Legal Commentary

Ouch!

By Eugene Volokh

From United States v. Kitsch (which I blogged about shortly before this order was issued), an order from the judge:

AND NOW, this 3rd day of October, 2008, upon consideration of the Government?s proposed jury instructions (docket entry # 122) and it not having escaped the Court?s attention that the Government inexplicably ignored our ruling in United States v. Kitsch, No. 03?594-01, 2008 WL 2971548 at *7 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 1, 2008), it is hereby ORDERED that:

1. The Government shall AMEND its proposed jury instructions to reflect our August 1 ruling in this case; and

2. The Government shall SUBMIT its revised proposed jury instructions by noon on Monday, October 6, 2008.

[Footnote: ?Choice of attention ? to pay attention to this and ignore that ? is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.? W.H. Auden, A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970).]

BY THE COURT:
/s/ Stewart Dalzell, J.

Incidentally, after the amended instructions were filed, and the jury was instructed, it acquitted the defendant, presumably for the reasons mentioned in the earlier opinion. The defendant had argued that he was mistaken about whether he was a felon, and that therefore ? based partly on general mistake-of-fact principles and partly on the Second Amendment ? he should be acquitted of being a felon in possession of firearms. For more on the unusual factual details, see here.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on April 23, 2010 (boomark / email).