Court Opinion

ID: 9766549
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:52:51.314272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:23.742539
License: Public Domain

MYERS, Associate Judge
(dissenting) :
The effect of the majority opinion is to enlarge the scope of the present appeal to permit appeals from all thirteen traffic convictions when only the conviction for unreasonable speed was properly noted by appellant and thus to establish a precedent for future similar cases. Such an expansion circumvents legislative intent and prior case law and overlooks critical defects in procedure by appellant's own counsel.
Although I agree with my colleagues that the basis for an appeal should not depend upon “inconsequential matters,” I must take issue with their placing the mode and time for appeals upon any basis other than statutes and rules of court governing appeals. The rules of this jurisdiction are specific and unambiguous with respect to the right and time to appeal from final judgment in the Criminal Division of the District of Columbia Court of General Sessions. Any person there convicted of any offense has an appeal of right if noted within ten days of the date of judgment,1 except “where the penalty imposed is less than $50,” 2 in which event there shall be filed in this court an application for an allowance of an appeal within three days from the date of judgment.3
The 1942 statute which created this court originally provided for appeals of right in all criminal cases, correcting the existing situation wherein misdemeanors were ap-pealable only to the United States Court of Appeals and then only by an allowance of appeal. Members of the bench and bar of the District of Columbia testified as to the inequities of such a system wherein few, if any, defendants in minor crimes had a viable appeal.4 This bill was amended prior to enactment, however, to specifically except those final judgments less than $50.5 It is inescapable that Congress was concerned with the logistics and frivolousness of our hearing appeals as of right in cases involving petty infractions.
The courts of this jurisdiction have previously considered what constitutes a penalty of $50 for the purpose of determining appealability of right. When a single information embodying eighteen infractions of the District of Columbia Wage Law resulted in a single penalty in excess of *803$50, it was held that the penalty was comparable to a general sentence to cover áll violations and, therefore, appealable of right. Chambers v. District of Columbia, 90 U.S.App.D.C. 153, 194 F.2d 336 (1952). However, in Yeager v. District of Columbia, D.C.Mun.App., 33 A.2d 629 (1943), where defendant was convicted of eight violations of the District of Columbia boarding house regulations, we determined there was no appeal of right. Although the aggregate of fines in Yeager totaled $300, there were eight separate informations consolidated for trial, eight separate convictions, and eight separate fines of less than $50. We held in Yeager that the mere consolidation of charges for convenience at trial did not make them “multiple counts” of a single information; that each was a separate charge, requiring separate proof; and that the total fine did not represent one penalty.
My colleagues in substance aver in the present case that the only conclusion which can be drawn from the Chambers case is that it overruled our opinion in Yeager and approved a new formula for appeal — a formula which totals all penalties for all minor offenses tried together. By their reasoning, if the aggregate penalties total more than $50, then a single appeal may be taken to this court as a matter of right. I cannot adopt such an interpretation of the Chambers case which clearly recognizes the distinction between a single information charging several identical violations resulting in a single judgment and several in-formations charging similar violations resulting in several judgments. The court in Chambers carefully distinguished Yeager noting that:
Emphasis [in Yeager] was placed, though not exclusively, on the circumstance that the sentences or judgments were separate. In the case at bar there is but one judgment, and it exceeds $50. We think this difference leads to a different result, and that in such a case the statute authorizes an appeal of right. 90 U.S. App.D.C. at 154, 194 F.2d at 338.
This distinction between Yeager and Chambers was further recognized by us in Scott v. District of Columbia, D.C.Mun. App., 122 A.2d 579 (1956), which involved a prosecution for a number of violations of the District of Columbia Sales Tax Act in a multiple count information. Scott was found guilty “as to all counts” and given a sentence of $300 or 60 days on. each count, to run consecutively (with one exception not here material). Scott rested one error upon the denial of his claim to the statutory right of trial by jury in cases “wherein the fine or penalty may be more than $300, or imprisonment as punishment for the offense may be more than ninety days.” He asserted that in effect a single penalty of $2400 was imposed upon him and therefore he was entitled to a jury trial under the authority of the Chambers case. In disposing of this contention, we ruled
We do not think the Chambers case should be construed to hold that whenever two or more charges are included in one information that each loses its separate identity and characteristics, and that for all purposes the case must be treated as a single entity. The Court merely held that when “the judgment, notwithstanding multiple counts, is single, the size of the: penalty imposed by it controls” the application of the statute with respect to right of appeal.
In the instant case the record reveals-, that the judgment was not single. Appellant was found guilty “as to all counts”' and a separate sentence was imposed on each count. No reference was made, as. in the Chambers case, to an aggregate- or consolidated penalty. Nothing indicates that the trial court intended to impose a general sentence. On the contrary everything points to an intent to treat each count separately. .* * * the facts, of this case clearly distinguish it from, the Chambers case. 122 A.2d at 580.
The Yeager case as approved and understood by the court in Chambers, and the *804Chambers case as approved and understood by us in the Scott case, are clearly applicable to the undisputed facts of the present case where the total amount of the fines does not represent a single penalty and a single judgment, which determine the right of appeal to this court.
Even if such a rule as the majority would promulgate were authorized by § 11-741(c), the question would not properly be before the court at this time. Appellant had several ways to present the entire case before us but failed to take advantage of any of them. He filed no application for allowance of appeals on those convictions where the separate judgments were under $50. If expense were a deterrent to his filing timely application for multiple appeals, he could have reduced this burden by applying for appeals from several of the convictions, with entry of final judgment in the others postponed upon stipulation that action therein be. held in abeyance pending appellate review.6 This would not only only have brought all allegations of error before us, hut would have been consonant with common practice and judicial precedent. Or after the clerk had refused to allow his single notice to cover all the convictions, appellant could and should have presented a motion to this court for appropriate relief, for instance, to require the clerk to accept his original papers. Such a motion would have presented the present issue squarely before us. Appellant has, however, placed before us only one appeal; the majority is fashioning sua spon-te a new rule without sanction of either our jurisdictional statutes or prior case law.
I conclude the Yeager case has been neither expressly nor impliedly overruled by Chambers.' Accordingly, I would not entertain appeals.on those convictions where the fine was under $50. The appeal from the conviction for unreasonable speed, which is properly before us, I would affii-m.

. Rule 27 (b) of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, as directed by Criminal Rule 35 of the Court of General Sessions.

. D.C.Code § 11-741 (c) (Supp. V, 1966).

. Rule 29(a) of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

. See Hearings on H.R. 3167, H.R. 4852, H.R. 5784, before a subcommittee of the House Committee on the District of Columbia, July 25, 29, 31 (1941); H.Rep. No. 1236, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. (1941).

. S.Rep. No. 1116, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. (1942). See also Chambers v. District of Columbia, D.C.Mun.App., 80 A.2d 397, 400 (1951) (dissenting opinion).

. See Yeager v. District of Columbia, D.C. Mun.App., 33 A.2d 629, 630 (1943); Scott v. District of Columbia, D.C.Mun.App., 122 A.2d 579 (1956).