Court Opinion

ID: 9761792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:54:39.514361+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:26.447588
License: Public Domain

MACK, Associate Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part:
I concur in Parts I, II, and IV of the majority opinion. However, because I believe that the majority’s resolution of ambiguous terms in D.C.Code § 6-2375(a) (1981) leads to absurd consequences and thwarts the manifest pujóse of the stat*648ute, I cannot go along with the majority’s rejection of Mr. Stein’s claim of immunity in Part III.
Charles Stein is a former police captain and presently works as a security specialist and private investigator. Mr. Stein was to accompany Senator Edward M. Kennedy on a tour of South America to ensure the Senator’s protection. Mr. Stein went to the Russell Senate Office Building, from where he and the Senator were to depart. He entered the office building and went directly to the Capitol Police officer’s desk just inside the entrance. After identifying himself as a security officer for Senator Kennedy, he told the officer that he had two unloaded guns and a bag of ammunition, and asked permission to leave them at the desk. The officer asked Mr. Stein if he had a license for the weapons. He replied he did not,1 and although he tried to explain to the officers the limited purpose of his visit, was placed under arrest by the Capitol Police for violating District of Columbia firearms laws.
Under the reasoning advanced by the majority, Mr. Stein has been placed under arrest for possessing unregistered firearms by officers who could not themselves legally receive into their possession the firearms turned over to them. The majority reaches this strange result by a strained construction of D.C.Code § 6-2375(a).
D.C.Code § 6-2375(a) provides:
If a person or organization within the District voluntarily and peaceably delivers and abandons to the Chief any firearm, destructive device or ammunition at any time, such delivery shall preclude the arrest and prosecution of such person on a charge of violating any provision of this chapter with respect to the firearms, destructive device, or ammunition voluntarily delivered. Delivery under this section may be made at any police district, station, or central headquarters or by summoning a police officer to the person’s residence or place of business_ [Emphasis added.]
Because Mr. Stein delivered his weapons to a Capitol police officer instead of a Metropolitan police officer, and allegedly did not intend to permanently abandon them, the majority finds him subject to prosecution.
I. The Proper Police Officer
The first sentence of § 6-2375(a) describes generally the act of voluntary and peaceful delivery of the firearm which would result in immunity from prosecution. The second sentence describes places where delivery may be made. The statute provides for immunity from prosecution following the surrender/abandon of weapons to “a police officer ” in a wide variety of situations; at any police district, station, or headquarters, or even at a person’s home or business. D.C.Code § 6-2375(a) does not identify a specific type of police officer to whom the weapons must be delivered, and there is no indication in the Firearms Protection Act that the statutory term “police officer” is somehow confined to members of the Metropolitan Police Department.
D.C.Code § 6-2375(a) also provides for surrender of firearms to “the Chief.” According to § 6-2302(4), “the Chief” means “the Chief of Police of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia or his designated agent.” Just who qualifies as a “designated agent” of the Chief, however, is unclear. Nowhere does the statute indicate that only Metropolitan police department members could be “designated agents” of the Chief.
The Capitol Police have been authorized by local statute to make arrests for the very firearms offenses at issue herein, see D.C.Code § 9-115.1, and have been designated as exclusive law-and-order custodians of Capitol buildings like the Russell Senate Office Building. See D.C.Code § 9-115; 40 U.S.C. § 112a. It is certainly arguable that a police officer who has been officially designated as an agent of the state for purposes of making arrests under the firearms law in these limited circumstances should *649have his agency status carried over into effecting compliance with other interrelated provisions of those very same firearms laws in the same limited circumstances. It is eminently reasonable, in any case, that a citizen would believe that such a police officer had the authority to accept surrendered weapons pursuant to the statute.2

