Court Opinion

ID: 9751711
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:54:47.005273+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:32:43.061050
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Associate Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
On several occasions in the autumn of 1992, appellant Marshall Proctor rubbed his penis against L.B.’s vagina and directed her to kiss his penis. He threatened to take the child “far away” if she told anybody what he had done. L.B. was seven years old.
L.B. was initially afraid to disclose what had happened. When she finally did tell her mother and stepfather, and also provided a detailed description of her assailant, her parents believed that Proctor might be the man. Three times, L.B. was taken to Proctor’s home to determine whether she could identify him. On the first occasion, evidently out of fear, she told her mother that Proctor was not her assailant. On the second visit, however, she identified Proctor, and the police were called. A showup was arranged, and a police officer who escorted L.B. to the show-up testified that when Proctor appeared, L.B. confirmed her prior identification but “froze” and attempted to pull away.
L.B.’s ordeal was still far from over. She subsequently had to discuss the molestation with police officers and prosecutors. The case then came to trial, and L.B. was forced to relive her experiences by testifying about them in open court, in the presence of her abuser. Finally, however, Proctor was convicted and sentenced. The case was apparently over, and L.B. and her family were finally in a position to attempt to put Proctor’s crimes behind them and to resume their lives.
Now, years later, as a result of the majority’s disposition of this case, L.B. will have to prepare to go to court all over again. All of the horror which she was forced to endure will be dredged up once more. She will again have to share with strangers experiences which no child should ever have to endure. Moreover, if L.B.’s recollection is clouded, half a decade after the events, or if she simply cannot bear to testify a second time, Proctor may well go free.
I accept the proposition — any judge must — that requiring L.B. to suffer the travail of a second trial would be a price that would have to be paid if the first trial had not been fair. Proctor, however, received a fair trial. I am satisfied that the judge’s minor deviation from the Redbook’s instruction on reasonable doubt — the sole basis for the majority’s reversal of Proctor’s convictions of enticing a minor and indecent liberties1— was not constitutional error or, indeed, error at all. While perhaps defensible in light of some discursive language in two of our recent opinions, see Foreman v. United States, 633 A.2d 792 (D.C.1993), and Butler v. United States, 646 A.2d 331 (D.C.1994), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 1326, 131 L.Ed.2d 206 (1995), the result reached by the majority is not compelled by those cases, and the court, it seems to me, attaches undue significance to trivial variations in phrasing when the judge’s charge as a whole was eminently fair.2
I.
The only portion of the trial judge’s reasonable doubt instruction to which Proctor’s attorney objected at all3 was the substitution *743of the words “abiding or deep-seated belief’ in the defendant’s guilt for the words “abiding conviction,” as stated in the Redbook.4 A reading of the judge’s reasonable doubt instruction as a whole persuades me that, in context, this deviation did not result in a misdescription of the burden of proof. If quizzed on the subject at the end of the trial, most jurors would probably have no idea which of the two phrases the judge used, or which one is supposed to be more favorable to the prosecution.
Both at the beginning of the reasonable doubt instruction and near the end of it, the judge told the jurors that a reasonable doubt “is a doubt based on reason.” He also defined it as a doubt “for which you can give a reason.” In those simple words, the judge captured the essence of what “reasonable doubt” means. No more was constitutionally required. See Victor, supra note 4, 511 U.S. at 5, 114 S.Ct. at 1243; cf. Hopt v. Utah, 120 U.S. 430, 440-41, 7 S.Ct. 614, 618-20, 30 L.Ed. 708 (1887).
My colleagues appear to believe that the phrase “abiding or deep-seated belief’ is objectionable because it would countenance a finding of guilt notwithstanding some minimal level of uncertainty. In conformity with the Redbook, however, the judge also told the jurors that a doubt based on fantasy, or whim, or conjecture, or guesswork is not a reasonable doubt. He then instructed them that “the government is not required to establish guilt beyond all doubt, or to a mathe-matic certainty, or [to] a scientific certainty.” (Emphasis added.)
