Evans v. United States

• Docket Number: 19-CF-0511
• Decision Date: 16 November 2023
• Citation: 304 A.3d 211
• Parties: Saeve Edward EVANS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

304 A.3d 211

Saeve Edward EVANS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 19-CF-0511

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued May 24, 2022

Decided November 16, 2023

Kelsey Townsend, Public Defender Service, with whom Samia Fam and Mikel-Meredith Weidman, Public Defender Service, were on the brief, for appellant.

Timothy R. Cahill, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Channing D. Phillips, Acting United States Attorney at the time, and Chrisellen R. Kolb, Elizabeth H. Danello, Lindsay Merikas, Shehzad Akhtar, and Elizabeth Gabriel, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee.

Before Deahl and AliKhan, Associate Judges, and Glickman, ^* Senior Judge.

Dissenting opinion by Associate Judge AliKhanat page 232.

Deahl, Associate Judge:

The otherwise illegal possession of a firearm may be justified, so as not to be criminal, if the weapon is held in lawful self-defense.This case presents the question of when precisely that legal justification ends—whether it is the instant a person realizes the threat has subsided or if it instead extends to a period allowing the person to reasonably relinquish the weapon.The trial court instructed the jury, as the government now maintains, that the justification ends the moment the person appreciates that the threat animating the right to self-defense has subsided, so that they must effectively drop the gun in that instant or otherwise lose their justification defense.In appealing his conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm, Saeve Evans counters that the justification defense logically extends to a short period after the person realizes the threat has subsided, so that they have a reasonable opportunity to promptly dispossess themselves of the weapon.We agree with Evans and reverse his conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm.

This case presents an unusual set of facts that give rise to the issue of first impression before us.Evans was standing in an apartment complex parking lot when a car with counterfeit tags drove up to him with its windows down.Surveillance footage showed Evans firing a gun at the car, though Evans claimed—and there was considerable evidence to support—that he acted in self-defense after the car's occupants shot at him first (Evans's friend was killed in the crossfire).The jury credited that defense when it acquitted Evans of first-degree murder and several related charges, but it evinced some confusion about how Evans's self-defense claim intersected with one charge: unlawful possession of a firearm.There was virtually no evidence about how Evans came into possession of the firearm, or what he did with it after the shooting, beyond a video showing that he held it for about three seconds as he ran from the scene after fending off his attackers.

During its deliberations, the jury—apparently unconvinced that Evans's initial procurement of the gun was unlawful—asked "[h]ow long after" the time of "actual self-defense" the justification for possessing a firearm extends, querying whether it includes a "reasonable period of time to ensure that the danger has passed" or "some other standard?"Evans asked that the court respond by telling jurors that the justification extended for "a reasonable time" to ensure the danger had passed and sufficient for him "to regain his composure so as to make a decision about how to lawfully dispose of the firearm."The trial court rejected that proposal and instructed the jury that the justification lasted only so long as "the defendant could reasonably believe that he was in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm."The jury returned its verdict convicting Evans of unlawful possession of a firearm and acquitting him of all other charges shortly after receiving that response.

We conclude that the trial court erred in failing to explain to the jury that one who possesses a firearm in lawful self-defense is permitted some time to, with reasonable promptness, relinquish the firearm.Whether the person has acted with reasonable promptness in dispossessing themselves of the firearm is itself generally a question for the jury, at least in the seconds or minutes immediately after the need for self-defense has subsided.This is a necessary corollary of the right of self-defense itself, as one who obtains a firearm only because of a need for self-defense cannot reasonably be expected to drop it like a hot potato the moment they recognize that the threat on their life has ceased, nor would it be socially desirable to incentivize them to do so rather than pursuing a more sensible means of relinquishing the firearm.To hold that they must drop the firearm where they stand would effectively nullify the fundamental right to possess even an otherwise unlawful firearm in self-defense.

Because Evans preserved his objection to this instructional error, and because the error was harmful, we reverse Evans's conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm.

I.

