In a scattershot approach with multiple filings, Hunter Biden’s attorneys are seeking a new trial on the three felony gun charges of which he has been convicted.
Earlier this month, Hunter Biden was convicted of lying about his illegal drug use on a federal form when he bought a gun in 2018. He faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and fines of up to $750,000.
Federal guidelines propose sentences of 15 to 21 months in prison in cases such as that of Hunter Biden, according to The Hill.
No sentencing date has been set.
On Monday, Hunter Biden’s attorneys tried a new tactic by claiming that the first son needs a new trial altogether.
In one filing, attorneys said the trial began before the paperwork on the latest failed appeal that would have forestalled the trial had been formally filed, according to ABC.
That argument does not dispute Hunter Biden’s guilt.
“Here, no mandate was issued during the trial or even now,” the filing said. “Consequently, the conviction must be vacated.”
“Naturally, any district court action taken after it has been divested of jurisdiction by an appeal must be vacated. Mr Biden’s convictions should be vacated because the court lacked jurisdiction to proceed to trial,” the filing said, according to The Guardian.
Should Hunter Biden get a lengthy prison sentence?
“That the Third Circuit may later issue a mandate returning jurisdiction to this Court, after a 7-day trial resulting in a three-count conviction, does not change the fact that the trial proceeded before jurisdiction was returned to this Court,” the motion said, per the National Review.
Hunter Biden’s attorneys also used a Supreme Court ruling that upheld a ban on guns for domestic violence perpetrators, saying that because Hunter Biden never showed violence toward anyone, his Second Amendment rights were intact.
“Here, the jury did not find Mr. Biden ever terrorized anyone with a gun in public, or anywhere else, or used it dangerously in any way,” attorneys wrote. “That requires Mr. Biden’s acquittal.”
A filing also raised the question of timing, asking how soon before a gun purchase a person would need to use drugs for that to count against them.
“Where is this line that separates not only what is legal from what is illegal, but where the exercise of a constitutionally protected right becomes a felony?” the filing said.
“How does a person have fair notice of when he or she is allowed to possess a firearm if they used a prohibited substance a day, a week, a month or, as the Special Counsel argued, years before? This Court has not said,” the filing said.
“We do not quarrel with the Special Counsel’s claims and statistics that many users of crack are violent and have misused guns, but — while the Special Counsel has extensively chronicled Mr. Biden’s conduct over several years of crack use — the Special Counsel has not identified a single time in which Mr. Biden became violent. Not one,” the filing said, per what Axios reported.
Hunter Biden will face a trial in California in September on federal tax charges.
