DCCA Limits Carjacking and Government’s Ability To Elicit That a Defendant Could Have Conducted Independent DNA Analysis

James A. Corbin v. United States (decided July 23, 2015)

The Players: Judges Blackburne-Rigsby and Beckwith, and Senior Judge Belson. Opinion by Judge Blackburne-Rigsby. PDS for Mr. Corbin. Trial Judge: Stuart G. Nash.

Facts:  A driver stopped to ask a man for directions.  The man unexpectedly got into her car and offered to direct her in exchange for a ride.  The driver, though nervous, went along with this.  The man gave her false directions and eventually told her to stop, at which point he tried to grab the car key and then pull her out of the car.  When another car approached, the man ran off.  The man was ultimately identified as Mr. Corbin through blood left behind in the car.  Mr. Corbin was charged and convicted of carjacking for this unsuccessful attempt, and subject to a 7-year mandatory minimum, as well as a subsequent incident in which a car actually was taken.

Issue 1:  Does the D.C. carjacking statute encompass attempted carjackings?

Holdings 1: No.  The carjacking statute is violated when a car is taken, not if there was merely an attempt to take it. Such attempt must, instead, be charged under the general attempt statute, which carries a maximum of 5 years. 

The Court was asked to construe the statute defining "carjacking," which states:

A person commits the offense of carjacking, if, by any means, that person knowingly or recklessly by force or violence, whether against resistance or by sudden or stealthy seizure or snatching, or by putting in fear, or attempts to do so, shall take from another person actual possession of a person’s motor vehicle.

The question was what act “or attempts to do so” modifies. Mr. Corbin argued that it modifies the means of taking that precede the phrase, not “shall take.” If so, then the statute does not treat an attempted carjacking the same as a completed carjacking. The Court engaged in extended analysis and found both the language of the statute and its legislative history ambiguous.  It therefore applied the rule of lenity to conclude that a carjacking requires a completed taking.  The evidence at trial did not establish that the car was ever taken, since the driver voluntarily followed the man's directions, and he fled before he successfully took control of the vehicle.

(A separate paragraph of the carjacking statute defines an "armed carjacking" to include attempts, so this ruling only applies to unarmed carjackings.)

Issue 2:  May the court allow evidence that a defendant has a right to conduct independent DNA analysis when the defense has not asserted that the government's analysts were biased?

Holding 2:  No (but harmless error). The government may not adduce evidence that the defendant could have opted for an independent DNA analysis unless the defendant cross-examines the government’s expert in a manner that suggests she is biased or withheld evidence from the defense.  Here, defense counsel did not attack the government’s DNA analyst as biased by suggesting (during cross-examination and closing argument) that she made the case a low priority, used unreliable protocols, and took insufficient notes to show her work. “There is a distinction between a bias attack and an attack on the competence of an expert or the validity of protocols. Biased methods carry a degree of intentionality that incompetence and unreliability do not.” The Court thus limited the reach of its prior decisions in Teoume-Lessane and Gee, which had allowed evidence of the defendant's right to conduct DNA testing in response to defense assertions of bias.  SF

Read full opinion here.