Court Opinion

ID: 9640831
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:16:31.014067+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:33.222964
License: Public Domain

KERN, Associate Judge,
concurring:
Since the “crime of carrying, without a license, a pistol . . . is a serious matter in a troubled metropolitan area,” Epperson v. United States, 125 U.S.App.D.C. 303, 305, 371 F.2d 956, 958 (1967), and the applicable statute, Section 22-3204, was intended “to forestall the temptation to use [a pistol as a weapon] ... by forbidding possession of such an object outside the possessor’s home or place of business,” Mitchell v. United States, D.C.App., 302 A.2d 216, 217 (1973), it is not surprising that this court has upheld the trial court’s denial of a request for a so-called “innocent possession” instruction in prosecutions for this particular statutory violation upon a variety of fact situations. See Carey v. United States, D.C.App., 377 A.2d 40 (1977) (defendant finds pistol in his apartment while in the process of moving from it but waits half-a-day before setting out for police station with it); Hines v. United States, D.C.App., 326 A.2d 247 (1974) (defendant finds pistol in alley and carries it nearby to show *828to his friend); Mitchell v. United States, supra (defendant picks up pistol from ground to prevent others from using it, intending ultimately to turn it over to police, and walks into the area of a hostile crowd).
I agree that the trial court in the instant case correctly refused to instruct the jury that appellant “possessed the pistol at the time in question . . . innocently and without criminal purpose, but for the benevolent purpose of removing it to a secure place,” given (1) the testimony by appellant that he would return the pistol, unlicensed, to his cousin when the latter was “in a better frame of mind” and (2) our holding in Mitchell v. United States, supra at 217, that the purpose for possessing an unlicensed pistol outside the possessor’s home or place of business is irrelevant in a Section 22-3204 prosecution.
We would be ignoring the legislative intent1 if we construed the statute in any way so as to encourage citizens to carry an unlicensed pistol on the public streets, no matter how civic-minded they may be or claim to be. Only an emergency situation would justify momentary possession of an unlicensed pistol in public while awaiting police intervention and require a jury instruction on innocent possession.

. D.C.Code 1973, § 22-3204, is intended “drastically to limit the possession of guns in the District of Columbia.” Berkley v. United States, D.C.App., 370 A.2d 1331, 1333 (1977).