[gunsmoker]

This from CNN.com:
Mel Gibson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor drunken-driving charge Thursday and was sentenced to three years' probation, the district attorney's office said.

I don't know a thing about California law, but it seems weird that somebody can get more than 1 year for a "misdemeanor" conviction. The article further says that he only pled to two misdemeanors to get his three-year sentence, so that must mean that one of those misdemeanors carried a sentence of more than one year.

Which would make it a "felony" under both Georgia law and federal law, right? Which means that Mel Gibson is now prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition anywhere in the USA? And if he did possess a firearm in Georgia, we could prosecute him as a "convicted felon" with a firearm?

This is just referring to Mel's ability to keep whatever firearms he may already have. As an admitted alcoholic, he cannot legally buy a firearm from an FFL dealer because one of the questions on the #4473 form deals with alcoholics and drug addicts, right?

 

[jrm]

I'm also ignorant of Cali law, but I do know some states have provisions for handing out longer terms of probations than authorized sentences. So, in such states it's possible to get more than a year's worth of probation for a misdemeanor.

Plus, I've never heard of any state having a first offender DUI sentence of more than a year. Wow!

 

[geaux_tigers]

Is it his first offense?

 

[jrm]

I don't know. I haven't heard either way (and I would think a subsequent offense would have been deemed newsworthy).

 

[gunsmoker]

Probation NOT prison

Okay, so then the distinction is that if Mel Gibson was sentenced to "3 years in prison, all of which may be served on probation" then he's a prohibited person. The law would have allowed the judge to imprison him for more than a year, even though the judge chose not to.

On the other hand, if California's law provides that the term of imprisonment CANNOT be more than one year, the fact that some extra "probation only" time can be added to that sentence doesn't make it a disqualifying offense.

Both the federal law, Section 922(g) of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, and Georgia law, 16-11-131, define felony as a crime which can be punished by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.

 

[jrm]

I think that's right, but, again, I don't know if the super-probation sentencing exists in CA.

 

[Malum Prohibitum]

There is probably some sort of hate crime super enhancement . . . it is California.