Guilty As Charged
A local grandmother bought this gun, a CZ-52 (Czech military weapon) at a pawn shop.  Click here to read more about the gun. Her son was caught with it. The question is how?  Â
I was Juror No. 6.
We asked the trial be extended another day, and we deliberated for more than a couple of hours on this, what many would consider a cut and dry case. All of us (jurors) cared, both about the defense and his family, and about our community and delivering a verdict that was in line with the law and the protection of our citizens.  And I can say, after deliberations, that all 12 of us were wanting to deliver a fair and just verdict based on the evidence.  But we weren’t in agreement.
You might think a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm would be quickly decided and easy to defend or argue. That wasn’t the case.Â
I was fascinated by what I saw, heard and experienced this week, from our system of forensics to law officers being affraid for their lives, to a part of our society that lives in fear. Â
I really would like to talk about this.  Not that you need it, but I believe it’ll be a healthy discussion that might lead to understanding. Â
Here are the trial stats:
27-year-old Aaron Shawn McKinney of Shreveport, previously charged with Schedule II possession (28 grams cocaine), now with being a felon in possession of a firearm. None of the officers testifying had ever seen a CZ-52. It’s an old military Czech pistol.  Does your grandmother have one?Â
We needed to consider that this grandmother lives in a crime-ridden area and says she’s afraid for her life. And she says the pawn shop employee told her it was a .357.Â
Her son, Aaron McKinney, is pulled over for driving a car with stolen plates. The detective behind McKinney testifies she sees McKinney reach toward the back seat when he probably saw a marked car approaching him.  During the stop, the detective retrieves the weapon as she lifts up the back seat of the Crown Vic off it’s base. The driver is McKinney, known on the streets as Dinosaur. Â
What came into play was “in possession”.  Was it McKinney’s gun?
Not so fast. Mom gets on the stand and says she not only bought the gun, but put it there prior to an altercation with McKinney’s girl (the mother of one of his children).  She testified that she lifted up the backseat from its base on the Crown Vic to put that gun there prior to her altercation with his baby’s momma and that McKinney didn’t know it was there. Â
Okay, could be. And as jurors, we ignored things like: Grandma’s two year old wasn’t in a car seat, was instead sitting on top of a loaded military assault weapon. There are the stolen plates and the previous coke charges. Okay, now what?
Well, basically, the mom’s story didn’t add up.  And there were inconsistencies between her story and that of the defense. What did add up is the testimony of the three officers on the scene and the video that accompanied it.
IMO, this trial could have easily not happened if our crime lab had the necessary resources to test the DNA submitted. The lab is jammed with more serious crimes-against-persons cases and didn’t get to this one. Thus, Tommy, a trial ensued.Â
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April 4th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
It does sound like a complicated case.
I’ve never served on a jury, but if I had been a member of THIS jury, I probably would have given the benefit of the doubt to the prosecution.
This Aaron Mckinney character doesn’t exactly sound like a nominee for Citizen of the Year. While I have no doubt that law enforcement abuses its authority at times, I also realize that they have to deal with some very unpleasant individuals on a daily basis.
April 4th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
ok, the detective saw him foostering around toward the backseat at the time of the stop. gun found under the seat. nothing else found under the seat? moms story is thought to be bogus. and it is !
as much as i hate to reveal too much about myself, i got to tell ya that i was a cop here in shreveport for 25 years. reaching toward the backseat or moving around in the front like your hiding something when stopped by an officer is not normal behaviour. nor is crusing around with 28 grams of cocaine. however , if i was motivatin thru the hood with that amount of coke i would definately be armed.
if you voted to convict great. i think you would be right. if he was found not guilty….no problem…you mentioned previous charges…before the year is out he will be caught again and maybe convicted the next time.
sorry about the lack of funding for the crime lab, but that has been the case for years.
April 4th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Forgive me if I sound ignorant on processing evidence, but did the lab check to see if McKinney’s prints were on the weapon? If his weren’t on it, but others were, it seems likely he didn’t know the gun was there. However, (hypothetically) if there are drugs found in the car and no one claims it, the driver is usually charged with possession. Why wouldn’t this also apply to a weapon? Perhaps because this weapon was obtained legally while possession of controlled substances is always illegal?
April 4th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
…..SHERRI- EVERYONE CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH …THE TRUTH ABOUT HAZEL AND JIMMY !!!!! YOUR OUTTA ORDER !!!HAZEL AND JIMMY ARE OUTTA ORDER !!!THIS WHOLE BLOG IS OUTTA ORDER!!!!….
