Court Opinion

ID: 9854329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:05:23.526334+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:01.415121
License: Public Domain

SHINN, P. J.
I concur. The case involves a particular statute as applied to a particular state of facts, namely, possession of a machine gun by an ex-convict, on parole after a conviction of robbery, who gave an unsatisfactory and uncorroborated account of the circumstances in which he came into possession of the weapon. In a prosecution for that offense it is not necessary for the People to prove that the accused knew the weapon to be a machine gun and an instruction to that effect is proper. Nevertheless I am convinced that complete lack of knowledge of the nature of an article, even a machine gun, possession of which is forbidden, would be a good defense. There are undoubtedly situations in which ignorance would be so complete and irrefutable as to render a conviction of possession a grave injustice. In a clear case of complete lack of knowledge the law should not be applied with such harsh and technical precision as to flout reason and justice, and accomplish a result which no Legislature, in defining the crime, could have intended. This is not such a case.