31 that it would not be required to secure the presence of the chemist at the rescheduled trial.
Further, although Mr. Simms also asserted in his motion that “the prosecutor had spent time and effort readying himself and his witnesses for trial” on January 31, several things in the record strongly suggest that this investment of time was minimal. First, the assigned prosecutor — who, the record shows, was not present at any of the three times when the case was called on January 31 — had some reason to *499expect that the trial might not go forward on January 31: the fact, which he had learned the week before, that defense counsel was pursuing efforts to obtain the DHS videotape(s). Second, as recounted above, Officer Selby testified at trial that she believed that, prior to April 12, she had spoken about the case with only one, female prosecutor (possibly Sarita Fratta-roli, who was involved with the case by sometime in February) and had spoken with the prosecutor who actually tried the case only briefly on April 12, the day of trial. Third, the record indicates that Officer Pezzat, the second police officer who was involved in Mr. Simms’s arrest, was deployed in the military at the time of trial (and perhaps for some time before trial). The record does not reveal whether Officer Pezzat was prepared as a witness at any time, but Officer Selby’s testimony (that the female prosecutor with whom she spoke “asked if Officer Pazat [sic] was going to be coming”) suggests that Officer Pezzat was not present when Officer Selby spoke with the female prosecutor. Moreover, in her arrest affidavit, Officer Pezzat stated that it was Officer Selby who saw Mr. Simms toss the bags of marijuana into the tree box. This suggests that the prosecutor would have regarded Officer Selby as the primary witness for the government. Thus, nothing in the record bears out the claim that the prosecution had to repeat any substantial “time and effort readying [it]self and [its] witnesses for trial” as a result of Mr. Simms’s assertion of his rights.
In short, the facts do not suggest a realistic likelihood of vindictiveness (or even a motive for vindictiveness) by the prosecution. Nor, in my view, did they create an appearance of vindictiveness. This case is unlike Wynn v. United States, 386 A.2d 695 (D.C.1978), in which this court found an appearance of vindictiveness where, “[f]or no apparent reason,” the government added new charges after the defendant successfully moved for an advance of the trial date, and the trial court then dismissed the case without prejudice when the government was unable to produce a witness on short notice. Id. at 697-98. This case also is unlike Mahdi, in which we agreed with the trial court that there was an appearance of vindictiveness and a realistic likelihood of vindictiveness where the government added a charge after the criminal case against Mahdi was dismissed without prejudice for want of prosecution, and Mahdi then filed a civil suit against the police officers based on their conduct on the day of Mahdi’s arrest. See 777 A.2d at 821. Here, in contrast to the facts of those cases, the government had not been on the losing side of a motion to dismiss, a motion to advance the trial date, or any other motion.5 Government *500counsel made no objection when the trial court said that it would continue the trial date. Further, as the trial court observed, “it appears that the government was compliant, albeit unsuccessful, with the defendants compulsory process request.” The court’s impression is supported by the statement, by government counsel who was present on January 31, that the government was “willing” to try to contact DHS again about the videotape. I do not suggest that this statement must be accepted uncritically, at face value, but the statement certainly does not support an assumption or create an appearance that Mr. Simms’s request for enforcement of his subpoena duces tecum “irritated the government to such an extent that the government thought retaliatory measures appropriate.”6 United States v. Pipito, 861 F.2d 1006, 1010 (7th Cir.1987). Observing that “continuances on the day of trial are routine,” the trial court concluded — correctly, in my view — that there was no basis for assuming “that the government took special offense to the continuance in this case.” In addition, during the January 31 proceeding, the trial judge promptly rejected the notion that the government had an obligation under Rule 16 to produce the videotapes the defense sought. Thus, the government would not have thought it would be facing a Rule 16 sanction.
