United States v. Benamor, No. 17-50308 (9th Cir. 2019)
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The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for knowingly possessing a firearm as a felon. Defendant argued that, because firearms manufactured in or before 1898 do not qualify as "firearms" under 18 U.S.C. 922, the district court erred by refusing to instruct the jury that, to convict, they had to find that defendant knew that his firearm was manufactured after 1898.
The panel held that United States v. Aguilera-Rios, 769 F.3d 626 (9th Cir. 2014), does not override the line of cases holding that a firearm's antique status is an affirmative defense in a criminal prosecution. Furthermore, Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600 (1994), which required the government to prove defendant's knowledge of every characteristic of his shotgun that made it incriminating, including age, was not helpful to defendant in this case. Therefore, the panel held that the district court correctly declined to give defendant's proposed jury instruction where he failed to dispute the government's evidence that his gun could not have been manufactured before 1915 and he offered evidence that he reasonably believed that the gun was manufactured before 1899. Likewise, the panel also rejected defendant's sufficiency of the evidence argument.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel affirmed a conviction for knowingly possessing a firearm as a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The defendant argued that because firearms manufactured in or before 1898 do not qualify as “firearms” under § 922, the district court erred by refusing to instruct the jury that, to convict, they had to find that the defendant knew that his firearm was manufactured after 1898. The panel rejected that argument. The panel explained that United States v. Aguilera-Rios, 769 F.3d 626 (9th Cir. 2014) (concerning the categorical approach), does not override the line of cases holding that a firearm’s antique status is an affirmative defense in a criminal prosecution; and that Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600 (1994) (concerning the National Firearms Act), does not help the defendant. The panel held that the defendant failed to meet his burden of production to put the “antique firearm” affirmative defense at issue, and rejected the defendant’s sufficiency-of-the-evidence argument that rested on the same contention. The panel held that the admission of an ATF agent’s testimony that his interview with the defendant’s landlord confirmed the agent’s decision to arrest the defendant for the firearm and ammunition violated the Confrontation Clause, but that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. UNITED STATES V. BENAMOR 3
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on September 5, 2019.
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