Coleman v. United States

194 A.3d 915

Maurice COLEMAN, Appellant,

v.UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 17-CM-331

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued June 14, 2018

Decided October 11, 2018

Fletcher P. Thompson for appellant.

Katherine M. Kelly, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Jessie K. Liu, United States Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman, Washington and John P. Mannarino, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee.

Before Glickman and Fisher, Associate Judges, and Washington, Senior Judge.

Washington, Senior Judge:

Appellant Maurice Coleman was convicted in a bench trial of three counts of simple assault on three Metropolitan Police Department ("MPD") officers, in violation of D.C. Code § 22-404 (a)(1) (2012 Repl.). Appellant urges this court to find that, in passing the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results Act ("NEAR Act"), the District of Columbia Council implicitly intended to limit prosecutorial discretion by requiring the government to charge defendants who assault police officers with a jury-demandable offense. In the alternative, appellant argues that, as a sanction for the exercise of that discretion, he is entitled to use a broad self-defense argument, as though the complainants were ordinary citizens and not police officers.¹ Finding no support for this interpretation of the NEAR Act in its plain language or legislative history, or for appellant's claim of a right to use self-defense in response to the officers' conduct, we affirm.

I.

On July 19, 2016, appellant was approached in his vehicle by three police officers for excessive window tint, in violation of D.C. Code § 50-2207.02 (a)(1) (2012 Repl.). The officers described appellant as "agitated" and "irate" and initially resistant to any attempts by officers to investigate the violation. After appellant exited the vehicle² and ignored one officer's verbal request to step to the rear of the vehicle so he was no longer standing in the street, one of the officers attempted to guide him by placing his hand on appellant's elbow, which appellant shrugged off. When the officer grabbed his elbow again, appellant began flinging his arms, which struck one of the officers in the jaw and another one in the back of the head. In an attempt to regain control of the situation, the officers worked together to effectuate a "tactical takedown," during which appellant tore the third officer's uniform.

Prior to trial, appellant filed a motion seeking a jury trial. The prosecutor in this case, however, elected to charge appellant with simple assault, a lesser-included charge of assault on a police officer ("APO"), the charge for which he was arrested.³ The trial judge thus denied appellant's motion for a jury trial concluding simple assault is not a jury demandable offense. Appellant then asserted a right to argue that he was acting in self-defense.⁴ The court denied the broad self-defense claim but held the limited self-defense claim in abeyance, pending any evidence of excessive force produced at trial.

Appellant was found guilty on all three counts. In so finding, the trial judge relied on the body camera footage, the officers' testimony, and photographs of the officers' injuries, noting that appellant possessed a different state of mind than he claimed at trial⁵ and thus, found that appellant was not entitled to a limited self-defense claim.⁶

II.

Whether defendants who are charged with simple assault when the victim is a police officer are entitled to assert a broad right to self-defense is a question of law reviewed de novo . See Wynn v. United States , 80 A.3d 211, 217 (D.C. 2013) (statutory interpretation issue subject to de novo review); Newby v. United States , 797 A.2d 1233, 1239 (D.C. 2002) (whether simple-assault statute applies to conduct, and issues regarding the legal parameters of an affirmative defense, are reviewed de novo ).

III.

In 2017 the Council of the District of Columbia passed the NEAR Act ("Act") which amended the statute prohibiting APO due to a concern that the statute was over inclusive. COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, REPORT ON BILL 21-0360, THE NEIGHBORHOOD ENGAGEMENT ACHIEVES RESULTS AMENDMENT ACT OF 2016 ("NEAR REPORT") , at 10 (Jan. 28, 2016) ("Wiggling while handcuffed, bracing one's hand on the steering wheel during an arrest, and even yelling at an officer have all led to cases in which individuals were prosecuted for ‘assaulting a police officer’ (APO)."). Former Police Chief Lanier acknowledged that "[t]he language is so broad ... [it] allows for too many things to fit into that category." NEAR REPORT at 11. To address this concern, the bill created "separate offenses for ‘assault on a police officer’ and ‘resisting arrest,’ " and increased the penalties for resisting arrest and misdemeanor APO to make them jury demandable. See D.C. Code § 16-705 (b)(1)(A) (2012 Repl.) (granting a jury trial where the maximum punishment is more than 180-days); NEAR REPORT at 16 (noting these offenses were made "jury-demandable due to the overwhelming number of states that have attached significant jail time to their APO statute").