II.Legislative History

The majority concedes that the statutory language “designated agent” and “police officer” is not, on its face, clear, and resorts to searching the legislative history to ascertain who is an authorized recipient of surrendered/abandoned weapons. A statement in the committee report on the Firearms Control Act of 1975 to the effect that the provision would allow the lawful surrender or abandoning of any firearm or ammunition to the Chief or to a Metropolitan police officer is the majority's sole support for its conclusion that Mr. Stein is subject to prosecution because he surrendered his firearms to a Capitol police officer.
In my view, a single reference in the legislative history to the Metropolitan Police Department is insufficient evidence of legislative intent, given the absurd results such reliance generates and the manifest purpose of the statute. “It is a ‘well-established principle of statutory interpretation that the law favors rational and sensible construction’ ... [Unreasonableness of the result produced by one among alternative possible interpretations of a statute is reason for rejecting that interpretation in favor of another which would produce a reasonable result.” 2A SUTHERLAND ON StatuTORY Construction, § 45.12 at 54 (Sands 4th ed. 1985) (citations omitted). I simply cannot believe that the City Council, in drafting § 6-2375 (a), could have intended the arrest and prosecution of someone in Mr. Stein’s situation.
III. Purpose of the Firearms Control Act Immunity Provision
The City Council’s primary purpose in enacting the Firearms Control Act of 1975 was “to reduce the potentiality for gun-related crimes and gun-related deaths occurring in the District of Columbia.”3 The prosecution of Mr. Stein — who was fully qualified to carry his weapons elsewhere, and was in the District for a very limited time and purpose — for failing to properly assess the distinction between a Capitol police officer and a Metropolitan police officer seems to me an unjust result (and, I might add, a waste of the government's resources). The hypertechnical statutory interpretation supported by the majority does nothing to promote the purposes of the statute. The public policy behind § 6-2375 is obviously to encourage individuals to surrender firearms to responsible police authorities so that those firearms will not be used in the District of Columbia. Nothing which Stein did would undermine that purpose. In fact, prosecuting Stein for choosing the wrong police officer to surrender his weapons to only works to discourage other citizens from being so forthcoming in the future.
IV. Eternal Abandonment
The majority’s conclusion that § 6-2375(a) requires a permanent abandonment *650is ostensibly based on the “plain language” of the statute. A statute’s “language is plain” only if it “admits of no more than one meaning.” Davis v. United States, 397 A.2d 951, 956 (D.C.1979) (citation omitted). The definition of “abandon” admits of several different meanings. Our decision that Mr. Stein is or is not subject to prosecution should not turn upon a definition of abandonment as meaning “eternal abandonment” when the term is also defined to mean a less than permanent surrender (“to give up, or cease to use”). See Black’s Law DictionaRY (5th ed. 1979).4
“ ‘The literal wording of a statute is a primary index but not the sole index to legislative intent. It cannot prevail over strong contrary indications in the legislative history or so as command an absurd result.’ ” Citizens Association of Georgetown v. Zoning Commission, 392 A.2d 1027, 1033 (D.C.1978), quoting Lange v. United States, 143 U.S.App.D.C. 305, 307-08, 443 F.2d 720, 722-23 (1971) (footnotes omitted; emphasis added). See Peoples Drug Stores, Inc. v. District of Columbia, 470 A.2d 751, 754 (D.C.19083) (“whenever possible, the words of a statute are to be construed to avoid ‘obvious injustice’ ”); Varela v. Hi-Lo Powered Stirrups, Inc., 424 A.2d 61, 65 (D.C.1980) (“‘the literal meaning of a statute will not be followed when it produces absurd results.’ ”) (quoting District of Columbia National Bank v. District of Columbia, 121 U.S.App.D.C. 196, 198, 348 F.2d 808, 810 (1965)).5
Both the legislative history and the underlying purposes of the statute support a broad interpretation of the term “abandonment.” Legislative history shows the term “abandonment” was used interchangeably with other terms. For example, § 6-2375 is discussed in terms of allowing for (1) the “surrender” or “the voluntary surrender” of firearms and ammunition; (2) “the lawful surrender or abandoning of any firearm or ammunition; and (3) an individual to voluntarily and peaceably surrender weapons and ammunitions.” Firearms Control Regulation Act of 1975 (Council Act No. 1-142), Hearing and Disposition Before the Committee On The District of Columbia, House of Representatives, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (August 25, 1976) at pp. 32, 40 & 66. Moreover, the interpretation of “abandon” as not necessarily an “eternal” abandonment is fully consistent with the City Council’s primary purpose in enacting the Firearms Control Act of 1975. Its purpose was “to reduce the potentiality for gun-related crimes and gun-related deaths occurring in the District of Columbia ” (emphasis added). This purpose will be as fulfilled by requiring an individual to abandon his weapons for as long as he is in the District of Columbia as it will be by requiring permanent abandonment.6
V. Conclusion
The Supreme Court has ruled that “ambiguity concerning the ambit of criminal statutes should be resolved in favor of lenity.” *651Rends v. United States, 401 U.S. 808, 812, 91 S.Ct. 1056, 1059, 28 L.Ed.2d 493 (1971). I feel that the majority’s analysis relies far too heavily on a hypertechnical approach to the interpretation of ambiguous statutory language, generating an absurd and harsh result. To hold out a promise of immunity to citizens surrendering their firearms only to renege on that promise based on a narrow construction of ambiguous statutory language puts this court in danger of collaborating in the “sanction [of] the most indefensible sort of entrapment by the State — convicting a citizen for exercising a privilege which the State clearly had told him was available to him.” Raley v. Ohio, 360 U.S. 423, 438, 79 S.Ct. 1257, 1266, 3 L.Ed.2d 1344 (1959); accord, Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 559, 571, 85 S.Ct. 476, 484, 13 L.Ed.2d 487 (1965). The underlying purposes of § 6-2375 are best served by permitting an interpretation befitting the broad language of the statute, and allowing Mr. Stem’s relinquishment of his weapons to a Capitol police officer to render him immune from prosecution.
I respectfully dissent.

