In U.S. v. White, No. 08-16010 (Jan. 11, 2010), the Court affirmed a conviction for possession of a firearm by a person convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.
The Court rejected the argument that one police officer’s recollection that he smelled marijuana was not credible, because the other arresting officer did not recall a smell of marijuana. Because the testimony was credible, the smell gave the officer reasonable suspicion for further investigation – which led him to find a firearm. In addition, the officers were outnumbered by the persons they found in a car, after getting a complaint about loud music in a high crime area late at night, and the occupants of the car could not produce identification.
The Court also rejected the argument that White’s prior conviction did not qualify under the firearm possession statute. White had been convicted of conduct involving a dispute in which he tried to choke his live-in girlfriend. A dispute with a live-in girlfriend qualifies as a “domestic dispute.”
Finally, the Court rejected the argument that the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Heller, striking down Washington D.C.’s firearm ban, made unconstitutional the statute criminalizing firearm possession by a person convicted of domestic violence. The Court found that this statute was one of the “longstanding prohibitions” on firearm possession that Heller did not call into doubt.
