Unloaded guns don't violate North Carolina's safe firearm storage law, appeals court rules

RALEIGH, North Carolina — RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — An appeals court on Tuesday threw out the convictions of a North Carolina woman charged after a teenager fatally shot himself in her home, saying she was exonerated because the gun had initially been unloaded.

State law makes it a crime for a gun owner to improperly store a gun in the home, allowing a child to display it, commit a crime or harm someone . But the law can only be enforced if the gun is loaded, according to a unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the state's mid-level appeals court.

A trial judge found Kimberly Cable guilty of involuntary manslaughter and two misdemeanor counts of safely storing firearms in 2022. She was sentenced to three years of probation.

In July 2018, Cable's son welcomed another boy – both 16 years old – into his home for the night, according to court documents. At 2 a.m., her son entered Cable and her husband's bedroom while they were sleeping and retrieved an unloaded .44-caliber Magnum revolver that authorities say Cable owned along with a box of ammunition, both placed on an open safe.

The son showed his friend the revolver and placed it with the ammunition on top of a safe in his bedroom. The friend then asked the son if he wanted to play Russian roulette. The friend quickly inserted a bullet into the gun, pointed it at himself and fired, dying instantly, documents state.

Police found 57 other firearms in the home, according to the notice. Cable's husband, who was a gunsmith, was not charged, but Cable was a few months after the shooting.

While Cable's appeals lawyer also questioned the constitutionality of the juvenile secure storage law, Tuesday's ruling focused on arguments that prosecutors failed to prove that Cable stored the firearm involved in the shooting “under conditions that allowed the firearm to be unloaded,” as Cable's attorney said. criminal charge requires.

Appeals Court Judge Jefferson Griffin, who wrote the panel's opinion, said the appeals court had never interpreted the phrase before and that it was ambiguous.

He said criminal law past and present, combined with a legal rule that favors defendants for ambiguous laws, leads to the conclusion that the phrase means the firearm must be loaded.

That means Cable's revolver was not stored in violation of the law, he wrote. The second similar gun storage conviction against her was also overturned because there was no evidence to suggest a minor had access to other weapons, and the manslaughter conviction was overturned because the safe firearm conviction involving the revolver was vacated, Griffin said.

Appeals Court Judges Hunter Murphy and Michael Stading agreed with the opinion written by Griffin, who is running for state Supreme Court this fall. The state attorney general's office defended the safe storage law as constitutional and argued the gun was in a condition to discharge it.

“Although the revolver was unloaded, it was operational and in working order on the evening in question, without any safety device preventing it from firing,” Solicitor General Ryan Park wrote in a memo last September. The Supreme Court will review Tuesday's decision.