….any objections to me using humor to lighten this topic….
…it does sound as if you had an overall pleasent time.
please if it would honor the court tell us more.
so this is what the inside of a blog is like.
April 4th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
The schedule II cocaine possession alone would put the guy away for some time or at least cost some $’s. The rest is bonus! Sounds like the pawn shop owner ought to be busted for calling the gun a .357 and not ensuring the registration of the weapon? Did Mom register the gun or even have a receipt? How do you determine possession in this case… Did Mr. McKinney aka “dinosaur” leave any finger prints on the weapon?
Let’s see, a Felon WITH cocaine & suspected of possessing the firearm that happens to be in the car that he is driving with the stolen plates and a child bouncing bout the back seat. rollin my iiiiiiiiiiiii’s
good call on the Guilty as Charged madame juror #6… when is Mom’s court date?
April 5th, 2008 at 2:12 am
Sherri the trial I was foreman on last year had the same circumstances. Was a convicted felon in possession of a firearm? Police are called to a house where shots fired are reported. When they arrive they identify one of the people on scene as a convicted felon. No gun found outside, but inside a gun was found under a mattress where the defendant slept on a regular basis at his girlfriends house. Also in the same area as the gun was his id and school books with his name in them. He says he did not know it was there. I remember the police having some good evidence on tape, but the tape was recorded over. So since the police had holes in their case we could not give him the full sentence, but we could not let him go scot free. So we went middle of the road with a lighter sentence. It was really tough because we were pretty sure he KNEW the gun was there!
April 5th, 2008 at 8:07 am
Sometimes a mother’s love can be so strong; they will say or do almost anything to protect their child. I believe perhaps she was trying to persuade the jury that her son had no knowledge of the weapon thereby decreasing the seriousness of his crime. Mothers can sometimes exhibit bizarre behavior. What is it about maternal instinct?
However, I also believe he was guilty of possessing 28 grams of cocaine while in possession of his grandmothers CZ-52 while driving a vehicle with stolen plates and perhaps should have tried to plea bargain a deal to a lesser offense if one was offered instead of going to trial.
April 5th, 2008 at 8:27 am
Sparky, very similar case…has to be either actual or constructive possession beyond a reasonable doubt. Sounds like your jury had reasonable doubt. We didn’t think the ATTEMPTED version applied.
The cocaine charge was several years ago, but ten years had not passed, so McKinney still wasn’t supposeed to have a gun. Sounds like he caught a break on the previous coke charge.
Fingerprints: Lt. Owen McDonnell with the Crime Scene Investigation Unit of the Caddo Sheriff’s Office testified as a fingerprint expert. He said with the texture of this gun, there was just about no way to extract a fingerprint from it or the magazine. But, it’s my understanding that had the lab had time to compare the DNA swab in McKinney’s mouth to material on the gun, that might have expedited things either way.
Just to clarify, the child was in the backseat near the gun during the grandmother’s altercation with McKinney’s girlfriend. At least that’s the grandmother’s testimony..that she put the gun under the backseat and when she got home, McKinney took off in the car, not knowing she put it there.
Tommy, after we found McKinney guilty, we discovered he’ll be returning for several more trials on charges of domestic abuse and more.
I can’t tell you how impressed I was with Judge Scott Creighton and his staff. Efficient, respectful, on time. It helped us, as jurors, stay focused on the trial.
April 5th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Perry Mason: H&J didn’t make it past the metal detectors. Not sure what they were packin’.
April 5th, 2008 at 8:47 am
I know WRyker, that mother’s love thing is tough. Where we have to be careful is when it crosses over into enabling certain behaviors. I struggle with that everyday. Sometimes the best way to show love is to show your child the positive and negative consequences of his behavior while using compassion. I truly think most parents do the very best they can with what they have. It takes great courage, a strong support system and help from above to break some chains of addiction/abuse.
