Edwards v. United States
| Citation | 295 A.3d 1125 |
| Docket Number | 17-CF-1282 |
| Decision Date | 08 June 2023 |
| Parties | George A. EDWARDS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee. |
| Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
Cecily E. Baskir, for appellant.
Dan Honold, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Jessie K. Liu, United States Attorney at the time of filing, and Elizabeth Trosman, Elizabeth H. Danello, and David Misler, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee.
Before Beckwith, Associate Judge, and Ruiz and Thompson,* Senior Judges.
A grand jury indicted appellant George Edwards for first-degree murder while armed and related assault and gun charges1 arising from an incident that began when Mr. Edwards went to confront a man who had just assaulted his girlfriend. After Mr. Edwards encountered that man and several others in a nearby yard, the men exchanged words, gunshots were fired by several people—including Mr. Edwards—and a man named Reginald Perry was fatally shot.
The government offered Mr. Edwards a plea to second-degree murder while armed.2 The government's factual proffer did not allege that Mr. Edwards fired the shot that killed Mr. Perry, but alleged guilt under a so-called "gun battle" (or sometimes "urban gun battle") theory of causation first recognized by this court in Roy v. United States , 871 A.2d 498 (D.C. 2005). The gun-battle theory of causation posited that individuals with guns, identified by the court as "street combatants," could under certain circumstances be convicted as principals of second-degree murder even in the absence of evidence that the fatal shot came from their gun. Id. at 506 n.8, 508. At a plea hearing, Mr. Edwards initially balked at the government's proffer, stating that he had intended to confront the man who had assaulted his girlfriend, not to shoot him, and that he was not the first one to pull or to fire a gun. Mr. Edwards asked the trial judge a series of questions about the applicability of self-defense and imperfect self-defense to his case and also asked whether his attempt to withdraw from the situation affected his culpability. He ultimately went through with the plea after his attorney agreed with the prosecutor's statement that self-defense was not available to him.
In this appeal, Mr. Edwards challenges on several grounds the trial court's subsequent denial—prior to sentencing—of his motion to withdraw that plea. For the reasons in this opinion, we reverse the trial court's order denying Mr. Edwards's request for plea withdrawal and remand to allow Mr. Edwards to withdraw his plea.3
In September of 2016, the trial court held a plea hearing at which the government stated its intent, if this case were to go to trial, to prove the following facts beyond a reasonable doubt. Mr. Edwards's girlfriend told Mr. Edwards that she had just been assaulted and that her assailant was outside with other individuals who "were dangerous and likely armed with firearms." According to the proffer, Mr. Edwards, "with the intent to shoot" the man who assaulted his girlfriend and "armed with two semiautomatic firearms," walked through a gate between two buildings and "opened fire" on the group of people that included Reginald Perry. The group "returned gun fire" and Mr. Edwards was struck in the leg before he fled. Mr. Perry was also shot; after the gunfire stopped, he was found fatally injured with gunshot wounds to the lower back and foot.
The government did not allege that Mr. Edwards was the one who shot Mr. Perry or that he aided and abetted the shooting. Instead, relying on the gun-battle theory of causation, the government proffered that Mr. Edwards's conduct "was a substantial factor in bringing about the death of" Mr. Perry. Under that theory, set forth in Roy v. United States , the government could establish causation for second-degree murder without showing which bullet caused the decedent's death if it proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was "armed and prepared to engage in a gun battle," that he "did engage in a gun battle," that his conduct "was a substantial factor in the death" of the decedent, that it was "reasonably foreseeable that death or serious bodily injury could occur as a result of [the defendant's] conduct during the gun battle," and that the defendant "did not act in self-defense." Fleming v. United States , 224 A.3d 213, 223 (D.C. 2020) (en banc); Roy , 871 A.2d at 506 n.8, 508.4
When the trial court asked Mr. Edwards if that was what happened, Mr. Edwards responded under oath, "To a certain extent." He then stated that he "did not come out there with the intention to kill anybody" but "came out there to confront the person"—"to talk to the guy." As Mr. Edwards described it: The man then pulled out another gun, the men exchanged words, and Mr. Edwards began backing up "to withdraw" when "the gun fire started going back and forth."
