Court Opinion

ID: 9460242
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:45:31.834005+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:32.482430
License: Public Domain

MacKINNON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
My vote is cast for rehearing en banc. A majority of the court—for differently stated reasons 1 has denied the suggestion of the United States for rehearing en bane. On rehearing the panel has improved its original disposition which would have completely reversed the conviction and freed appellant of all offenses. But the alteration in the disposition of this case will not correct the major decisional error in the majority opinion nor will it respond adequately to appellant's cry for help in his pitiful situation. Under the statute the maximum period of incarceration for unlawful entry is six months 2 and good time allowances could reduce that period of confinement.3 Obviously that short period of incarceration cannot sufficiently help appellant to correct his deeply ingrained drug habit which requires a change in his nature. So the majority of the panel apply an inadequate remedy to the problems of the accused and the public can look forward to an early resumption of his predatory behavior. What good is all our supposed intelligence, culture and wealth if we refuse to use them in a common sense way and the perils of the street continue?
In reaching such conclusion the panel majority also continue in their failure to properly apply the burglary law of this nation to the facts of this case. The details of this most egregious error are set forth in my original dissenting opinion. In this aspect of the opinion, the majority decision as to the applicable law is so extreme and so far removed from established law as to place the action of the court as a practical matter beyond the bounds of judicial decision and bring it into what is legislative action beyond the prerogatives of the court whose jurisdiction and authority is limited to “judicial power.” This is another instance, of which this court has a tendency to furnish too many examples, where the majority are avoiding long established law and precedents in an attempt to embark the law enforcement agencies of this jurisdiction upon uncharted seas with an uncertain compass and the proper administration of justice becomes uncertain and doubtful. The majority should recognize that the public has some rights too, as well as the accused, in the proper execution of the criminal laws.

. I do not believe that we should decline to en banc a criminal case to correct a decision involving an important legal question arising under the Criminal Code of the District of Columbia on the ground that this court recently has been divested of much of its jurisdiction in such matters. If the decision is wrong we should correct it and not let it stand for others to consider it as a decision concurred in by this full court.

. D.C.Code § 22-3102 (1973) provides:
Any person who, without lawful authority, shall enter, or attempt to enter, any public or private dwelling, building or other property, or part of such dwelling, building or other property, against the will of the lawful occcupant or of the person lawfully in charge thereof, or being therein or thereon, without lawful authority to remain therein or thereon shall refuse to quit the same on the demand of the lawful occupant, or of the person lawfully in charge thereof, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $100 or imprisonment in the jail for not more than six months, or both, in the discretion of the court. Mar. 3, 1901, ch. 854, § 824, 31 Stat. 1324; Mar. 4, 1935, ch. 23, 49 Stat. 37; July 17, 1952, ch. 941, § 1, 66 Stat. 766.

. D.C.Code § 24^405 (1973).