Instead of vindictiveness, the record readily suggests other reasons why the prosecution might have revisited the October 15, 2010, arrest affidavit and focused on the portions that provided the basis for the APO charge. First, although it is not clear from the record precisely when Ms. Frattaroli became involved in the case, one explanation for revisiting the affidavit, and for re-assessing the appropriate extent of prosecution, is the involvement of a new prosecutor — i.e., “a new approach by a new prosecutor.” Williams v. Bartow, 481 F.3d 492, 501 (7th Cir.2007). Second (and perhaps less speculatively), the defense’s January 26 letter invoking Rule 16 with respect to the DHS/1100 block of Vermont Avenue videotape gave the government cause to revisit the arrest affidavit to focus on what conduct took place on Vermont Avenue in the vicinity of the DHS cameras, and what might have occurred beyond their surveillance area.7 A review of the affidavit with that inquiry in mind would almost certainly have drawn attention to Mr. Simms’s having “struggle[d] with” the officers and having “resist[ed]” them before they were able to place him in handcuffs when they caught up with him on Thomas Circle.8 If, having newly focused on the facts supporting the APO charge and reassessed “the extent of the societal interest in prosecution,”9 the gov*501ernment determined to add the APO charge, that does not suggest vindictiveness, but instead correction of an oversight. The majority opinion supposes that the government “acted swiftly to add the APO charge” after the January 31 trial date was continued, but there is no reason to assume that the February 4 amended information was the culmination of rethinking that occurred only after January SI.10
It may be that neither of the explanations suggested by the record is the correct one, but, I believe, the fact that the record readily suggests them precludes any appearance of vindictiveness. My colleagues accuse me of attempting to rebut the presumption of vindictiveness for the government, ante at 493, but I have done no such thing; what I have done instead is explain why, under the principles established by Goodwin, no presumption arises on the facts of this case. (My colleagues are correct that I have suggested particular explanations “never raised by the government”; but if the government had provided explanations, it would have done precisely what it argues it should not be required to do on this record.)
Finally, I focus on what my colleagues in the majority cite as the fact that “tips the balance” in favor of a presumption of vindictiveness: the government’s announcement that it was “ready” for trial on January 31.11 I believe my colleagues accord far too much significance to the government’s response that it was “ready” for trial. The case law makes plain that the government (like the defense) sometimes announces ready when it is not ready, or at least is not as ready as it wishes to be. See, e.g., Lemon v. United States, 564 A.2d 1368, 1377 n. 17 (D.C.1989) (finding the government’s announcement of readiness “unpersuasive under [the] circumstances”).12 I read the government’s statement that it was ready for trial as a representation by which it took on the obligation to go forward without objection (and without a new charge or anything else of which due notice had not been given) if the court determined to go forward (something the government apparently felt it could do in light of what seems to have *502been its sense that not much witness-preparation time was needed). I do not think we can fairly read the government’s “ready” statement as denoting that the government desired or expected to go forward, or as indicating that the government was as prepared as it wished to be.13 Nor do I think we should pretend that every assertion of “ready” means that the government’s position is fully crystallized.
To summarize, in my view, Mr. Simms’s request to the court to enforce his subpoena duces tecum and the resulting continuance were so routine; continuance of the trial imposed so minimal an additional burden on the government; the government’s announcement of “ready” was so opaque in meaning; and the record is so suggestive of benign reasons why the government might have re-analyzed the arrest affidavit and re-assessed the appropriate extent of prosecution, that I cannot conscientiously agree with my colleagues that a presumption of vindictiveness — which Goodwin cautioned is a “sever[e]” presumption — is justified. Quite the contrary, the possibility that the prosecutor responded to Mr. Simms’s requests “by bringing charges not in the public interest that could be explained only as a penalty” is “so unlikely that a presumption of vindictiveness certainly is not warranted.” Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 384, 102 S.Ct. 2485. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

