Appellate Law

CA1: is there really a duty to inspect a gun barrel ?

By S. COTUS

US v. Alexander, No. 06-2475 (unpublished).  A guy was convicted for unlawfully possessing a sawed-off shotgun.  He challenges his conviction on the basis of an unpreserved sufficiency challenge.  Everything is pretty routine, except that the government?s proof that the gun was sawed off comes in the form of testimony that ?Alexander told Wallace that the gun was ?messed up.?  Further, Ross testified that Alexander told them the barrel of the weapon was shortened.?  The First concludes:

the government need not have proved that Alexander knew every characteristic of the shotgun, but merely that he was in possession of the shotgun, and thus had a duty to inspect the size of the barrel

Full post as published by Appellate Law and Practice on February 05, 2008 (boomark / email).