Domestic abuse targeted by gun laws State in top five districts for prosecution of federal firearms violations

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BANGOR – Marc George Taft is just the kind of man for whom an 8-year-old federal gun law now getting a boost in enforcement was designed. Like many people the law might affect, he had no idea it existed.

The 35-year-old Dexter native has been convicted four times in the past decade in state courts for domestic assault. The incidents involved his former wife and at least one other woman with whom Taft had an intimate relationship.

In May 2002, he was sentenced to seven days in jail and one year of probation for assault and other charges related to an incident with his wife. After learning from his probation officer that he couldn’t have his three shotguns and three rifles, Taft placed the weapons in the custody of the Dexter police.

Taft completed his probation and got the guns back from a Dexter police officer, who knew the man had been convicted of a domestic assault.

Now, though, Taft is serving 18 months in federal prison for possessing firearms while subject to a protection-from-abuse order.

Taft didn’t learn he was violating federal law until the Hampden police answered a domestic disturbance call a year later and found the guns at his residence. Claiming he was unaware that the protection-from-abuse order sought by his former wife was still in effect, the man was arrested and eventually convicted on the federal firearms charge.

Using a 3-year-old program aimed at reducing gun crimes, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maine has prosecuted more domestic violence offenders on firearms charges in the life of the program than almost any other district.

Maine is among the country’s top five federal court districts in terms of the number of prosecutions for federal firearms violations, U.S. Attorney Paula Silsby said recently.

In the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2003, 75 people were prosecuted in federal court in Bangor and Portland, up from 36 in 2001.

Silsby’s office already has prosecuted 72 people in the current fiscal year and is on pace to prosecute 96 by the end of September.

Critics have said Project Safe Neighborhoods, a federally funded program designed to combat gun violence, is being overused in Maine. Silsby maintains she is doing what she can to combat a persistent problem by using federal gun laws to go after people with a record of domestic violence, whether or not their original offense involved a gun.

“Gun violence isn’t really an issue for us[in Maine],” Silsby said. “But the consistent violent crime problem in Maine is domestic violence. We asked: What can we do to address it? [The answer was] use the federal firearms laws.”

Some federal gun cases in Maine are brought against robbers, drug dealers and other criminals who use a gun while committing a crime. Most prosecutions, however, are for gun possession by people forbidden from having guns, including those convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors.

Although the federal prohibition has been in effect for eight years, the fact that a misdemeanor conviction for domestic assault, even one that is decades old, bars Mainers from possessing guns is not well-known. Outside the legal community and those who counsel victims of domestic abuse, prosecutors and attorneys admit that the provisions of the Lautenberg Amendment are not well known.

Named after former U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, the law makes it illegal for a person who has been convicted of domestic assault – no matter how long ago – from possessing firearms of any kind ever again.

Passed in 1996, the law also made it illegal for people subject to protection from abuse orders from possessing firearms while the order is in effect.

State and local police work with federal officials to prosecute gun crimes in federal court, where sentences are harsher than in state court.

Silsby said last week that the legal system starts with the premise that all citizens are presumed by the courts to know what the laws are and that ignorance is no defense.

Nonetheless, in an effort to inform citizens about gun law provision, her office regularly places ads in the firearms section of Uncle Henry’s Weekly Swap or Sell It Guide, warning that possession of a firearm after a domestic violence conviction is a federal crime.

“In Maine we target violent criminals and illegal gun possessors for federal prosecution,” she said in a press release issued earlier this month. “Tough federal penalties apply to those who commit crimes with guns, and those who illegally possess guns, especially those with a history of domestic violence.

“If you choose to abuse, then you lose your right to possess a gun,” she added.

Returning from the national Project Safe Neighborhoods conference held earlier this month in Kansas City, Silsby said that some of the $320,000 in federal money designated for Maine might be used to get the word out.

“The [multi-agency] Violent Crimes Task Force is now at the stage of exploring a more intense public outreach program to educate people not just on the domestic violence prohibition, but on federal firearms laws generally,” the federal prosecutor said.

A majority of domestic violence cases are handled through Maine’s 31 district courts. District court judges, who handled nearly 150,000 cases in 2003, are not required to inform defendants that a conviction would prohibit them ever possessing a firearms, but defense attorneys are, according to attorney Jeffrey Silverstein of Bangor.

“It’s probably happening routinely that defendants are not being told that their convictions mean they can’t ever have a gun again,” he said. “The problem is not so much what’s happening now, but what happened before the law went into effect.

“The law allows the government to reach back into the past.”

Deputy Chief District Court Judge Robert Mullen said Monday that he did not know how many judges from the bench informed defendants that they would never be able to possess a gun.

“I like to think that I usually do, especially if the defendant is not represented by counsel,” he said.

Attorney Stephen Smith of Bangor called the federal legislation “seriously flawed … because it has no restrictions on how far back it reaches.”

“I have represented many soldiers and civilians alike who have lost long, outstanding careers in the military, or have lost the ability to hunt with firearms based on [misdemeanor domestic] assault convictions that stretch back decades before the Lautenberg Amendment’s effective date,” he said.

Smith said that police officers and others required to carry weapons for their jobs have had distinguished careers cut short because of decades-old misdemeanor assault convictions. Often, defendants represent themselves and plead guilty to ‘get it over with’ and ‘move on’ because the prosecutor offered a fine but no jail time.

“Little did they realize that decades later, they would, in effect, be punished twice for the same crime,” Smith said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.