. Mr. Stein is a resident of the State of California and is licensed to use guns and to carry concealed weapons there.

. I note that it is not only the average citizen who might take for granted that Capitol Police officers (who are authorized to make arrests for the firearms offenses at issue here) were authorized recipients of firearms under the statute. When Mr. Stein attempted to determine from the MPD whether the Capitol Police were, in fact, designated agents of the Chief for these purposes, he was met with the following responses from three different individuals: "I think so, but I’m not really sure"; “I don’t know”; and "I don’t know."

. The City Council enacted D.C.Code § 6-2375(a) against the backdrop of a body of well-established caselaw providing an affirmative defense to one who possesses a pistol "for the purpose of turning it over to law enforcement authorities,” D.C.Criminal Jury Instruction No. 4.815B (emphasis added), or "furthering the aims of law enforcement." Id. (emphasis added). The criminal procedure chapter of the D.C.Code defines "law enforcement officer” to mean "an officer or member of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, or of any other police force operating in the District of Columbia, or an investigative officer or agent of the United States.” D.C.Code § 23-501(2) (emphasis added).

. "Abandon. To desert, surrender, forsake, or cede. To relinquish or give up with intent of never again resuming one’s right or interest. To give up or to cease to use....” Black’s Law Dictionary 2 (5th ed. 1979).

. See also 2A Sutherland on Statutory Construction, § 45.12 at 54 (Sands 4th ed. 1985) (”[D]eparture from the literal construction of a statute is justified when such a construction would produce an absurd and unjust result and would clearly be inconsistent with the purposes and policies of the act in question.”).
The purpose of reducing the potential of gun-related crimes in the District of Columbia is not furthered by forcing a security specialist who has lawfully acquired and possessed firearms in another jurisdiction for use in the course of lawful employment, to make an irrevocable gift of these firearms to the Metropolitan police when he surrenders them pursuant to a temporary entry. The majority’s interpretation of "abandonment” comes close to that of "forfeiture" — Le., a result to be expected following misfeasance, crime, negligence, or omission. Mr. Stein did everything that he could do in an effort to comply with the law.

. The majority’s argument that, in any case, Stein did not deliver his weapons to a "police facility” is not persuasive. The statute provides not only for the surrender of weapons to any police district, station, or central headquarters, but also provides for an alternative surrender of one’s weapons to a police officer [at] the person’s residence or place of business. As Senator Kennedy’s employee, the Russell Senate Office Building was plainly Stein’s “place of business” in the District of Columbia on January 7, 1986.