April 5th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Was just running and thinking (a dangerous combo for me). After I ran past two women in burqas playing tennis and thought about that for a while, then wondered what sort of trouble H&J were getting into home alone, I thought about our law enforcement personnel who put their lives on the line. Tommy, thanks for your years of serving and protecting. If you haven’t already, you might want to check out Chris Redford’s site. He deals mostly with the issues faced by first responders. www.chrisredford.com
April 5th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
It is always hard when you have to be the one to determine someone’s fate. But I feel it comes down to right is right. A mothers love is very understanding but when things are over looked it doesn’t help the one that needs the help. You can always love your child nomatter what they do but you don’t have to help them get by without punishment, they will never learn otherwise. Obviously somedon’t learn, kinda like the guy with 53 arrest. Come on, when is enough enough. We have to give our children the chance to grow up and learn from mistakes, but not all do. I’m sure Sherri you were thinking what if the child in the car had found the gun, what all could have happened. And even if the mother was telling the truth, what is up with the stolen plates on the car. Didn’t you say the mother had been driving that car? OK, now let’s think of all the evidence and compare to the stories.
April 6th, 2008 at 9:20 am
I have a close friend who is a gun expert. Here is his reply to your post Sherri:
“This has always been an argument of the gun-rights advocates when discussing cheap handguns; should only the wealthy be able to defend themselves? You might tell Sherri that in military terms, a handgun is seen as a purely defesive weapon, not an ‘assault weapon’. The smallest asault weapon is the battle rifle. not even a carbine (shoulder rifle with pistol caliber) is considered an assualt weapon. The CZ she is discussing is not of a large caliber (9mm Kurz, i think), but due to its excessive size vs. diminutive caliber, it is unpopular, thus cheap.”
April 6th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Good point, HRB. The grandmother paid $195 for the gun…said she based the purchase on the money she had to spend on the weapon. And this is a very old gun.
Good thing the grandmother wasn’t on trial. Her son has been shot before and she knows what it’s like to live in fear. Some other thoughts around the trial:
I can’t imagine living in fear all the time, but I remember being afraid for my life in the 80s because of a story I was doing…being followed home by some people involved in a cockfighting ring after some verbal threats. I felt safer having a gun. I bought a gun previously when I moved to a strange city by myself. It was one I made sure I could handle — I wanted to be able to use it if I had to. I immediately took a course in how to use it (then put the sillouette of all 70 shots in the head and torso on the wall across from my bedroom window).
The jury agreed with the right of a person to defend themselves.
Some of the jury’s doubt that the grandmother bought the gun for herself or her son didn’t have access to it came into play when she demonstrated that she didn’t know how to unload it. She didn’t know what type of gun it was. The gun is very heavy with a big kickback when fired. She said she kept it in her purse all the time…there were doubts related to this in her testimony (loaded, with no lock and four grandchildren under the age of 6 around…she has custody of a two year old she says gets into everything). She previously owned a .45, which she says she gave to her other son. Her attorney initially said her son stole it from her. There were lots of other circumstances that led us to believe that her son (the convicted felon on trial) had dominion over this gun.
Just some thoughts…as random or relevant as they may be.
April 6th, 2008 at 10:51 am
By analogy, does the argument that “it’s not my cocain you just found in my car, my mom must have put it there” ever hold water. You are in possession. I would think the same holds for a gun in your car.
April 6th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Thanks, HRB,
That’s basically what I was trying to say in the second half of my comment in this thread.
April 6th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I do not know the answer to this, but have unsuccessfully tried to reach some attorney friends to find out (I can’t imagine why they don’t want to take a call from the media on a Sunday morning). Will keep trying. In the meantime, anyone have enough knowledge of the law to explain this one?
Maybe possession of drugs can go to trial like this case did.
April 6th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
…i cant go into details now about your case sherri…since im involed defending Hazel and Jimmy…they tried to sneak in SHANKS at the courthouse….
April 6th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Well then, I probably have a major conflict of interest if H&J are on trial. Is it okay to say here that I gave them the shanks?
April 6th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
strike that from the record ….turns out it wasnt shanks after all….it was the new latest defense in WOMBAT attack protection….judge let them off with just a sentence of house arrest for today and they’ll have to pick up trash one day this week
April 6th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Is PerryMason and CT one in the same? I can’t imagine there are two people in the world haveing a Wombat fetish.
April 6th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Yes jchristie, I just went and re-read you comment. I was being redundant it seems. You made the point better.
April 6th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Still trying to reach an attorney on the issue, but I did reach a cop with SPD who said people can take anything to trial and that’s probably what happened here. Still after more…later.
April 7th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I think but could be wrong, what’s new. Also thinking causes earth trimmers, but anywho, my understanding is a felon can’t even have a weapon where they live even if it belongs to someone else. I heard of a case in the past where a felon was arrested after there roommate had a gun, was pissed off at them and reported it to the cops.
April 8th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Actually, HRB, I was thinking your question was better constructed.