California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Young, F067277 (Cal. App. 2015):
defendant's flight from police, even assuming he intentionally discarded the weapon rather than unintentionally dropping it; defendant no doubt did not want officers to find the significant amount of cocaine he had on his person or the firearm it was illegal for him to possess because he was a convicted felon. (Cf. People v. Taylor (1969) 2 Cal.App.3d 979, 983-984 [knowledge gun was stolen reasonably inferable from defendant's flight, discard of weapon upon seeing police officer, wearing of outer clothing that could easily be removed so defendant could change appearance, and defendant's possession of other, separately stolen, property].)
In his argument to the jury, the prosecutor addressed the knowledge element, stating:
Henderson, the gang expert, testified that "[n]ormally" a weapon used by gang members has the serial number filed off or is a stolen gun. He did not testify, however, that gang members only use stolen guns, that every gun used by a member of defendant's gang would be stolen, or that every gang member would have knowledge of the likely origin of any gun he used. (See People v. Sifuentes, supra, 195 Cal.App.4th at p. 1417.) On the evidence before us, such generalizations would be speculative, particularly in light
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of Henderson's testimony there were approximately 2,500 Norteos in Kings County alone.
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