Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
State v. Price, 233 N.C. App. 386 (Apr. 1, 2014)
The trial court erred by dismissing a charge of felon in possession of a firearm on the basis that the statute was unconstitutional as applied to the defendant under a Britt analysis. Here, the defendant had two felony convictions for selling a controlled substance and one for felony attempted assault with a deadly weapon. While the defendant was convicted of the drug offenses in 1989, he was more recently convicted of the attempted assault with a deadly weapon in 2003. Although there was no evidence to suggest that the defendant misused firearms, there also was no evidence that the defendant attempted to comply with the 2004 amendment to the felon in possession statute. The court noted that the defendant completed his sentence for the assault in 2005, after the 2004 amendment to the statute was enacted. Thus, he was on notice of the changes in the legislation, yet took no action to relinquish his hunting rifle on his own accord.