United States v. Ford, No. 15-1303 (1st Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseDarlene Ford, her husband James Ford, and their two adult sons were all sentenced to prison for running an illicit, indoor marijuana farm. Among other crimes, the government indicted Darlene for letting James use her semi-automatic rifle for target practice. Specifically, Darlene was indicted of aiding and abetting a felon’s possession of a firearm. After a second jury trial, Darlene was convicted of several drug-related crimes and of the aiding and abetting charge. Darlene appealed her aiding and abetting conviction and her sentence, arguing, among other things, that the trial court erred in instructing the jury that it could convict her if she “knew or had reason to know” that James had previously been convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison. The First Circuit (1) vacated Darlene’s conviction on the aiding and abetting count, holding that the trial court erred in instructing the jury on the state of mind element of the aiding and abetting offense, and the error was not harmless; and (2) Darlene’s sentence was substantively reasonable. Remanded.
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