Posted on 10/08/2002 11:38:43 AM PDT by Liberal Classic
LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) - A former San Angelo doctor who challenged a federal law in a Second Amendment case was convicted Monday of firearm possession charges.
A federal jury convicted Timothy Emerson of three counts of possessing a firearm. He was charged in 1998 after buying a pistol while under a restraining order during a divorce proceeding.
U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings originally dismissed the charge against Emerson, ruling that the federal statute used to charge Emerson violated his Second Amendment right to bear arms.
But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the judge's ruling in October 2001.
The 5th Circuit ruled that an individual has a right to bear arms -- a victory for gun rights advocates -- but that the right could be restricted under some circumstances.
The case went back to the district court after the Supreme Court in June said it would not hear the case and a similar gun-rights case.
During testimony, defense attorney David Guinn said his client was not a felon for owning guns that were legal once his divorce was completed.
"You jurors are the only ones who stand between the government and whatever they want to do whenever they want," he said in a story in Monday night's online edition of the Lubbock Avalanche Journal. "And that's what these kinds of laws do. Everything that the government says isn't always best for us and isn't always what is right."
A sentencing date was not announced. Emerson faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, prosecutors said.
I guess you only have Constitutional rights until Frank Lautenberg says you don't.
I can. Juries are mostly composed of people who don't work every day.
So do I.
From the inimitable Vin Suprynowicz:
Voir Dire. French term for jury stacking.
When I served on that jury last year, we jurors talked about what our job was even though it was only misdemeanor traffic court. In the end, we found the defendant guilty even though the letter of the law said that he was not culpable. Without going into great detail, the law said the person who caused the traffic accident should be held faultless if the person he hit did not have all their paperwork in order. In our case, the victim did not have current liability insurance coverage which meant that defendant who rear-ended the victim could be found not guilty. We thought this would be letting him off on a technicality, because her lack of liability insurance had nothing to do in real life with this other fellow totalling her car. Since it was clear to us that he caused the accident, we voted him guilty. This may be the opposite of a jury nullification, but ultimately this is the true job of a jury: to judge the facts of the case as well as the law in question.
The judge was totally unhelpful, and when asked for help said nothing but "read the law" that he had given us on a photocopied sheet of paper. Why on earth are juries treated this way? Maybe this was no Twelve Angry Men, but I still feel that we did our job. But when I read about cases like this US vs. Emerson or the fiasco that was the OJ trial, and I am left with the distinct impression that something is seriously wrong with how juries are employed.
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The black-robed vermin could care less what the Constitution says and base their decisions on personal bias, whim, and the occasional public opinion poll. This is very well demonstrated in the rotten, commie-infested 9th Circus Court of Appeals, where the 'honorable' judges actually directly contradict their own previous rulings from case to case and don't see the problem with that at all. The interpretation of law has now become simply a matter of convenience, like the New Jersey SC recently demonstrated.
Even the 5th Circuit still upheld the unconstitutional federal restraining order garbage in the case of Emerson; they left the door open to further gun control (I hate that term, its so misleading)on both federal and state level.
We no longer have an independent judiciary nor do we have any real separation of powers, especially when the 2nd is involved. That's why the damn Senate RATS are so adamant about denying Pres. Bush's appointments to the federal bench. They have several litmus tests for judges, and they will not allow the court-activist commie-bastards who are currently on the bench to be "diluted" with those bad, conservative or even moderate judges who might just be concerned about the Constitution.
There is a conspiracy between the three branches of government to deny the citizens' right to keep and bear. Its worse than that because they have successfully transformed the RIGHT to keep and bear into the PRIVILEGE to keep and bear. And what government "grants", government can deny. And that's where we're going with gun ownership.
And don't forget that the miserable criminal, the dishonorable Senatrix from California, Dianne The Oinker Feinswine has introduced a federal gun licensing bill; it still haunts the halls of the Senate, and after this little lunatic-sniper incident in Washington/Maryland, she might just dust it off and re-introduce it. And before she goes to hell from lung cancer, that other miscreant, Sarah Brady, wants to have made into law her little FEDERAL needs-based licensing scheme; like "may issue CCW" that means NO issue, NO license, NO arms in the hands of the citzenry. It also means that all hell will break loose, violence will skyrocket, and the $200 machine gun will become a reality.
"This judicial train wreck is a direct result of the Bush/Ashcroft Administration's insistence that the Supreme Court not hear U.S. v. Emerson. The case was perfectly valid, long overdue and indeed righteous, yet the "pro gun" Bush/Ashcroft administration screwed America for political gain, letting Dr. Emerson get fed to the lions."
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