Case Story: Stopping A Rural Prosecutor

DISCLAIMER:

CASE RESULTS DEPEND ON A VARIETY OF FACTORS UNIQUE TO EACH CASE. CASE RESULTS DO NOT GUARANTEE OR PREDICT A SIMILAR RESULT IN ANY FUTURE CASE.

As we’ve discussed in previous posts, not all accidents are crimes; sometimes they’re just accidents.

Even if they’re tragic, and even if they result in death. It’s hard to accept, but it’s the law.

That’s what this case is about.

After our client’s son was acquitted of manslaughter charges related to the death of his close friend, the local prosecutor tried to hold our client liable for the boy’s death. He did so by trying to stretch the law to apply to conduct that wasn’t criminal.

We saw this overreach for what it was and quickly challenged the legality of the charge. The judge agreed with us and sent a clear message to the prosecutor that while the boy’s death was extremely tragic, it was an accident for which nobody was criminally responsible.

Not our client. Not our client’s son. Not our client’s family.

Nobody.

The Charge

To understand the charge, a short background related to the boy’s death is necessary. Out of respect for the family, it will be brief.

Early one morning, our client’s son and his friend manipulated two guns in the basement of our client’s home. For reasons unknown, one of the guns accidentally discharged while our client’s son was handling it, and his friend was inadvertently shot and killed.

The state charged our client’s son with manslaughter, and we represented him. After 18 months of legal battle royale, he was found not guilty after a weeklong trial.

But before the son’s case was complete, perhaps sensing the case was weakening, the local prosecutor also filed charges against the son’s father—our client here—for failing to appropriately secure the guns in his home.

The state’s argument was straightforward: our client (the dad) failed to keep the guns in his home locked away and inaccessible to minors, and so it was partially his fault that the boys were able to access and accidentally discharge one of the guns.

So even though he wasn’t at the home when the gun discharged, and even though he wasn’t the one holding the gun when it fired, he was still to blame.

The Legal Fight

From the moment the charges were filed, we called b.s., as we saw it for what it was: a prosecutor under pressure to secure a conviction—any conviction—related to the boy’s death. And since the case against our client’s son was falling apart, the prosecutor needed someone new to blame: our client.

But like we said above, not everything is a crime, and accidents are not crimes.

So we filed a legal document called a motion to dismiss, which asks the judge to dismiss the case because our client’s conduct doesn’t qualify as a crime. It’s technical, and rarely succeeds, but because we felt so strongly about it, we knew we had to try.

Our argument had two parts.

First, the law our client was charged with violating stated that it was a crime for a person to negligently store a loaded firearm in a place where minors could access it. The problem was that our client did not know the firearm was loaded when it was stored in his basement. And since the state offered no proof that he knew it was loaded at the time of storage, he could not have violated the law.

Second, even if the judge believed our client did know the firearm was loaded when it was stored in his basement, there was still no proof that he was the one who actually stored the gun in the basement.

Meaning it was just as likely that someone else in our client’s family stored the gun as it was that our client did. And without any evidence pointing to our client, other than the mere fact he owned the home, that wasn’t enough to find that he violated the law. The prosecutor tried to respond to our arguments, but it wasn’t convincing.

He argued a theory of assumption of the risk—that since our client had guns in his home, and one of those guns was used to accidentally shoot and kill someone, our client was liable for the death. No gray area; just black and white.

It was an expansive view of liability that made any person who had guns in their home liable for anything that happened because of those guns. And in a part of rural Minnesota where gun ownership is vital to the culture, this was a startling position to take.

The Decision

After two briefs (written submissions) by us, and one by the prosecutor, the Court took the matter under advisement. About a month later, on June 23, 2022, the judge issued a ruling in the case.

He sided with us and dismissed the charges against our client.

In his well-written 11-page opinion, the judge accepted both of our arguments.

First, he said that although the statute did not explicitly say that our client had to know the firearm was loaded when it was stored for our client to be guilty, it made the most sense to interpret the statute that way.

The reason was that storing an unloaded firearm is not dangerous at all, so for it to be dangerous—and therefore justify a criminal charge—the person must know the firearm is loaded when they decide to negligently store it in a place where minors could access it.

Second, he said that there was also no evidence proving that our client was the one who actually stored the firearm in the basement. In fact, the little evidence there was as to who might have stored the firearm pointed to someone else other than our client. So with no way to prove that our client was the one who stored the gun in the basement, there was no way to charge him with the crime of negligent storage.

The judge realized what the prosecutor didn’t (or wouldn’t)—the shooting that occurred in our client’s home was a horrific tragedy. But just because it was a tragedy didn’t make it a crime.

This was true for our client’s son, and it was also true for our client. This case was closed, once and for all.