# Mitchell v. District of Columbia

> District of Columbia Court of Appeals · December 16, 1999 · 741 A.2d 1049

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4956908

## Case

- **Full name:** Gregory MITCHELL v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
- **Court:** District of Columbia Court of Appeals
- **Decided:** December 16, 1999
- **Citations:** 741 A.2d 1049; 1999 D.C. App. LEXIS 288; 1999 WL 1188868
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Steadman
- **Judges:** Reid, Steadman, Wagner
- **Cited by:** 5 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4956908

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- recognizing that "[i]t would be both an obvious error and a miscarriage of justice for a defendant to stand convicted of an offense which the law does not make a crime”

## Opinion text

STEADMAN, Associate Judge,
dissenting.
The conduct for which appellant was convicted here was “wilfully”submitting as a “circulator” a nominating petition where one person had signed the names of twenty purported registered voters. D.C.Code § l-1312(j)(l), with whose violation appellant was charged by information, permits a candidate to be nominated only by a petition “signed” by the requisite number of “duly registered voters.” D.C.Code § 1-1312(b)(3) states that any circulator who “wilfully violates any provision of this section ” shall be guilty of a criminal offense. Contrary to the suggestion of the majority, I do not think that the penalty provision of § 1 — 1312(b)(3) is limited only to violations of subsection (b); the plain language on its face encompasses all the provisions of Section 1-1312. While I agree that regulations alone cannot make criminal that which is not made so by statute, it seems to me perfectly reasonable to read the statute as criminalizing a circulator who wilfully submits a petition in violation of the requirements of § l-1312(j)(l). I do not understand appellant to argue that the challenged signatures may in fact have *1057 been authorized by the relevant registered voters. 1 I simply could not hold that “plain error” infected appellant’s conviction here.
. Thus, I do not think the trial court's reference to the Board’s regulation with respect to personal signatures is significant in the context of this trial. Appellant’s defense was based on quite a different scenario, as the majority opinion indicates.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4956908. Public record. Not legal advice.