Court Opinion

ID: 9713207
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:10:50.66514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:17.514199
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE MORAN, dissenting: This case should not have gone to the jury. The defendant’s motion for a directed verdict should have been allowed at the close of the State’s case in chief. In my view, the majority has incorrectly posed the first issue. The threshold question is whether the revolver, within a locked glove compartment to which there was no key, was “immediately accessible” to the defendant. On that question, my review leads me to a conclusive “No.” In the case in chief, the State’s evidence disclosed that a search of the defendant and his vehicle did not reveal a key to the glove compartment. It was argued to the jury that defendant could have disposed of the key when he noticed the officers. Not only is this argument purely conjectural and unsupported by the record, but it is disproved by the State’s own witnesses. The officers testified that defendant, who was outside the car, was but a short distance from them when he first noticed their presence, and the officers stated that they were able to observe defendant at all times prior to the arrest. There is simply no evidence that the defendant disposed of the key. An important fact — one not mentioned in the majority’s opinion — was brought out, again, by the State. It took between 5 and 10 minutes for the glove compartment to be opened with the aid of two screwdrivers. This fact alone proved that the weapon was not immediately accessible. In each of the cases cited by the majority, the weapon was accessible in a matter of seconds. That fact makes those cases clearly distinguishable from the instant case. Under the State’s evidence in its case in chief, it was shown that the gun was not immediately accessible to the defendant. It was therefore unnecessary for the defendant to prove the exemption. On this basis, the trial court should have directed a verdict for the defendant. As a result of today’s opinion, the court has deleted the phrase “not immediately accessible” from the legislative enactment. MR. JUSTICE GOLDENHERSH joins in this dissent.