Simply being a felon in possession of a firearm should not be classified as a violent crime if there was no violence, a new appeal to the state Supreme Court argues.
"In this instance, the question was, and remains, whether there is a reasonable relationship between the intent behind the enactment of the mandatory minimum penalty and the classification of felon in possession of a firearm as a 'violent felony' such that the minimum penalty applies," Assistant State Public Defender Andrea Taylor Cornwall wrote in a petition for review asking SCOW to consider the case.
Michael Jamal Hill was convicted twice for felon in possession of a firearm. State law requires a mandatory three-year minimum sentence if the defendant has previously been convicted of a violent felony and if and the new offense was committed within five years of completing a sentence for a violent felony or misdemeanor. The law also specifically defines which prior offenses are considered violent felonies and felon is possession is among them.
While Hill met the statute's criteria for the mandatory minimum, neither of his felon-in-possession convictions involved any evidence of violence, Cornwall said.
In Circuit Court, Circuit Judge Frederick Rosa, who presided over the bench trial, denied Hill's motion to dismiss the mandatory minimum penalty on the grounds that it violated his right to equal protections under both the U.S. and state constitutions. Circuit Judge Michael Hanrahan levied the three-year sentence on the charge.
Hill appealed, but lost. The Court of Appeals found that " '[a] firearm is a dangerous weapon' and that 'possession of firearms can easily lead to violence,'" Cornwall wrote. "Moreover, the court of appeals found that Mr. Hill’s 'crime of possessing a firearm while a felon showed that he was prepared to be violent even if the possession itself did not entail violence.'”
However, she argued, "there can be no reasonable relation between the legislature’s intent of additional punishment for violent felons who possess firearms and its decision to include felon in possession of a firearm that do not involve allegations of physical force or violence under its definition of a violent felony."
There is nothing in the felon-in-possession statute that requires the defendant to act using physical force in any way. Instead, it merely requires that the defendant possess a firearm and was convicted of a felony prior to the date of the alleged gun offense, Cornwall said.
"Applying the mandatory minimum penalty in this circumstance to Mr. Hill is arbitrary and unreasonable, as Mr. Hill’s prior conviction for felon in possession of a firearm was not, in fact, an offense of violence against another person or property," she wrote.
The full petition for review is here.
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