The foregoing italicized language is surely consistent with the challenged portion of the instruction. If certainty is not required, then some level of belief must be sufficient. Here, the judge formulated the standard in terms of “abiding” or “deep-seated” belief, words which convey the notion of the strongest possible kind of belief short of absolute certainty. Perhaps a professor of abstract logic or philology or other such discipline could find some shade of difference in meaning between the judge’s phrasing and the various other attempts in the Redbook to say essentially the same thing. I am confident, however, that the difference in nuance which has led to the reversal of Proctor’s convictions would be entirely lost on the ordinary citizens who serve on our juries and who are asked to bring their common sense to bear on the task at hand.5
In Victor, supra, the judge instructed the jury that “[y]ou may find the accused guilty upon the strong probabilities of the case," and that “a reasonable doubt is an actual and substantial doubt.” 511 U.S. at 18, 114 S.Ct. at 1255. (emphasis in original). These phrases are surely a great deal more problematic than the trial judge’s instruction in this case. After assessing the judge’s charge to the jury in its entirely, the Supreme Court *744discerned “no reasonable likelihood that the jurors who determined [Victor’s] guilt applied the instructions in a way that violated the Constitution.” 511 U.S. at 22-23, 114 S.Ct. at 1251. The Supreme Court’s analysis in Victor applies a fortiori to the case at hand; there is no “reasonable likelihood” that the use of the words “abiding or deep-seated belief1’ led the jury to misapprehend the applicable standard.
II.
Proctor relies primarily on our decisions in Foreman and Butler, both of which were issued after the trial in the present case. In Foreman, this court held that it was not “plain error” for the judge to substitute the words “deep-rooted belief’ for “abiding conviction” and we affirmed the defendant’s conviction. 633 A.2d at 795-97. In Butler, notwithstanding timely defense objections to the trial judge’s departures from the Redbook, the court ruled that “firmly convinced” was an acceptable substitute for “abiding conviction,” 646 A.2d at 336, and that the omission of the “hesitate or pause” sentence from the reasonable doubt instruction was not prejudicial error. Id. at 337-38. In each of these cases, however, and especially in Butler, the court went well beyond what was necessary to decide the pending appeal and opined forcefully that variations from the Redbook instruction were generally unacceptable. Foreman, 633 A.2d at 794; Butler, 646 A.2d at 333-35, 337. The extensive discussion in Butler of what the court apparently viewed as the all-but-saerosanct character of the Redbook’s reasonable doubt instruction foreshadowed what I regard as the unfortunate result in the present case.
The holdings in Foreman and Butler affirming each defendant’s conviction are consistent with the affirmance of Proctor’s convictions for enticing and indecent liberties. Although the opinion in Butler, while rejecting the defendant’s own appeal, contains repeated warnings about what this court would do in future cases if a trial judge were to change a word in the Redbook instruction, these prophetic homilies were not essential to the disposition of the case before the court. It was not necessary for the court in Butler to telegraph in advance the results of appeals that had not yet been filed; future cases could be decided in good time on their merits on a real record, not an imaginary or hypothetical one. “Language in an opinion which constitutes obiter dictum, entirely unnecessary for the decision of the case ... [has] no effect as indicating the law of the District.” Albertie v. Louis & Alexander Corp., 646 A.2d 1001, 1005 (D.C.1994) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, although it cannot be gainsaid that the majority opinion in this ease is consistent in spirit with various dicta in Foreman and Butler, neither of these decisions compels us to reverse Proctor’s convictions on the basis of the trial judge’s minor departure from the Redbook.
Chief Judge Mikva has said it well: “Appellate judges ought not [to] substitute their prejudices regarding jury instructions or their notions of apt phraseology for the experience of trial judges in such matters; our more limited responsibility is to ensure that the law is correctly stated for the jurors to apply.” United States v. Yunis, 288 U.S.App. D.C. 129, 139, 924 F.2d 1086, 1096 (1991). Recently, the Supreme Court has reiterated its long-held doctrine that
so long as the court instructs the jury on the necessity that the defendant’s guilt be proven beyond a reasonable doubt ... the Constitution does not require that any particular form of words be used in advising the jury of the government’s burden of proof Rather, taken as a whole, the instructions must correctly convey the concept of reasonable doubt to the jury.
Victor, supra, 511 U.S. at 5, 114 S.Ct. at 1243 (emphasis added; citations and internal quotation marks omitted). In Butler, the court quoted the foregoing language, 646 A.2d at 333, but nevertheless insisted that in future cases, trial judges must effectively parrot the Redbook. The Supreme Court made it clear in Victor that the Constitution requires no such conformity to any prescribed recitation.6 We should follow that Court’s lead.
*745III.
For the foregoing reasons, I would vacate Proctor’s conviction for sodomy. In all other respects, I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.

