Court Opinion

ID: 9714210
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:33:13.719263+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:24.422800
License: Public Domain

RUIZ, Associate Judge,
concurring:
I join Judge Schwelb’s opinion that D.C.Code § 23-1325(a) requires that there must be more than mere probable cause that a particular defendant committed first degree murder while armed or assault with intent to kill while armed before that individual may be detained pretrial. That legal conclusion, based on sound principles of statutory construction, is a correct interpretation of the statutory language viewed in the context of its legislative history, the Council’s consideration and rejection of a presumption of dangerousness justifying detention based only on probable cause and the constitutional concerns that guide our interpretation of a statute permitting a deprivation of liberty before there has been a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus, the sole point on which I do not agree with Judge Schwelb is his reluctance to state unequivocally, see ante at 827-28 & note 19, that D.C.Code § 23-1325(a) does not authorize preventive detention based solely on the facts of the underlying incident — not here nor in any factual scenario that might come before the court in the future — if those facts support no more than a finding that there is probable cause that the defendant has committed either first degree murder while armed or assault with intent to kill while armed. Our legal holding of what the statutory language requires, and what the Council intended by it, does not vary depending on the factual circumstances of the underlying crime so long as there is no more than probable cause to believe that the defendant committed it. If probable cause linking a defendant to a crime, alone, is ever to be sufficient to permit pretrial detention, that determination must first be made by the legislature, as expressed in the statutory language it enacts. D.C.Code § 23-1325(a), in its present form, does not permit it.