Court Opinion

ID: 9774036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:07:15.928741+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:01.038248
License: Public Domain

FISHER, Associate Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
In Logan v. United States, 489 A.2d 485 (D.C.1985), this court construed a predecessor statute to mean that “possession of ammunition is presumptively unlawful” and that “the government is required to prove only that appellants possessed ammunition ... in order to establish the essential element of the offense.” Id. at 498. Today the majority in essence holds that the Supreme Court’s decision in Heller has altered the elements of the offense in those cases where the evidence shows that the defendant possessed ammunition in his home. In such prosecutions, the government is now required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is not “the holder of [a] valid registration certificate for a firearm of the same gauge or caliber as the ammunition he possesses....” D.C.Code § 7-2506.01(a)(3). Majority opinion at 1245. (Indeed, as a matter of prudence, the government is well-advised to prove the lack of a valid registration certificate in all prosecutions for unlawful possession of ammunition (UA).)
I agree that, in light of Heller, the government failed to prove an essential element of the offense. The evidence being insufficient, appellant’s conviction for UA cannot stand.1 On this basis I concur in the judgment.

. This case is distinguishable from Lowery v. United States, 3 A.3d 1169 (D.C.2010), where the government proved all the elements of the offense, including the lack of a valid registration for the firearm, but the appellant asserted that the statute had been unconstitutionally applied to him. On the existing record, Mr. Lowery was unable to carry his burden of establishing plain error. Here, by contrast, it is clear that the government offered no proof to satisfy an essential element of the offense.