State v. Salyers, III, Minn.S.Ct., 1/14/2015. Officers raided Mr. Saylers’ home under authority of a search warrant to search for stolen property. No one was home during the search. Officers found a locked gun safe in a bedroom. Inside, the officers found three firearms. S.B., who had just moved out of Mr. Salyers’ home, told officers that she owned the gun safe and one of the firearms. A jury convicted Mr. Salyers. On appeal, the court of appeals said that a person possesses “the readily accessible firearms inside a container under that person’s control.”
Justice Page affirms the court of appeals but rejects its reasoning. “Ready access” is too easy; case law has always said that constructive possession cases are “necessarily fact driven” and that they are not to be determined by examination of only one factor. The Justice cites several cases in which the trial court had placed special emphasis on a particular factor in its instructions, only to see those convictions reversed. While ease of access is one factor relevant to establishing constructive possession “it is not the sole factor or necessarily even the most important factor.” Rather, all of the factors that the court had previously identified in State v. Florine, 303 Minn. 103, 226 N.W.2d 609 (1975) were in play in determining constructive possession of items within a container:
In Florine, we held that to establish constructive possession, the State must show either (1) that the prohibited item was found “in a place under defendant’s exclusive control to which other people did not normally have access,” or (2) if the prohibited item was found “in a place to which others had access, there is a strong probability (inferable from other evidence) that defendant was at the time consciously exercising dominion and control over it.”
Here, Justice Page concludes that the state present sufficient direct evidence that the firearms were in a place under Mr. Salyers’ exclusive control to which other people did not normally have access.
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