A firearm hold is when you receive a criminal charge and you had prior crimes of violence or firearm charges which would create a presumption that you’re a danger to the community or a flight risk. According to our friends at Garrett, Walker, Aycoth & Olson, Attorneys at Law, firearm holds are allowed by statute to keep you in custody until your charges are resolved in order to protect the community at large from the danger of you getting out.
How do I get rid of a firearm hold?
If you fit the criteria of a prior firearm or violent assault in the past five years and you have a new firearm charge, this can lead to a firearm hold. Often a magistrate or the initial judicial official setting the bond won’t have a choice but to put the hold in place until you go in front of a judge for first appearance. A District Court Judge may very well be the first time you have the opportunity to have a bond set and it’s vital to have an experienced firearm hold attorney ready to go and to argue why a bond should be set and the firearm hold removed.
Would a firearm hold lawyer be able to help me get the firearm hold removed?
An experienced firearm lawyer will know exactly what to argue to have your firearm hold removed. They will know first to look at the facts surrounding your hold and whether or not it’s a good case for the state. A lot of times top rated firearm lawyers will see a firearm hold in a constructive possession case where the firearm isn’t found on the person charged.
Let’s give you an example. Say there’s 5 people in a car. There’s a convicted felon in the front right passenger seat. Police stop the car for something minor such as a window tint violation. They claim to smell an odor of marijuana as their grounds for probable cause to search the vehicle. During the search they find a firearm in the backseat under the driver’s seat. It’s amazing, but somehow they typically will end up charging the convicted felon with possession of a firearm even though he was in the front seat and there were multiple people in the car who could have possessed the gun. If this person had a prior violent crime or a firearm conviction in the past five years there’s a rebuttable presumption in favor of a firearm hold.
Firearm holds are scary and we recommend you speak with a top rated firearm hold lawyer that will handle firearm cases of every sort whether they’re in district court or superior court, misdemeanor and felony charges, and everything in-between.