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Rule of Lenity Applied to Definition of "Antique Firearm" in Unregistered Shotgun Case

By Candace Hom, Melinda Ghilardi, Nancy Rimmer, Sarah Gannett, Renee Pietropaolo and Tieffa Harper

In United States v. Introcaso, __ F.3d __, 2007 WL 3104382 (filed October 25, 2007), the Court reversed the defendant?s conviction for possessing an unregistered firearm ? a 19th-century shotgun that had been hanging in his living room, holding that the definition of "antique firearm" under the statute, 26 U.S.C. § 5845(g), is ambiguous and applying the rule of lenity in favor of the defendant.The parties agreed that the shotgun was manufactured before 1898, and also agreed that its measurements met the statutory requirements for a firearm. The case turned on the language in the definition exempting firearms "using fixed ammunition manufactured in or before 1898, for which ammunition is no longer manufactured in the United States and is not readily available in the ordinary channels of commercial trade...continue to full post

Full post as published by Third Circuit Blog on October 30, 2007 (boomark / email).