Opinion ID: 2113046
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: On appeal the state reiterates arguments it made in opposition to defendant's motion to dismiss the charge. First, the state claims that the Legislature's decision to include second-degree arson as a crime of violence capable of triggering prosecution under § 11-47-5 evinces a broad, unambiguous intent to keep firearms from any individual previously convicted of conduct that would have been proscribed under Rhode Island's second-degree arson statute. See G.L.1956 § 11-4-3. The state follows by urging that, if we should agree with the first point, at the time defendant set fire to the Palace Bar in 1981, the implicated Arizona arson statute was sufficiently similar to its Rhode Island counterpart, thereby qualifying as a permissible predicate offense under § 11-47-5.