Court Opinion

ID: 9700677
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:43:22.559253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:13.172544
License: Public Domain

STEADMAN, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
D.C.Code § 33-541(e) (1988 Repl.) provides a generous option to a first-time drug offender. Notwithstanding the conviction, the trial court may refrain from entering a judgment of guilty and instead place the offender on probation for a period up to one year. The provision expressly states: “If during the period of probation such person does not violate any of the conditions of the probation, then upon expiration of such period the court shall discharge such person and dismiss the proceedings against him or her.” Id. § 33-541(e)(l) (emphasis added). Upon receiving such a discharge and dismissal, the offender may apply to the court for an order to “expunge from all official records ... all recordation relating to his or her arrest, indictment or information, trial, finding of guilty, and dismissal and discharge pursuant to this subsection,” and the court “shall enter such order.” The effect of the order is
to restore such person, in the contemplation of this law, to the status he or she occupied before such arrest or indictment or information. No person as to whom such order has been entered shall be held thereafter under any provision of any law to be guilty of perjury or otherwise giving a false statement by reason of failure to recite or acknowledge such arrest, or indictment, or trial in response to *227any inquiry made of him or her for any purpose.
Id. § 33-541(e)(2).
I think this statutory scheme markedly differs from that of ordinary probation under § 24-104 (1989 Repl.). The right to receive the highly favorable treatment under § 33-541(e) is made expressly conditional. The offender must not “during the term of the probation” violate any of the conditions of the probation. D.C.Code § 33-541(e)(l) (1988 Repl.). That prerequisite to the entry of an order of dismissal and discharge was not met here. Quite to the contrary, there was in fact a “violation of a condition of the probation,” upon which the court “may enter an adjudication of guilt.” Id. § 33-541(e)(l). To strip the court of all power to act upon a Cinderella-like stroke of midnight, regardless of the factual realities, and to require it to enter an order of dismissal and discharge — leading to a right of expungement — where the statutory condition precedent has simply not been met, does not, in my judgment, interpret in the most sensible way the straightforward language of this section.1

. In any event, I thoroughly agree with the observation made in footnote 7 of the majority opinion.