. The paper record confirms that Mr. Lett was the prosecutor with whom the defense had corresponded repeatedly prior to the January 31 scheduled trial date.

. Citing Schiller, 424 A.2d at 57.

. Citing Mahdi, 777 A.2d at 819.

. Mr. Simms's motion also asserted that ‘‘[a]t the status conference on February 10, 2011, defense asked for a new trial date. The government then amended the information against Mr. Simms to include an additional charge of assault on a police officer.” To the extent that the motion implied that the government determined to add the APO charge only after Mr. Simms asserted on February 10 his right to go to trial, that implication does not withstand scrutiny. As described above, an amended information was signed on February 4, 2011 (i.e., before the government knew whether Mr. Simms would insist on going to trial), and the defense had been served with a copy of the amended information before defense counsel asked the court on February 10 to set a new trial date. Moreover, a presumption of vindictiveness does not arise where a defendant "can point to no more evidence of vindictiveness than the fact that a higher charge was instituted after he insisted on a trial.” Shiel v. United States, 515 A.2d 405, 411 (D.C.1986).

. In Schiller, this court found that the trial court correctly made a "threshold determination” that the government’s re-indictment of seventeen defendants to add new charges after they had demanded consolidation of the indictments against them "resulted in the appearance of vindictiveness on the part of the government.” 424 A.2d at 57. However, Schiller was decided two years before the Supreme Court, in Goodwin, counseled "cau-tio[n] before adopting an inflexible presumption of prosecutorial vindictiveness in a pretrial setting.” 457 U.S. at 381, 102 S.Ct. 2485. I do not understand the appearance-of-vindictiveness determination in Schiller to be one of the "main principles contained in” the case that (as we said in Mahdi) is "consistent with Supreme Court decisions on prose-cutorial vindictiveness” in the pretrial setting. Mahdi, 777 A.2d at 820. This is especially the case since the Schiller court recognized that "a request by defendants to be tried together normally thwarts no prosecutorial purpose and, in general, is unlikely to invite retaliation” and that "the nature of the assertion by appellees in itself makes less likely that vindictiveness underlaid the government’s decision to seek reindictment,” 424 A.2d at 57—observations that, per Goodwin, dictate *500against a presumption of vindictiveness. See 457 U.S. at 381, 102 S.Ct. 2485.

. If the assigned prosecutor, who we can assume was a telephone call away, was irritated upon hearing that the court had mentioned the possibility of enforcing the subpoena duces tecum or that stand-in government counsel had expressed a willingness to help with obtaining the DHS videotape(s), I would think he would have made an appearance to lodge his objections or asked stand-in counsel to voice them.

. Mr. Simms is incorrect in asserting that "[njothing occurred between [October 15, the day of his arrest] and January 31,” when he appeared for trial "and insisted on enforcement of the subpoena.” The January 26 letter invoking Rule 16 "occurred” during that period.

. The arrest affidavit recounts that after the officers ordered Mr. Simms to stop while he was still on Vermont Avenue, he "began to walk into the unit block of Thomas Cir NW,” causing the officers to return to their police vehicle to go after him. .

. Goodwin, 457 U.S. at 382, 102 S.Ct. 2485.

. If, between January 26 and January 31, the government had re-assessed the charges in light of the January 26 letter and did contemplate adding the APO charge, it likely knew that it would not be permitted to do so on the eve of trial without seeking a continuance. Yet, in light of speedy-trial considerations (and the possibility of dismissal for want of prosecution), the government has a disincentive to seek a continuance and thus to be the party to whom a trial delay is charged. Once the court sua sponte continued the trial, however, the government had time to add a charge without that disincentive.

. The majority opinion also mentions the decision of the Office of the Attorney General to "no-paper” the failure-to-obey charge for which Mr. Simms was arrested, as if that fact meant that a decision had already been made not to pursue an APO charge. The failure-to-obey citation, which I presume was premised on Mr. Simms's failure to stop when the officers directed him to (and for which I presume the basis was 18 DCMR 2000.2 ("No person shall fail or refuse to comply with any lawful order or direction of any police officer ....”)), is different from the APO charge, which was based on Mr. Simms’s actively resisting the officers’ attempts to arrest and handcuff him.

. Cf. Spencer v. United States, 748 A.2d 940, 943 (D.C.2000) (explaining that after defense counsel announced that he was ready, he also told the court that he wanted to call a witness who apparently had absconded, and he could not offer a substantial reason for not having sought a continuance); Trice v. Texas, 1986 Tex.App. LEXIS 12253, *4-5 (Tex.App. Houston 14th Dist., Feb. 27, 1986) (recounting that, after the State announced "ready,” it issued a third superseding indictment that "added a different mode of committing the [charged] offense.”).

. Cf. Wingate v. United States, 669 A.2d 1275, 1281-82 (D.C.1995) (describing counsel's explanation that when he announced ready, "[t]here were certainly some things that I would have preferred to have, but I believe that it was nothing necessarily uncommon or untoward in terms of ordinary representation”).