United States of America Government of the Virgin Islands v. Michael McKie at No. 96-7010, Jermaine Hall, at No. 96-7011, Guy M. Henry, at No. 96-7014

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that “violation of a federal statute by governmental actors does not create liability unless state law would impose liability on a ‘private individual under like circumstances’ ”
• holding that the government was required to prove that the defendant lacked a license to possess a firearm, but not that the defendant possessed the firearm for any duration of time
• holding that title 23, section 470 of the Virgin Islands Code creates an affirmative defense to the crime of unauthorized possession of a firearm, in violation of title 14, section 2253(a) of the Virgin Islands Code
• recognizing that our normal practice is to “interpret criminal statutes strictly”
• stating that, under Virgin Islands’ law, “[t]he government must 6 prove the absence of a firearms license”
• acknowledging that “[i]n September 1996, the statute was amended again, requiring ‘immediate’ registration.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).