United States v. Crawford, NO. 06-5059-cr (2d Cir. July 17, 2008) (Sotomayor, Wesley, Wallace, CJJ)
This gun possession case arose when defendant Crawford was arrested by parole officers for violating his curfew and smoking marijuana. The officers claimed that they found a gun and ammunition in his bag. At trial, the government called an interstate commerce nexus expert, but did not introduce testimony about a trace report to demonstrate the gun’s legal chain of custody. Crawford testified that there was no gun in his bag and, in summation, his attorney adopted this “frame-up” theme as the defense. Counsel noted in particular that there was no evidence that the government had traced the gun, an effort to suggest that such a trace would have established that the gun belonged to someone other than Crawford.
During deliberations, the jury sent a note asking “why wasn’t the gun traced to the original owner?” …