Opinion ID: 3002969
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: Olofson contends that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to sustain his conviction. When a defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the government and will reverse the conviction only if no rational jury could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Castaldi, 547 F.3d 699, 705 (7th Cir. 2008). In order to convict a person of violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(o)(1), the government must prove that 1) the defendant possessed or transferred a machinegun 2) with knowledge that the weapon had the characteristics that bring it within the statutory definition of a machinegun. United States v. McGiffen, 267 F.3d 581, 590 (7th Cir. 2001). Regarding the first element, Kiernicki testified that Olofson loaned him the AR-15 on four occasions, the last of which was July 13, 2006. An ATF agent also testified that Olofson admitted loaning the gun to Kiernicki. In addition, Kiernicki stated that the gun fired three or four rounds (on several occasions) with one pull of the trigger. The government’s expert who test-fired the AR12 No. 08-2294 15 stated that he exhausted a twenty-round magazine with one continuous depression of the trigger and emptied two additional twenty-round magazines in fiveor ten-round bursts by intermittently depressing, holding, and releasing the trigger. He also declared that the weapon was intended to fire in such fashions and that a “hammer-follow” malfunction was not the cause. That evidence was adequate to permit a reasonable jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Olofson transferred a “machinegun” as defined by § 5845(b). Regarding the evidence on the knowledge element, Kiernicki said that Olofson told him “the three-round burst wouldn’t work and that it would jam up.” Kiernicki understood that statement to mean that “[t]hree rounds come out of it when you would pull the trigger” once. That testimony was sufficient for a reasonable jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew that the AR-15, with a single pull of the trigger and without manual reloading, could shoot more than one round as the result of a self-acting mechanism. For these reasons, the defendant’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence fails.6