Lautenberg amendment in action
Federal prosecutors in Maine can continue to use gun laws to combat domestic violence, the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled.
U.S. Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch, sitting in Boston, ruled that John Frechette of Lewiston can be charged with the federal crime of gun possession by a person convicted of a crime of domestic violence, even though his 1996 misdemeanor assault conviction came after he pleaded no contest in a “mass arraignment” in Lewiston District Court.
In 2005, U.S. District Court Judge D. Brock Hornby in Portland had dismissed the indictment against Frechette, saying that his no-contest plea to a misdemeanor domestic violence charge did not qualify as a “knowing and intelligent” waiver of his rights under Maine law. Hornby found that as a result, the 1996 conviction could not be used as the basis of a federal gun-possession case against Frechette.
