Court Opinion

ID: 9636615
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:35:32.253242+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:47.325981
License: Public Domain

CLAGETT, Associate Judge
-(concurring).
I believe it should be emphasized that when the government originally presented this case it made no effort to prove, defendant -had no license and only after a motion for a directed verdict had been made did the government hurriedly (the record recites the court was in recess only ten minutes) produce a lieutenant of police who testified he had searched the records and found no license to carry a gun in defendant’s name. Two points should be clear:
*249First, in such cases the government must allege and prove the negative fact that the accused has no license. It has been so held by Chief Judge Laws of the United States District Court, United States v. Waters, 73 F.Supp. 72, and once before by this court, Brown v. United States, D.C.Mun.App., 66 A.2d 491. The United States attorney had full opportunity of appealing the Brown case to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That he did not do so ought to establish the question as settled, in this jurisdiction, The federal government should not try to “get by” with a case without presenting proper proof.
Second, the better manner of proving the absence of a license is to produce a certificate of the custodian of the record's or his deputy as contemplated by Rule 27 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 18 U.S.C.A., and Municipal Court Civil Rule 40(b). The procedure followed here, while I agree it is ijot grounds for reversal, is slipshod and open to abuse. I do not think it should be 'followed again.