Court Opinion

ID: 9759993
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:37:32.647751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:07.305024
License: Public Domain

MACK, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
In my view, the sentence at issue here is not one imposed in an “illegal manner,” but rather an “illegal” sentence within the meaning of Super.Ct.Cr.R. 35(a). It is an “enhanced” sentence imposed in violation of Section 23-111(b) of the D.C.Code. This court has mandated strict compliance with the procedures of this statute for an obviously basic reason.1 The statute goes to the very heart of the sentence itself, authorizing the imposition (of what may have been a short term sentence) of an alternative sentence ranging to imprisonment for life.
This is why we must look below the surface of what is easy to think of as a “procedural error.” The commission of this “procedural error” can well result in the loss of a substantive right. There is much more at *814stake here, for example, than the failure to follow the procedural step of affording “al-locution” (see Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424, 82 S.Ct. 468, 7 L.Ed.2d 417 (1962); United States v. Cevallos, 538 F.2d 1122, 1128 (5th Cir.1976)) which is, of course, reachable by collateral attack at any time. If a defendant, remaining uninformed at the most difficult time of sentencing, fails to challenge a prior conviction before sentence is imposed under § 23-111(b), he waives the right thereafter to challenge the prior conviction. Rule 35 should not be used, therefore, as the majority directs, to cut off the right to challenge a sentence imposed in violation of our strict mandate.
The legal requirements for imposition of an enhanced sentence were not met here and, thus, the court did not have the authority to impose this sentence. As a result, “the enhanced sentence in fact exceeds the normal statutory maximum which the Judge is otherwise authorized to impose,” United States v. Cevallos, supra at 1128, and is “illegal.”2 I would reverse and remand for resentencing.

. Fields v. United States, D.C.App., 396 A.2d 990 (1979); (Robert) Smith v. United States, D.C.App., 356 A.2d 650 (1976); (Ernestine) Smith v. United States, D.C.App., 304 A.2d 28, cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1114, 94 S.Ct. 846, 38 L.Ed.2d 741 (1973).

. See United States v. Lippner, 676 F.2d 456, 467-68 n. 16 (11th Cir.1982); United States v. Garrett, 565 F.2d 1065 (9th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 974, 98 S.Ct. 1620, 56 L.Ed.2d 67 (1978). These cases, as does United States v. Ramsey, 210 U.S.App.D.C. 285, 655 F.2d 398 (1981), involve Fed.R.Crim.P. 35(a). Federal Rule 35(a) is identical to Super.Ct.Cr.R. 35(a) and is to be construed in light of the interpretation given the former by the federal courts. See McDaniels v. United States, D.C.App., 385 A.2d 180, 181 n. 2 (1978).