. I agree with my colleagues' conclusion that the prosecution's evidence was insufficient to prove sodomy.

. When I first joined the bench of the Superior Court, a more experienced colleague told me semi-facetiously that "you instruct for the appellate court, not for the jury.” He might well have used the present case to bolster his theory. *743(Emphasis added.) I question whether the objection by Proctor’s attorney in this case could fairly be characterized as "forceful” or "reasoned.”

. The defense "objection" was not much of an objection:
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Your Honor, for the record I would object to the court's substitution of ... abiding and deep-seated belief [for] abiding conviction....
THE COURT: Abiding conviction, deep-seated belief. You think there’s a difference between the two?
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: There may be.
THE COURT: Very well.
(Emphasis added.) Cf Butler, supra, 646 A.2d at 337 ("[i]n cases, for example, where counsel offers a forceful, reasoned objection as to why particular standard language is critical ... any deviation from the [Redbook] ... may result in a misdescription of the burden of proof ..." and require reversal of the defendant’s convictions.)

. The judge also omitted from the Redbook instruction the sentence characterizing a reasonable doubt as "such a doubt as would cause a reasonable person to hesitate or pause in the graver or more important transactions in life.” A withering critique of this "hesitate or pause” language can be found in Justice Ginsburg's separate opinion in Victor v. Nebraska, 511 U.S. 1, 114 S.Ct. 1239, 127 L.Ed.2d 583, (1994) and in the authorities there cited; see also id. at-, 114 S.Ct. at 1257 (opinion of Blackmun, J., joined by Souter, J.). Proctor’s attorney did not object to this omission, and there was no plain error, for the instruction without the “hesitate or pause” language was not "obviously" wrong, nor did it result in a miscarriage of justice. See United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 734-36, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1777, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993) (describing elements of plain error).

. To the extent, if any, that United States v. Merlos, 299 U.S.App. D.C. 401, 403, 984 F.2d 1239, 1241, (Merlos I), vacated on other grounds, 303 U.S.App. D.C. 395, 8 F.3d 48 (1993), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 1635, 128 L.Ed.2d 358 (1994) (Merlos II), is inconsistent with my analysis, I must respectfully suggest that we ought not to follow Merlos. Neither Merlos decision is directly in point, for in that case, the trial judge had substituted “strong belief” for abiding conviction. "Strong” belief is arguably a less exacting standard than “deep-seated" or "abiding” belief. Moreover, in Merlos I, the court initially found the error harmless — a conclusion which suggests a common-sense recognition on the part of the judges that the departure from the Redbook, however doctrinally imperfect, did not really affect the result.
In any event, I believe that Merlos’ reasoning has been effectively superseded by the Supreme Court’s less exacting approach in Victor.

. The majority opinion does not base its reversal of Proctor’s convictions on the court's “supervi*745sory power.” Accordingly, I do not address the applicabilily of that rather open-ended and elusive doctrine. X agree with Judge Farrell that the Federal Judicial Center's reasonable doubt instruction is superior to the one in the Redbook, but I have reservations about using the supervisory power to ordain which of several constitutionally permissible definitions a trial judge must choose.