A. Prosecutorial Discretion

At trial, appellant's counsel conceded that the government had the discretion to "choose not to paper APO" and to "charge simple assault," and did not allege any improper motive on the part of the prosecutor. However, on appeal, appellant's contention appears to be that the NEAR Act intended to limit this discretion by requiring an APO charge when the victim is a police officer. Because the prosecutor acted contrary to this intent, appellant argues, a sanction is necessary by permitting him to claim self-defense as though the victims' statuses as police officers were irrelevant.

Neither the plain language of the Act nor the legislative history captured in the NEAR REPORT , discuss limiting the charging decisions of the government, or expanding the scope of a self-defense claim when a police officer is involved. This court has long recognized that there is a limited right of self-defense when a citizen is engaged with a police officer and neither the facts of this case, nor the legislative history of the NEAR Act, support reconsideration of those standards. Nelson v. United States , 580 A.2d 114, 117 (D.C. 1990). To the contrary, our decisions, as well as those of other courts of competent jurisdiction, recognize the appropriateness of a limited right of self-defense in interactions with the police because of the role police officers play in maintaining peace in our communities. Arizona v. Johnson , 555 U.S. 323, 330, 129 S.Ct. 781, 172 L.Ed.2d 694 (2009) (recognizing "that traffic stops are ‘especially fraught with danger to police officers’ ") (quoting Michigan v. Long , 463 U.S. 1032, 1047, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983) ); People v. Troiano , 41 A.D.2d 222, 341 N.Y.S.2d 858, 862 n.5 (1973) ; Commonwealth v. Reed , 19 A.3d 1163, 1166-67 (Pa. 2011). Whether the government chooses to charge unlawful conduct against police officers under one statute or another does not alter that fundamental truth.

Because the prosecutor is granted broad discretion in charging decisions and there is no indication that the NEAR Act was intended to affect the breadth of that discretion, we see no basis for concluding that there was any intent to restrict the government's charging authority as a quid pro quo for narrowing the scope of the Act. Thus, we conclude that appellant was not entitled to a jury trial based on the NEAR Act, and as such, his request for broad self-defense as a sanction must also be denied.

B. Self-Defense

It is well-settled in this jurisdiction that the use of self-defense is unavailable against a police officer unless "excessive force [is used] in carrying out official duties."⁷ Cheek v. United States , 103 A.3d 1019, 1022 (D.C. 2014) (quoting Nelson , 580 A.2d at 117 ). This court has held that simple assault is a lesser-included charge of APO such that "when an individual is approached by a police officer acting in an official capacity, the individual's right of self-defense is limited." Speed v. United States , 562 A.2d 124, 127 (D.C. 1989) ; see also Blocker v. United States , 940 A.2d 1042, 1049 (D.C. 2008) ; Nelson , 580 A.2d at 117-18. Moreover, even in jurisdictions where the assault statute does not differentiate between police officers and civilians, defendants are entitled only to limited self-defense arguments when the victim is a police officer. See Bowen v. Texas , 162 S.W.3d 226, 230-31 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005) (Keller J., dissenting) ("[T]he self-defense statute requires ... a showing that, before the actor offered any resistance, the officer used or attempted to use ‘greater force than necessary to make the arrest’ and the actor reasonably believed her response was immediately necessary to protect herself against that type of force."); see also McClatchy v. Texas , 758 S.W.2d 328, 330 (Tex. App. 1988) ("Were the courts to...