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« "Toward a culture of self defense" | Main | Rough anniversaries »

6th Cir. en banc on felon in possession

Posted by David Hardy · 19 May 2007 11:51 AM

At the Volokh Conspiracy, Prof. Adler discusses three en banc decisions, one relating to felon in possession. (A pdf is available via his posting).

I think the split between the judges keys on a slipup in the indictment. Defendant's girlfriend called 911, saying that he had a gun and was going to kill her. Police arrived five minutes after being dispatched, but luckily the guy had left and left her alive. She describes him as holding a blued semiauto, and racking the slide. He returns in a car, his mother driving. A gun meeting the description is found under his passenger seat, in a plastic bag, with no fingerprints. The key is that the indictment charged him with possession of that specific gun. If it hadn't been so specific, the girlfriend's testimony that he held a gun on her would have been sufficient -- but now the prosecution was bound to prove it was that specific gun found under his seat.

The majority finds that sufficient to uphold the jury's verdict. It could reasonably have concluded that after he left the scene, he wiped the gun of prints, put it in the bag, and returned. The dissent says that's not enough, citing caselaw to the effect that finding of a gun under a car seat is insufficient to make the driver or passenger in "possession," without further proof he knew it was there.

· prohibitted persons

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