Defendant Who Neither Owned Nor Had Key to Gun Cabinet in His Bedroom Nonetheless Exercised Constructive Possession over the Cabinet & Its Contents

State v. Salyers, III, Minn.Ct.App., 1/21/2014.  Sheriff’s deputies got a warrant to search Mr. Salyers’ place for stolen property.  When they went in, however, they found, instead, a gun cabinet in Mr. Salyers’ bedroom.  The cabinet was locked.  The deputies could not find a key to the cabinet.  No matter, one of the deputies got a crow bar and, something the court told us repeatedly, was able to “easily pry open the cabinet.”  There were guns inside, which, alas, Mr. Salyers was not supposed to have.

Now, the gun cabinet belonged to Mr. Salyers’ girlfriend, who had just moved out.  Although Mr. Salyers conceded that he had exclusive control of the bedroom – no one else lived there at the time – he argued that the state had not proved that he had access to – remember? no key – or exclusive control over –it was the x’s cabinet –the contents of the cabinet.  The court was not impressed.

The court said that because Mr. Salyers lived alone in the house, and because the cabinet was in his bedroom to which no one except him had access (which included its contents) he was thus in exclusive constructive possession of the cabinet and its contents.  The court likened the gun cabinet to a vinyl case it was so flimsy.  And that’s the “key” if you will.  The court cites two or three cases from other states for the proposition that just because the estranged wife/girlfriend  had the only key to the gun safe didn’t mean that a defendant wasn’t exercising  constructive possession.  But, those cases don’t really say that.  In one, State v Crie, from New Hampshire, the wife admitted that both she and defendant owned the weapons inside the cabinet and both exercised control over those weapons.  In the Virginia case, Armstrong v. Com., the court never talked about whether Armstrong had possession of the gun, constructive or otherwise; the actual issue was whether the operability of the weapon was (still) an element of the offense.  And in the Nebraska case, State v. Long, the appellate court took a hands off approach to the possession issue, saying that it was a question of fact for the jury and none of its business.

So, had the guns been in a more substantial gun safe, rather than the equivalent of a suit bag from Macy’s the outcome might well have been different.  Or, at least, that’s the argument.