It’s a mystery
Remember that Oregon pastor who used his church’s money to buy raffle tickets for an AR-15 because he wanted to get that gun off the street? So he transferred it to a friend for safekeeping, a clear violation of the new Oregon background check law. Yeah, him.
Turns out, he was cleared because the police didn’t look very hard:
Officials were investigating whether Rev. Jeremy Lucas may have violated a recent state law that makes transferring a gun without a background check illegal, even if the arrangement is between private parties and no money changes hands.
But investigators uncovered no evidence that Lucas, 45, actually transferred the gun and never determined the name of the gun-owning friend, Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote said in a letter to the Oregon State Police.
The letter was written Sept. 9 and made public Thursday by state police.
Lucas didnt speak with investigators, state police said in a statement.
Without the transferee in this case, I dont think we could ever have a prosecutable case, Foote wrote.
Didn’t even ask him? I say put him in jail for it so he can lecture me from his cell about lax gun laws.
September 19th, 2016 at 7:25 pm
Apparently Comey ran that investigation too.
September 19th, 2016 at 9:27 pm
This situation isn’t so horrible either…if only because there is something concrete to point to which says that the law in question is clearly BS. It isn’t like the public is in any danger from this idiot, even though he clearly violated the law and isn’t in jail.
September 19th, 2016 at 9:50 pm
Put him in jail? Uncle, you should, must stand up for his rights. An unjust law is no law at all. He walks free. Thank God, amen.
How can a pro gun activist and blogger call for jailing a man for handing a rifle to his “friend”. Dude, what’s wrong with you? Do you put spite in front principle? Should I call for shutting down your free speech because I disagree with this post? Come on!
September 19th, 2016 at 10:19 pm
1. Fifth Amendment. Ok, you said something stupid, now clam up and lawyer up, and let them go scratch for the proof needed to make their case.
2. An uncorroborated confession is not sufficient for corpus delicti (no, not delightful corpse, “the body of the crime”, meaning a crime was committed). Otherwise, there would be a thousand people in jail for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, with more coming every day.
September 19th, 2016 at 10:27 pm
Sorry, Abraham Lincoln is a bad example. His assassination, the corpus delicti, is a proven fact. A confession to a crime when there is no other evidence that the crime has been committed, is what the rule applies to.
September 19th, 2016 at 10:36 pm
nk, so I can’t go around claiming I’m Booth? Dang.
September 19th, 2016 at 11:23 pm
I can’t get anyone to believe that I stole the Maltese Falcon.
September 20th, 2016 at 9:16 am
But, but…Lincoln suspended corpus delicti!
No, wait…
Shucks, now my name is Mudd.
September 20th, 2016 at 10:26 am
Fred,
It’s not a matter of spite, but making them live by their own rules. They support these laws, now let them live with them. Have no doubt that the good pastor would be beside himself with righteous indignation if a deplorable bitter clinger was treated as leniently as he was.
NK,
IANAL, but I thought as much (without knowing the Latin) when I read the article too. The problem I see is, not that they had no other evidence, but they seemingly went out of their way to not look for it. They did not even interview the pastor. Would not at least start or end your investigation with that even if you expect a denial or silence? Perhaps there is poor journalism in play and they did talk with his lawyer who told them to go pound sand. I do not know, but the way the quote is presented and the story is written it sounds like, “we received the complaints, looked at them and dismissed them out of hand”.
September 20th, 2016 at 11:33 am
Ken in NH, it seems he got a pass because he wears his collars backward. But then again, he’s made it it difficult if not impossible for anyone else to be prosecuted under that law.
September 20th, 2016 at 3:10 pm
Also, note that Oregon sheriffs and DAs (at least outside of, one imagines, Multnomah County [Portland]) don’t like this stupid law very much.
I could see Clackamas going either way, but plainly the DA doesn’t see it as a good use of taxpayer money.
September 20th, 2016 at 11:02 pm
@Ken in NH
So you’re all for infringing on his God given, unalienable, civil rights. Why not put him on a train car headed for the gas chambers? I think TSA is hiring, you would fit nicely.
September 25th, 2016 at 9:20 pm
Short version: “Find some way to make this go away, if we prosecute him all his friends will be screaming, and everybody who said this law is stupid will be pointing it out. Loudly.”