Irby v. United States

464 A.2d 136, 1983 D.C. App. LEXIS 441
CourtDistrict of Columbia Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 22, 1983
Docket81-1333
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 464 A.2d 136 (Irby v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District of Columbia Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Irby v. United States, 464 A.2d 136, 1983 D.C. App. LEXIS 441 (D.C. 1983).

Opinion

NEBEKER, Associate Judge:

A jury convicted appellant of two counts of obtaining a narcotic drug unlawfully, D.C.Code § 33-521 (1981), and two counts of embezzlement, D.C.Code § 22-1202 (1981). Two years supervised probation was imposed after suspension of term sentences. Appellant raises several issues on appeal. First, she contends that D.C.Code § 33-521 is a statute applicable only to specific groups of which she is not a member. Second, she asserts that the two offenses with which she was charged are inconsistent as a matter of law and that the trial judge erred when he failed to so instruct the jury. Third, appellant argues that the government failed to produce sufficient evidence to support a conviction on any count. Appellant additionally asserts that the verdicts against her should be reversed because there was a likelihood of non-unanimity among the jurors. She further claims that various prosecutorial questions and arguments unfairly prejudiced her case. Finally, she asserts that the government’s failure to grant her the option of diversion denied her the equal protection of the law. Since the elements of the two offenses with which appellant was charged are inconsistent as a matter of law, we affirm appellant’s embezzlement convictions, but reverse her convictions for obtaining a narcotic drug unlawfully. We reject the other arguments.

Appellant was a temporary nurse working at George Washington University Medical Center on September 3, 1980. At 4:30 p.m. that afternoon and again at 7:00 p.m. that evening, appellant signed out a dose of meperidine, a synthetic narcotic drug, for a patient, Lenet. Appellant testified at trial that she administered the first dose to Len-et, but that he had refused the second dose. According to appellant, she placed the second dose in her pocket where it somehow opened up and leaked, forcing her to discard it.

Judith Tivnan, a staff nurse who reported to work at 11:15 p.m. on September 3, noted the two narcotics charge slips for Lenet signed by appellant. Concerned that Lenet had taken a turn for the worse, Tivnan checked in on him and found him awake and alert. In response to her questions, he indicated that he had not received any mep-eridine for several days. Tivnan checked Lenet’s medication chart and found that no entry had been made reflecting the administration of meperidine that day. Tivnan then approached appellant and requested an explanation for the situation. Appellant *139 informed her that she had administered one dose of meperidine to Lenet and had “wasted” the other after it had opened. Tivnan stated that appellant appeared nervous during this confrontation, experiencing shaking and hand tremors.

Appellant was also confronted by Ann Chaloux, the night shift nursing supervisor. In Chaloux’s presence, appellant charted an entry for the dose of meperidine she claimed she administered to Lenet and, at Chaloux’s request, she wrote her account of the incident. Chaloux described appellant as having droopy eyes, slurred speech, shaking hands and a dry mouth. According to a medical expert who testified at trial, these symptoms compare to the side effects associated with meperidine.

Appellant testified that she had neglected to note the administration of meperidine on Lenet’s chart because she had been called away to do other things. She stated that although she knew that hospital procedures required that any “wasting” of narcotic drugs be witnessed, she had not had another nurse observe her “wasting” of the second dose because none had been in the area at the time and that she had acquired the bad habit of dispensing with this procedure at another hospital where enforcement of such practices was lax. Appellant stated that Lenet’s was the only narcotic dose she “wasted” that evening. This claim was impeached, however, by hospital records showing that a second patient, Chambers, had had three doses of meperidine signed out by appellant, only two of which were noted in Chambers’ chart. The records indicated that all three doses were signed out within a three hour period, although Chambers’ chart indicated that she was to receive one dose every three hours. Appellant explained that she was suffering from a cold, sore throat, headache and cramps on September 3rd and that the Actifed and Tylenol III which she took caused the physical symptoms described by Tivnan and Chal-oux.

Appellant mistakenly asserts that the provisions of D.C.Code § 33-621 (1981) 1 cover only select groups such as those who professionally dispense drugs. Not so. This statute prohibits any person from unlawfully obtaining narcotic drugs. The Uniform Narcotic Drug Act of the District of Columbia, of which D.C.Code § 33-521 is but one part, defines the word “person” as including any corporation, association, co-partnership, or one or more individuals. D.C.Code § 33-501 (1981). Nothing within § 33-521 indicates that a more restrictive meaning of the word person was intended.

We do, however, find merit in appellant’s allegation that the elements of the two offenses with which she was charged make the crimes mutually exclusive. Given the facts of this case, in order for the jury to find appellant guilty of obtaining narcotic drugs unlawfully, they would have to determine that she did “obtain or attempt to obtain [meperidine] ... by fraud, deceit, misrepresentation, or subterfuge ... . ” D.C.Code § 33-521 (1981). Concurrently, their embezzlement verdict required a finding that appellant wrongfully converted to her own use or fraudulently took and secreted, with intent to convert to her own use, meperidine which had come into her possession by virtue of her employment at George Washington University Medical Center. D.C.Code § 22-1202 (1981). Basically, the two statutes differ with regard to the manner in which possession of the property is originally procured; the unlawful *140 obtaining charge requires a finding of a wrongful possession ab initio and the embezzlement charge requires “a fraudulent conversion of property the possession of which was lawfully acquired.” Ambrose v. United States, 45 App.D.C. 112, 119 (1916). Because in any given situation only one of these two scenarios of possession can be true, the two offenses are inconsistent as a matter of law. A defendant cannot, therefore, be convicted of both offenses. Fuller v. United States, 132 U.S.App.D.C. 264, 407 F.2d 1199 (1968).

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Bluebook (online)
464 A.2d 136, 1983 D.C. App. LEXIS 441, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/irby-v-united-states-dc-1983.