explaining that, under this court's "plain error" test for unpreserved errors in a criminal case, a defendant must show "(1) that there was a deviation from a legal rule; (2) that this error was clear or obvious, rather than subject to reasonable dispute;" "(3) that this error affected the defendant's substantial rights;" and (4) that it compromised "the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings" (internal citations and quotation marks omitted)
How later courts described this case
- explaining that, under this court's "plain error" test for unpreserved errors in a criminal case, a defendant must show "(1) that there was a deviation from a legal rule; (2) that this error was clear or obvious, rather than subject to reasonable dispute;" "(3) that this error affected the defendant's substantial rights;" and (4) that it compromised "the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings" (internal citations and quotation marks omitted)
- stating that we entrust to prosecutors “the power of prosecuting crimes, and with it ‘the terrifying force of the criminal justice system’” (quoting Robertson v. United States ex rel. Watson, 560 U.S. 272 , 273 (2010) (Roberts, C.J., dissenting from order dismissing certiorari as improvidently granted))
- clarifying that a private party may not prosecute another for a crime because ‘-.'our entire criminal justice system is premised on the notion that a criminal prosecution pits the government against the governed” (cleaned up)
- observing that “[t]he test for plain error is well-established” and laying out the four factors, quoting Olano
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
NEBEKER, Senior Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the judgment and the first four paragraphs of the opinion of the court, which otherwise abounds in expositions unnecessary to our holding of manifest error and prejudice. The recitation of public prosecutorial duties and responsibilities in “Prong Three” of that opinion is surely unnecessary where, as here, the error is having a lay antagonist, with help from the trial judge, prosecute the other antagonist. The opinion is, no doubt, a learned and well-written treatise, but much of it is unrelated to the disposition of this appeal. The court’s holding here is fact specific, as can be seen by the care taken in stating the facts surrounding this dispute. And in light of the narrowness of that holding, it bears repeating that:
We decide the cases before us, not hypothetical questions the facts of a particular case do not present.... ‘[T]he duty of this court, as of every other judicial tribunal, is to decide actual controversies by a judgment which can be carried into effect, and not to give opinions upon moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the matter in issue in the case before it.’
*107 In re D.T., 977 A.2d 346, 352 (D.C.2009) (quoting Alpert v. Wolf, 73 A.2d 525, 528 (D.C.1950)).