Hearing Mr. Edwards stray from the proffer, the prosecutor argued that Mr. Edwards was still guilty under a gun-battle theory of criminal liability because he had gone out armed and prepared to engage in a gun battle. In the prosecutor's view, "self-defense would not apply in this situation." And while Mr. Edwards stated that he did not come to the scene intending to shoot anyone, that he "tr[ied] to withdraw,"5 and that he did not fire first, defense counsel agreed with the prosecutor that self-defense was not an option, stating,
The trial court was "not so certain" that Mr. Edwards's conduct was not self-defense and stated that "perhaps he [was] trying to withdraw." It ultimately concluded that the plea could go forward even if Mr. Edwards did not fire the first shot and even if his attempts to back away did "count[ ] as a withdrawal" because there was a sufficient factual basis for his guilt under the gun-battle theory. In the court's view, he "might not have started it but he came prepared to do it," though "in his mind perhaps in self-defense."
Mr. Edwards—focused more on whether he could present any defense to the jury than whether there was a factual basis for his plea—continued to ask about self-defense. He asked whether, even if he had put himself in a position that would provoke conflict, he was "entitled to imperfect self-defense," for example, "where the voluntary manslaughter would be the lesser of second degree?" The trial court—which was focused on factual basis—responded: The court was persuaded that there was a factual basis under the gun-battle doctrine because "at the end of the encounter both sides have fired their guns and somebody ended up losing their life." In a comment that reinforced the prosecutor's previous assertion that self-defense was not available to Mr. Edwards, the trial court stated that the point of the gun-battle doctrine was to "not allow people to escape responsibility ... by parsing the situation into certain moments where they perhaps were withdrawing or perhaps acting in self-defense in a particular moment."
In fact, that the defendant did not act in self-defense was one of the elements the government had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt—gun battle or no gun battle. See Fleming , 224 A.3d at 223. Mr. Edwards's trial counsel did not respond to the court's contrary statement, however, and Mr. Edwards went through with the plea to second-degree murder while armed. Though Mr. Edwards had contradicted the government's proffer that he went to the scene "with the intent to shoot," that he was the one who "start[ed] firing multiple shots," and that the other men only "returned fire" in response to Mr. Edwards's shooting, the trial court concluded that there was a factual basis for the plea.
Eight weeks after the plea—but before sentencing—Mr. Edwards's attorney filed on his behalf a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, contending that Mr. Edwards was innocent of second-degree murder while armed and that the government was not prejudiced by the passage of time between the plea and the motion to withdraw it. In his own pro se supplemental motion, Mr. Edwards stated that he had not understood that viable defenses were available to him if he went to trial and that his attorney had misadvised him on the law of self-defense and the gun-battle theory. He also stated that he tried to contact his attorney for help in withdrawing his guilty plea the day after he entered it.
After holding hearings on the motion in December 2016 and August 2017, the trial court denied Mr. Edwards's request to withdraw his guilty plea. The court reached its decision after assessing the relevant factors from our case law—the assertion of legal innocence, any delay in seeking to withdraw the plea, and the competence of counsel, see Gooding v . United States , 529 A.2d 301, 306-07 (D.C. 1987) —and concluding that they cut against allowing Mr. Edwards to withdraw his plea.
Mr. Edwards contends on appeal that the trial court committed reversible error in rejecting his presentence plea withdrawal motion. Under Rule 11 of the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure, a defendant may take back a guilty plea by demonstrating that "justice demands withdrawal under the circumstances of the case." Long v. United States , 169 A.3d 369, 374 (D.C. 2017) (quoting Maske v. United States , 785 A.2d 687, 693 (D.C. 2001) ); Super. Ct. Crim. R. 11(d). When a defendant invokes the "justice demands withdrawal" standard—as Mr. Edwards did here6 —the applicable legal test "varies depending on whether the withdrawal motion is brought...
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