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Bottom line, she left the firearms in plain sight. They were theoretically accessible to the felon, but she did not overtly furnish them. She was found innocent. There are nuanced risks of getting charged depending upon firearms handling, behavior, LEO attitude, jurisdiction, etc., but she could also be found innocent in court.As I mentioned in my Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Self-Defense article (PDF p. 57), “Bans on felon possession of firearms also affect their law-abiding spouses, girlfriends and boyfriends, and other housemates: Those people might be unable to safely possess guns in their homes because of the possibility that their felon housemate will be seen as ‘constructive[ly] possess[ing]’ the gun, and that they themselves will therefore be seen as criminally aiding this illegal possession.” “There are limits on the constructive possession doctrine [at least in the view of many courts], for instance if the housemate keeps the gun locked in a combination-locked safe. But such practices can substantially burden the housemate’s gun possession, both by making guns hard to access in an emergency and by increasing the cost, especially for long guns that require large safes.” (See also PDF p. 28 of my nonlethal weapons article, n. 121, and United States v. Hadley, 431 F.3d 484, 507 (6th Cir. 2005), and United States v. Kitchen, 57 F.3d 516, 520 (7th Cir. 1995).)
Here’s a long excerpt from Monday’s decision in United States v. Huet, which deals with this very issue. The court concludes that the government didn’t introduce evidence that Huet purposefully helped her boyfriend, who lived with her, possess her gun. (Some states and some federal courts allow aiding and abetting liability based on conduct that the defendant merely knows helps someone else commit a crime, but this court is one that seems to require a showing that the defendant had the conscious object of helping the person commit a crime.) But the court also concludes that such a result is mandated by the Second Amendment (some paragraph breaks added):
The girlfriend was found not guilty, but the ex-con boyfriend served two years for felon in possession.Jumping Frog wrote:Bottom line, she left the firearms in plain sight. They were theoretically accessible to the felon, but she did not overtly furnish them. She was found innocent. There are nuanced risks of getting charged depending upon firearms handling, behavior, LEO attitude, jurisdiction, etc., but she could also be found innocent in court.
I'd forgotten about that part, and didn't re-read the article. Good point!hirundo82 wrote:The girlfriend was found not guilty, but the ex-con boyfriend served two years for felon in possession.
Safest bet for all concerned is to get a quick-access safe to which the SO does not have access to store the gun when not in her immediate possession.
Re-reading it, sounds like the boyfriend got hosed. He was held in jail for almost two years awaiting trial. Then he evidently had a plea bargain where he pled guilty and was released for time served. There was never any evidence that he had touched or handled the SKS.hirundo82 wrote:The girlfriend was found not guilty, but the ex-con boyfriend served two years for felon in possession.
No doubt he got hosed. He was in prison longer awaiting trial longer than he could have been sentenced if convicted. At that point, it's no wonder he decided to take a plea that would let him out immediately rather than put up with the time and expense of a trial where the jury would have decided to convict him the minute they heard he was already a felon.Jumping Frog wrote:Re-reading it, sounds like the boyfriend got hosed. He was held in jail for almost two years awaiting trial. Then he evidently had a plea bargain where he pled guilty and was released for time served. There was never any evidence that he had touched or handled the SKS.