News Cut: July 11, 2012 Archive

The case of the lawyer and the gun in his briefcase

Posted at 12:15 PM on July 11, 2012 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)

If you've ever watched an episode of Cops, you know that the first thing a suspect says when something illegal has been found nearby is, "that's not mine," and "I don't know how it got there."

Sometimes it's a good defense.

Today, the Minnesota Supreme Court tossed out the conviction of a man for possessing a handgun in public, because the state didn't prove that attorney Christian Chi Ndikum knew there was a pistol in the briefcase he was carrying into a courtroom.

Ndikum bought the gun in 2009 because of several incidents in his neighborhood and regularly carried it between his home and his Minneapolis office. But when he went through an X-ray scanner at the Hennepin County Family Justice Center for a court hearing, the gun was discovered. He admitted owning the gun, but said he didn't know it was in his briefcase.

Ndikum's wife testified she placed the gun in the briefcase., but he was convicted on a misdemeanor charge while found not guilty of a felony. The Court of Appeals overturned the conviction and today the Supreme Court affirmed that ruling.

The court's opinion, written by Justice Helen Meyer, said the trial court should have instructed the jury that Ndikum needed to know the gun was in the briefcase.

In making the ruling, the Supreme Court clarified the state's so-called "concealed carry" gun law:

Although section 624.714 prohibits persons without permits from carrying a pistol in public, the inverse is also true: a person granted a permit to carry a pistol may carry it in public freely. Furthermore, it is not difficult to obtain a permit to carry a pistol. There is a statutory presumption in favor of granting a permit as long as the applicant meets the minimal requirements for eligibility. Minn. Stat. § 624.714, subd. 2. And even without a permit, gun owners may legally keep guns in their homes, transport guns to work, possess guns at work, hunt with guns, and keep guns in their vehicles. Our examination of section 624.714 leads us to conclude that the statute does not treat guns as highly dangerous devices and does not put gun owners on notice of stringent regulation. Section 624.714, subdivision 1a, is not a public welfare statute designed to strictly regulate a highly-dangerous device and, therefore, we conclude that mens rea (ed. note: "guilty mind," basically, knowledge of a restriction or regulation) was not dispensed with by the Legislature.

Full opinion here.

(3 Comments)

SD's driver's license crisis

Posted at 3:20 PM on July 11, 2012 by Bob Collins (15 Comments)

Minnesota has a lot of problems, but at least our citizens can get a driver's license, right, South Dakota?

It's a comparison of crises between the two states today. In Minnesota, political leaders are trying to come up with a framework for a special session to deal with disaster relief.

The neighbors to the west, however, have bigger fish to fry: There are lines for driver's licenses.

Two years ago, the state started requiring everyone getting their licenses renewed to show either a birth certificate, passport or immigration documents, a Social Security card and two documents displaying a current address, the Argus Leader

How long can it take? Hours.

"This is our third time here," Dianne May of Sioux Falls said Tuesday. "The first time we came at 11 o'clock and waited for three hours. We came back thinking if we came at 8 o'clock that would give us an hour to spare."

She laughed briefly. "We're back for the third time."

Josh Winter of Sioux Falls was making his second appearance in the line Tuesday.

"I came yesterday and saw I could not afford to wait. So I came back today and factored into my schedule another couple of hours," he said. "Thank God my work is flexible enough for me to take a few hours."

It didn't help that the state closed 15 offices.

But people are plenty upset, the newspaper editorial yesterday called for action and today the governor ordered the driver's license stations to stay open until 7 pm and hire whatever's needed to get rid of the lines.

Minnehaha County is threatening to evict the driver's license station in its government building because of the noise from people waiting in line, many of whom had to bring their young kids with them.

(15 Comments)