The court was right to detain this criminal menace, but wrong about the law that will punish him.
Joseph Knight regularly visits the library. Maybe he’s well-read and would get my meme reference to Oliver Twist. Probably not though. Rather than reading books, he seems to spend most of his time there shooting women.
On the first occasion, ShotSpotter detected gunfire near the library and police responded to find a woman with gunshot wounds to her leg. They recovered spent casings but Knight had fled. Surveillance video showed Knight and the woman had been walking together before he shot her.
A week later, Knight was back at the library. A security officer saw him and called police. Once again, Knight fled but this time dropped his bag as he ran. There was a gun inside and forensics matched it to the casings from the shooting.
A couple months later, Knight (who still hadn’t been arrested for the first shooting) shot another woman by the library. This woman was his girlfriend and he got mad when she said he couldn’t live with her anymore. So Knight pulled out his (replacement) gun, struck her with it, then shot her and again ran. Police recovered casings from that shooting, too.
A few days later, police finally arrested Knight. He had a gun in his waistband and forensics matched it to the casings from the second shooting.
(BTW, this is a great example of how effective policing can prevent violence. If Knight had been arrested and detained after the first shooting, the second one never would have occurred.)
Knight is a felon so he was charged with four counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in addition to charges for the shootings.
Initially, he did not contest pretrial detention, so he stayed locked up for the charges. After a couple of months though, he got tired of sitting in jail and asked to be released.
This week, the court denied his motion, based on the nature of his crimes, the weight of the evidence, his criminal history, and the danger he poses to the community. This is a no-brainer.
But the court was wrong about the punishment he may face. When discussing the nature of the offense, the court wrote:
“A violation of § 922(g), for instance, is a serious offense carrying a possible sentence of up to ten years imprisonment. 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2).”
The court is citing outdated information. While that used to be true, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022 increased the potential penalty for a violation of 922(g) to 15 years. It added this new provision at 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(8).
And so, whether he asked for it or not, now Knight can get some more.
You can read the opinion here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.276631/gov.uscourts.dcd.276631.19.0.pdf.