Gun advocates win, but so does common sense
By Eric Zorn
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ericzorn/chi-0405180368may18,1,866950.column?coll=chi-news-navPublished May 18, 2004
Nearly two dozen gun-rights advocates in the viewing gallery of a Cook County courtroom burst into applause Monday afternoon after Judge James Linn found Roderick Pritchett, 26, not guilty of a felony weapons charge that could have sent him to prison for three years.
But the acquittal was not so much a victory for gun rights as it was a triumph for common sense--the proposition that whatever mistakes Pritchett may or may not have made in storing a semi-automatic pistol in his car, he's not a proper target in the war on gun violence.
Pritchett's case has been a cause celebre for Concealed Carry Inc. of Oak Brook since he sought out the group shortly after he was charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon in November 2002.
The defense and prosecution agreed during the 35-minute bench trial that Pritchett cooperated with police officers who pulled over his Ford Taurus station wagon in a routine traffic stop on the South Side, that he presented an Illinois Firearm Owner's Identification Card and volunteered that he had a handgun in the car stored in a zippered pouch.
Pritchett, an aspiring artist who had just been laid off from a job as an assistant broker on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, had a clean record. He had purchased the 9 mm pistol from a suburban gun dealer because, he said, he believed he, his fiance and their young son needed an extra measure of protection living in a high-crime area.
Attorney Walter Maksym, who was paid in part by donations from the gun-rights group, wanted to make Pritchett's motive for owning a firearm a key part of the defense. He attempted to introduce into evidence Monday a 1993 Tribune story that quoted Pritchett, then a 15-year-old sophomore at Curie High School, as an eyewitness to a fatal gang shooting.
Linn was having none of it. "I realize you're trying to mount a necessity defense," he said sharply. "That's wishful, hopeful thinking, not a matter of law."
"I was slumping lower and lower in my seat," John Birch, the president of Concealed Carry, said afterward. Birch was sitting with Pritchett supporters, most of whom were wearing blue shirts in a show of solidarity meant to recall what police officers display in court for a fellow officer.
The blue shirts, six of whom said they were from Downstate, were all middle-age white men. They looked like such an unusual bunch at the trial of a young African-American defendant charged with a victimless crime that Linn asked them before the proceedings got under way if they were "part of some class or something."
Not exactly. They had come to the courthouse at 26th Street and California Avenue because, they said, they saw Pritchett as an example of an honest citizen victimized by overzealous enforcement of firearm laws. Key to their support, Birch said, was their belief in his contention that the gun in his car was not loaded.
Illinois law allows licensed firearms owners to transport guns in cars as long as they're enclosed in a case and unloaded.
The arresting officers said Pritchett's gun was loaded when he handed it to them inside a soft case usually used for storing compact discs. But Pritchett, who said the charges have made it difficult for him to find work or rent an apartment, testified that he always removed the clip from the gun before stowing both in the pouch under the driver's seat.
Linn had all he needed for a guilty verdict: the word of two Chicago police officers against the word of one citizen. But, without discrediting the police account, he said Pritchett deserved "the benefit of the doubt."
As he did so, he took a swipe at the gun owners in attendance by urging Pritchett "to seek out advice from other people" about transporting firearms. Then, when Pritchett's supporters applauded nevertheless, the judge shouted angrily at them and ordered a deputy to remove them from his court.
They reassembled on the courthouse steps several minutes later, mostly satisfied. "We won ugly," Birch said.
Not from where I sat. The common sense that gave Roderick Pritchett his life back looked flat-out gorgeous.
