OT. Gun law & jury nullification in the UK.
theget
and the article it points to
http://www.thisissurreytoday.co.uk/news/Ex-soldier-faces-jail-handing-gun/article-1509082-detail/article.html
are worth at least a quick look.
Someone in the UK handed in a gun to the police that he found in his
garden. He's facing a potential five years.
Evidently, the issue of mens rea doesn't apply to this law. Your
intent to possess the weapon is irrelevant.
The individual in question had a recent run in with the law.
http://www.thisissurreytoday.co.uk/golf/Man-accused-attacking-DVLA-inspector-broom-walks-free/article-361380-detail/article.html
Some of the posters in the fark thread suspect that because of this he
may have been Nifonged. Or set up by the police.
Now it's true, that some of the fark posters have some trouble
understanding that this did not take place in the US or that the UK
has different laws. But those who do understand IMO have an
interesting set of attitudes, some of which I liked and some of which
I cringed at. YMWV. Several of these cover jury nullification, which I
think would have been a good idea in this case.
This also strikes me as being a remarkably bad law that would make it
easy for anyone to set someone else up. 1) Put gun in the garden. 2)
Call the police and anonymously report said gun.
I also think the guy who found the gun behaved stupidly. He probably
shouldn't have bought the gun to the police station. And perhaps he
should have called his solicitor first. But begin stupid isn't
illegal. Yet.
Which leads me to a question. If you are committing a crime, which he
may have been doing under UK law, by having the gun on his property,
even if he didn't put it there and didn't want it there and didn't
know it was there, is this covered by privilege? It's an ongoing
crime. Does privilege cover that? I mean under US law. I realize
this is a sort of mixed question, but if the US had a law that didn't
require mens rea are your communications with your lawyer still given
privilege?
Theget
Ray O'Hara
"theget" <the...@bigmailbox.net> wrote in message
news:af3ace2a-2b52-4eb1...@p19g2000vbq.googlegroups.com...
Attorney Client Privilege is sancrosanct.
your Attorney doesn't have to tell the police you committed a crime. but if
he does know he can't argue you are innocent.
he has to dancew around that.
theget
> "theget" <the...@bigmailbox.net> wrote in message
>
> news:af3ace2a-2b52-4eb1...@p19g2000vbq.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> >I think this fark thread
> >http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=4764153
> > and the article it points to
> > are worth at least a quick look.
>
> > Someone in the UK handed in a gun to the police that he found in his
> > garden. He's facing a potential five years.
>
> > Evidently, the issue of mens rea doesn't apply to this law. Your
> > intent to possess the weapon is irrelevant.
>
> > The individual in question had a recent run in with the law.
I think there are a few situations where this isn't true.
http://www.abanet.org/cpr/mrpc/rule_1_6.html
> your Attorney doesn't have to tell the police you committed a crime. but if
> he does know he can't argue you are innocent.
> he has to dancew around that.
Yes. But this issue is about an ongoing crime. If I call my attorney
and say "I have a gun and I want to turn it into the police." and if
mens rea doesn't form any part of the violation of the criminal code,
then the crime is ongoing no matter what I do and no matter how I came
into possession of the gun. So is that communication covered by
privilege? Or does my attorney now have an ethical obligation to
report the ongoing crime?
Theget