Vines v. United States, No. 11-CF-843
(amended opinion; original issued July 11, 2013)
Players: Fisher, Easterly, King. Opinion by Judge King. Opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part by Judge Easterly. Edward F.C. Gain, Jr. for Mr. Vines. Trial judge: William M. Jackson.
Facts: Mr. Vines was charged with a number of different crimes, for events surrounding two robberies committed on July 26, 2010, and a high-speed chase that occurred in the course of the police attempt to apprehend him on July 27, 2010. The only issue of note in the opinion arises from the two counts of malicious destruction of property that were charged, which were based upon the two cars that were hit when Mr. Vine drove his SUV down the wrong side of the road near Washington Circle, colliding with two vehicles in an intersection.
Issue: Did the two counts of malicious destruction of property merge?
Held: Because the testimony established two distinct collisions with two separate vehicles and two separate victims, the two counts of malicious destruction of property did not merge.
Of Note:
· “That Vines committed a single reckless act does not control our analysis.” Vines, slip op. at 11.
· “As to malicious destruction of property, we understand D.C. Code § 22-303 to contemplate a new offense for each new victim.” Vines, slip op. at 12.
· “Accordingly, we read § 22-303 as contemplating a separate offense as to the destruction of each separate victim’s property, rather than the destruction of ‘property’ in some more-general sense.” Vines, slip op. at 13.
· The majority views its holding as consistent with Carter v. United States, 531 A.2d 956 (D.C. 1987), and Johnson v. United States, 883 A.2d 135, 144-45 (D.C. 2005), noting that in each of those cases, the damage to the two different vehicles “was clearly simultaneous,” and was not the result of “a separate incident,” as it was in Mr. Vines’s case. Vines, slip op. at 15 n.10.
· Judge Easterly dissented, contending the majority was wrong in its conclusion that the Council intended to protect individual property interests when it enacted the malicious destruction of property statute. Vines, slip op. at 37. She noted that the damage done to the two vehicles here resulted from one reckless act, during which Mr. Vines’s vehicle collided with two different cars. In her view, because the record established no “fork in the road” whereby Mr. Vines could have avoided hitting the second car but chose not to do so, the counts should merge. Vines, slip op. at 38.
How to Use:
It will be important to confine the holding of Vines to its facts, because the broad language used by the majority – taken out of context – could lead to absurd results, as the dissent notes. See Vines, slip op. at 32 (“If a defendant recklessly collided with a car jointly owned by a married couple, he could receive two sentences for that single act; if he collided with a moving van carrying the property of twenty different individuals and that property was damaged, he could receive twenty sentences for that single act”). The Vines majority places significant emphasis on the fact that the record, as it viewed it, suggested that there were two distinct collisions; it also believed its opinion to be consistent with Carter and Johnson, noting that the counts properly merged in those cases because the damage to different property interests occurred simultaneously. In the future, the holding in Vines must be applied with these limitations in mind. JF