The Potomac Gardens shooting

Saeve Evans met up with his friends, Breyona McMillian and Tajma Dockery, in the outdoor area of the Potomac Gardens apartment complex.The three smoked a joint while standing between a blue dumpster and a yellow donation bin right next to the complex's parking lot.Once the trio finished the joint, Dockery—who was 16 years old—walked into the parking lot where a friend was waiting to pick her up.A black Nissan then pulled into the parking lot and went straight toward Evans and McMillian.The car "broadsided" with its rear windows rolled down, as if to give those on the passenger's side a direct line of sight to Evans.Multiple shots then rang out, and it seems that some were fired by the occupants of the car and some by Evans.One of the shots struck McMillian in her head and killed her, though it was unclear who fired it.The black Nissan then backed out of the parking lot and drove off, and was later abandoned nearby; it was outfitted with counterfeit plates.Neither Evans nor any of the car's occupants called 911 to report the shooting.

Dockery, who had ducked and closed her eyes when the shooting began, looked up when it stopped and saw that McMillian was dead.Dockery testified that she was scared, her adrenaline was pumping, and she was disoriented.She testified that Evans, too, looked scared.His eyes were wide and his breathing was heavy.Dockery immediately asked him, "did you do that?"Evans replied, basically yelling, "no, they did that," and he then "took off running."Surveillance footage captured Evans holding the gun as he ran from the scene in the seconds after the shooting, but there was no evidence of what he did with the gun once out of frame.

Three surveillance video cameras captured the events in Potomac Gardens from different angles.One camera showed the black Nissan entering the parking lot, driving toward Evans and McMillian with its rear windows down, and then broadsiding and pausing for a second or two.The car then promptly went into reverse and backed out the entire length of the parking lot within a few seconds.The other two cameras show the area behind the blue dumpster.At some point after the shooting started, the footage shows Evans walking backward, pointing and seemingly firing a gun toward the parking lot, and then removing the magazine from the gun and running away, carrying the gun and magazine with him.While it is difficult to pinpoint just how long after the shooting ended that Evans can be seen still in possession of the weapon, it was about three seconds, or roughly the same amount of time it took the black Nissan to back out of the parking lot.

Sixteen cartridge casings were found on the scene, mostly concentrated around where Evans was standing.The government presented an expert who testified that twelve of the sixteen cartridge casings recovered came from a single gun, though he could not say the same of the other four.There was further evidence that both the black Nissan and the dumpster that Evans was standing near showed signs of damage from gunfire.More specifically, metal fragments that surrounded the dumpster and a nearby clothing bin looked like fragments from bullet strikes, and small marks on the parking-lot-facing side of the dumpster, and on a window behind the dumpster, appeared to be strike marks caused by bullets.

The police ultimately tracked down and spoke to the black Nissan's owner.After multiple interviews with her, she maintained that she lent her car to someone on the day of the shooting but refused to identify that person and refused to give the police consent to search her phone so they could attempt to identify that person.It does not appear that officers ever identified the car's occupants.The police did, however, obtain a warrant to arrest Evans within days of the shooting, and he turned himself in shortly after the warrant issued.

While in jail, Evans had two phone conversations that the government introduced as evidence at trial.First, Evans spoke to Dockery over the phone.During the call he said, "you know what time it is," which Dockery took to mean that Evans knew she would have to testify because she was the only person with Evans and McMillian the day McMillian was killed.Dockery testified that she did not feel threatened by the phone call.In fact, she thought Evans could have been trying to tell her that he didn't blame her for testifying.Second, Evans called a friend and suggested he wanted to give the friend "the ice" because "[o]ne of us might as well look sweet."The government maintained "the ice" referred to a gun, while the defense countered that it was more likely a reference to diamonds or jewelry.

The trial proceedings

Evans was charged with first-degree murder while armed, D.C. Code §§ 22-2101, - 4502, and - 3611 ; second-degree murder while armed, D.C. Code §§ 22-2103, - 4502 ; possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, D.C. Code § 22-4504(b); and possession of a...