Posted on 07/25/2010 8:26:35 AM PDT by marktwain
The city of Topeka has dropped its criminal case against Matthew C. Roberts, who openly carried a handgun in a holster inside West Ridge Mall, then was convicted in Municipal Court of transporting a firearm in a vehicle.
Roberts later appealed his conviction in Shawnee County District Court.
Assistant city attorney Craig Spomer filed a district court document Thursday dismissing the charge against Roberts with prejudice, meaning the city can't refile the case.
"Because of the appeal and the city's dismissal, the Municipal Court conviction and sentence are hereby void," Spomer wrote.
City spokesman David Bevens said the city attorney's office determined there wasn't sufficient evidence to proceed on the transportation count.
Carl Folsom III, an attorney representing Roberts, said the city dismissed the transporting charge in exchange for Roberts' agreeing to release the city from civil liability.
Folsom had contended the city violated Roberts' Fourth Amendment rights by detaining him without reason to think he had committed a crime.
Roberts, 20, of Topeka, was fined $250 and ordered to pay court costs and fingerprinting costs after he was convicted May 19 in Municipal Court of a misdemeanor count of criminal use of a weapon. Municipal Judge Lloyd Swartz concluded Roberts violated a law that bans transporting any firearm in an occupied vehicle, unless that firearm is unloaded and enclosed in a container.
Folsom filed notice last month in district court of Roberts' intent to appeal.
Roberts testified at his May 19 trial that he carried a loaded gun in a hip holster for self-defense the evening of Jan. 2 as he and a friend entered the J.C. Penney store at West Ridge Mall, 1801 S.W. Wanamaker Road.
Roberts said he and his friend then entered the general mall area where a security guard asked Roberts to take the gun to his vehicle. The guard then contacted a Topeka police officer who was working that evening with mall security.
That officer was directed to the pickup truck in the mall parking lot where Roberts and his friend had gone. Roberts testified the two men sat in that truck and waited, adding that he left his gun in his holster instead of putting it in its case because he didn't want to "mess with" it when he knew an officer was coming. Police seized the gun.
He was convicted May 19 of the transporting charge and acquitted of the one other charge, which alleged Roberts violated the state's concealed carry law.
Roberts testified at his trial that he didn't possess a concealed-carry license and was exercising his Constitutional right to openly carry his firearm.
The city of Topeka has dropped its criminal case against Matthew C. Roberts, who openly carried a handgun in a holster inside West Ridge Mall, then was convicted in Municipal Court of transporting a firearm in a vehicle.
No one hunts anywhere near Topeka? People with rifles in gun racks getting hassled a lot? If not then this was a bogus charge to begin with.
Great news!
Do not forget, the Kansas Affiliate of the NRA has endorsed TOOD TIAHRT for US Senate!
And this happened in Kansas, a western state where guns didn’t frighten the people. It looks as though it, too, is populated by the timid. What a shame.
It's ‘Great Plains’ - and it's in the center of the country.
True, they do have cattle and wheat, but so does Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Guns? Sure they have guns, but I would refrain from linking Texas (great gun owners) to Western state status.
If your concept of the ‘West’ is something from Gunsmoke, then there is a bit of the west alive and well in rural Montana and Wyoming. Sure as hell not in Washington, California or Washington.
JMHO.
Happy this man won his case, though
Have a truly fine Sunday.
It’s a win, but a better win that would have prevented the city from doing it again to anyone else would have been a ruling in his favor, rather than it being thrown out.
This way the city can still harass any other individual doing the same thing.
Thanks for the comments. It just seemed to me that Kansas is western. Though it certainly is not western geographically, the state comes across as “western” in culture, what with the cattle and cowboys and such. Maybe I’ve seen too many western movies.
I do stand corrected, though.
Thanks for the comments. It just seemed to me that Kansas is western. Though it certainly is not western geographically, the state comes across as “western” in culture, what with the cattle and cowboys and such. Maybe I’ve seen too many western movies.
I do stand corrected, though.
Shepler's, one of the biggest sellers of "western style clothing" in the nation, is based in Witchita, so it does have that image, even if it may not be totally deserved...
the infowarrior
bttt
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