Darren Cheeks v. United States

Summary

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed Darren Cheeks's conviction for unarmed assault with significant bodily injury. The court held that evidence of the victim's beating, head injuries, and diagnostic testing supported giving the jury an instruction on unarmed assault with significant bodily injury as a lesser-included offense of armed assault with significant bodily injury. The court also held that the trial judge did not abuse her discretion in responding to the jury's request for clarification concerning aiding and abetting and mens rea.

Holdings

1. The evidence was sufficient to permit a rational jury to find that the beating caused significant bodily injury, because repeated blows to the head and extensive bodily injuries required diagnostic testing to evaluate the risk of serious internal injury. The trial court therefore properly instructed the jury on unarmed ASBI as a lesser-included offense.
2. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by informing the jury that Instruction 3.2 on aiding and abetting applied to every charged offense. Read with the written instructions and the separate ASBI mens rea instruction, the response adequately conveyed that the government had to prove the required intent or knowledge for unarmed ASBI as well.

Questions Presented

1. Whether sufficient evidence supported instructing the jury on unarmed assault with significant bodily injury as a lesser-included offense of assault with significant bodily injury while armed.
2. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by responding to the jury's request for clarification of the aiding-and-abetting instructions by stating that Instruction 3.2 applied to every charged offense, rather than expressly restating the mens rea requirement for unarmed ASBI.

Disposition

affirmed