CONVICTING THE INNOCENT

Can you be convicted of crime that you did not know you were committing, even if you had no intention of committing a crime?  Unfortunately, yes you can.  People v. Stanley, 921 N.E.2D 445 (1^st Dist. 2010).  The First Appellate District Court decided in 2010 that a person did not have to have knowledge that a gun was defaced to be prosecuted for possessing a defaced gun.  Instead, they ruled that the person only had to knowingly possess a gun.  This basically approves of punishing someone who, in my opinion, lacked the appropriate, and required, mental state, or knowledge that they were committing a crime.  Without the appropriate mental state, no crime has been committed.  In my opinion, this allows the punishing of the innocent.  The court relied upon another case, People v. Ivy, 133 Ill. App. 3d 647, 479 N.E.2d 399 (5^th Dist. 1985).  The Ivy case dealt with a woman who possessed a sawed off shotgun.  The court held that the prosecution did not have to prove that the woman knew that the gun barrel was the appropriate length as required by statute.  In the Stanley case, however, the defendant was charged with possessing a defaced gun because the identification marks for the gun had been scratched off.  As a practical matter, the Ivy case is more troubling because it would be difficult for most people to know the precise gun barrel length by merely looking at it.  This is not true for the Stanley case.  So long as one can see, whether the serial numbers identifying the gun were scratched off can be determined with minimal effort.  If the defendant in Stanley had not noticed serial numbers were scratched off, however, then, to the best of his knowledge, he was merely possessing a gun and not a defaced gun.  But any person could check for serial numbers.  I have less of a problem with the law imposing the requirement that a gun owner has to look for serial numbers or risk being charged with possessing a defaced gun.  It is a much bigger deal to be required to look up the law on how long a gun barrel must be and then forcing the owner to measure the gun barrel.  The gun owner should probably also look up case law to if courts have adopted a single definition as to how the gun barrel should be measured.  Does the measurement extend back to the firing pin?  Is it only the visible part of the barrel because some gun barrels are covered by wood stock?  There is clearly a danger of punishing the innocent in cases like these.  It is one thing to be “tough on crime.”  That is not the duty, however, of the court which must be fair and impartial.  It is a miscarriage of justice to punish the innocent for the sake of appearing tough on crime.  I am not familiar with the facts of either the Stanley or the Ivy case to know what was just in either case.  The holding in both cases, though, opens the door to punishing someone who never intended to break the law.  http://www.ellislawfirm.pro/ 

TOUGH CASES MAKE BAD LAW

Insurance company exemptions allow insurance companies to avoid their contractual duty to provide coverage.  There is a saying that the insurance company policies provide coverage in the first couple of pages and then the rest of the policy takes away that coverage.  Although an accident may be a covered event under the insurance policy, the exemptions in the policy can allow the insurance company from being required to pay on a claim.  A good example of this is the case of American Standard Insurance Company of Wisconsin v. Slifer, 395 Ill. App. 3d 1056, 919 N.E.2d 372, 335 Ill. Dec. 653 (4^th Dist. 2009).  In that wrongful death case, a hit and run driver killed a man in 2002.  He did not report it to his insurance company despite the insurance policy requirement of prompt notification of an accident.  Five years later, Slifer confessed to the police.  He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.  Since he did not comply with the policy requirement to notify the insurance company promptly, the insurance did not have to indemnify, or pay for, any judgment for wrongful death against Slifer.  Unless Mr. Slifer became independently wealthy, which is unlikely given his prison sentence, the party that suffers would be the family of the person Mr. Slifer killed.  While insurance companies should be allowed to protect their monetary reserves, the result of this decision will adversely impact the victim’s family.  The one thing we can be sure of is that the insurance company would be allowed to keep all of the premiums Mr. Slifer paid without having to pay for his wrongdoing. 

There is a saying that hard cases make bad law.  This is clearly a hard case.  No matter how it is decided, it is going to be unfair to one of the two parties, the insurance company or the victim's family.  It would be unfair to the insurance company to have to defend and then indemnify someone when an accident goes unreported for five years.  But denying compensation to the family also seems unfair.  So we are left with a choice in cases like this:  who should bear the brunt of this unfair situation?  Both parties are blameless.  One could argue that the insurance company got the premiums for the coverage and so they should not use this exemption to deny coverage.  Conversely, one could argue that the victim's family is not without some measure of justice as Mr. Slifer is serving a prison sentence of 14 years.  I can't say that the case was decided incorrectly but I think that the insurance company could bear the inherent unfairness of this situation better than the victim's families.  What do you think should have happened?  http://www.ellislawfirm.pro/