Often, one of many first questions shoppers ask me in my capability as a prison protection lawyer after they’ve been arrested by the NYPD or Port Authority Police for possessing a loaded firearm is, “What’s the penalty is for carrying a gun in New York Metropolis?” and “How lengthy do you go to jail for having a gun in New York even when you’ve got a conceal carry allow in [Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Connecticut, Virginia…]?”. Whereas a conviction for Felony Possession of a Weapon within the Second Diploma, Penal Regulation 265.03, can saddle you with a sentence for so long as 15 years in jail, with a obligatory minimal of three and a half years if the firearm is “loaded” (bullets needn’t be within the weapon for it to be “loaded” as a matter of legislation”), a decide can hand down punishment of as much as 4 years behind bars for Felony Possession of a Firearm, Penal Regulation 265.01-b(1), even when there is no such thing as a ammunition in any respect.
With any such publicity in thoughts, Saland Regulation is extremely grateful, although not as a lot as our shopper after her arrest for Penal Regulation 265.03, prosecutors took the time to really assessment what I introduced, look at our shopper’s case, and advance the matter for dismissal within the curiosity of justice. Whereas a non-criminal Disorderly Conduct violation or Adjournment in Contemplation (ACD) of dismissal after six months would have been thought of a “win” assuming there was no authorized obstacle to the case, resembling in instances I’ve dealt with in Queens County the place unknowing vacationers checked their firearms with the TSA at both JFK or LaGuardia Airport, and downward departures and re-pleaders to non-criminal pleas in different counties resembling Manhattan and elsewhere, Brooklyn prosecutors went the additional mile to make an objectively simply determination on a case that appeared ugly if one didn’t do one’s “homework”.
What began off as a 911 name that my shopper had a gun and was threatening to hurt her buddy, ended with my shopper being handcuffed and charged with Second Diploma Felony Possession of a weapon after she walked out of her buddy’s condominium along with her gun in hand to be able to give it to the police and deescalate the state of affairs. A non-New York resident who was unaware of New York’s firearm legal guidelines, upon voluntarily advising the police that she had a firearm and gave it to them, the NYPD instantly arrested our shopper for Second Diploma Felony Possession of a Weapon for unlawfully possessing the loaded pistol outdoors her dwelling or workplace. Not solely irritating as a result of our shopper had by no means threatened anybody and the police got here as a result of the delusional drug induced claims of the buddy, if our shopper had waited for the police to reach contained in the condominium, the offense charged would have been the lesser class “E” felony of Felony Possession of a Firearm.
Nonetheless, upon chatting with a witness in addition to counsel for the “complainant” buddy who initially made the decision relating to my shopper’s purported threats, and sharing the precise information with the assigned prosecutor that my shopper by no means brandished nor made threats with a firearm in direction of the manic “complainant” who solely knew of the gun however by no means noticed it, offering corroboration of our shopper’s honorable army service, present profession, and in any other case beneficiant, sort, ethical, and genuinely “good” life, and sharing proof of the weapon’s authorized registration and possession, prosecutors took the package deal we introduced to coronary heart and confirmed it in its entirety.
Although it could sound pretty easy in a couple of hundred-word weblog entry, amassing the data and crafting it a fashion prosecutors might each digest and relate, whereas shifting them away from each a felony and misdemeanor, is not any simple job…particularly within the present local weather of gun violence. Nevertheless, and once more to the credit score of the Assistant District Legal professional and his supervisor, prosecutors examined this case not as a bigger piece of the combat in opposition to unlawful, disguised, and ghost weapons, or as a larger a part of the combat in opposition to gun crime, however on the deserves of what I introduced and what the proof demonstrated. Merely, simply because they may have slammed our shopper with a prison report by the mere truth she had an out-of-state and unlawfully possessed firearm in NYC, didn’t imply that they need to.
With the dismissal in hand, the case closed, and a life restored, in addition to her lawful Second Modification rights intact, our shopper’s reduction was palpable. A younger lawyer, our shopper can now pursue her authorized profession and proceed on a trajectory that already included unimaginable service to our nation, an unblemished report in any discussion board, and accomplishments that will make any certainly one of us proud. Fortuitously, a real, even when horrifying, mistake, made far worse on account of a buddy’s intoxication and false reporting of an incident, won’t saddle our shopper with any infirmities, pointless burdens, nor conviction “Scarlett Letter” for the remainder of her life.
Jeremy Saland is a prison protection lawyer and former Manhattan prosecutor. Jeremy Saland and Saland Regulation, PC represents shoppers in arrests, prison investigations, indictments, and trials. Moreover, Saland Regulation, PC assists shoppers in securing Orders of Safety as petitioners and as respondents in Article 8 Household Offense proceedings, as advocates in collegiate Title IX and Code of Conduct issues, and as victims in Blackmail, Sextortion, Harassment, Revenge Porn, and Stalking each on-line and off.
