The mom of a 6-year-old boy who shot his trainer in Virginia was sentenced Wednesday to 21 months in jail for utilizing marijuana whereas proudly owning a firearm, which is unlawful below U.S. regulation.
Deja Taylor’s son took her handgun to highschool and shot Abby Zwerner in her first-grade classroom in January, critically wounding the educator. Investigators later discovered practically an oz of marijuana in Taylor’s bed room and proof of frequent drug use in her textual content messages and paraphernalia.
Taylor’s sentencing in a U.S. District Courtroom supplied the primary measure of accountability for January’s capturing, which added to the nationwide dialogue about gun violence and roiled the navy shipbuilding metropolis of Newport Information.
Zwerner household
Taylor, 26, nonetheless faces a separate sentencing in December on the state degree for felony baby neglect. She pleaded responsible in August to felony baby neglect in a Newport Information courtroom. Prosecutors stated they’d search a sentence of six months.
Zwerner is suing the varsity system for $40 million, alleging that directors ignored a number of warnings that the boy had a gun. Zwerner spent practically two weeks within the hospital and has had 4 surgical procedures for the reason that capturing. Defendants within the lawsuit are the Newport Information College Board, former Superintendent George Parker III, former Richneck Elementary principal Briana Foster Newton and former Richneck assistant principal Ebony Parker.
“Our focus stays on justice for Abby and holding the varsity system accountable,” lawyer Diane Toscano stated in an announcement to CBS Information.
Many states ban drug customers from proudly owning weapons
The federal case in opposition to Taylor comes at a time when marijuana is authorized in lots of states, together with Virginia, whereas many People personal firearms.
Some U.S. courts in different components of the nation have dominated in opposition to the federal regulation that bans drug customers from having weapons. However the regulation stays in impact in lots of states and has been used to cost others, together with Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son.
Each Taylor and Biden have been charged with the identical federal statutes of illegal use of a managed substance in possession of a firearm and making a false assertion in the course of the buy of a firearm.
Federal prosecutors in Virginia argued in court docket filings that Taylor’s “persistent, persistent and … life-affecting abuse extends this case far past any occasional and/or leisure use.”
Prosecutors had sought a 21-month jail sentence.
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“This case just isn’t a marijuana case,” they wrote. “It’s a case that underscores the inherently harmful nature and circumstances that come up from the caustic cocktail of blending constant and extended managed substance use with a deadly firearm.”
Taylor agreed in June to a negotiated responsible plea. She was convicted of utilizing marijuana whereas proudly owning a gun, in addition to making a false assertion about her drug use on a federal type when she purchased the gun.
Taylor’s attorneys argued that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom might finally strike down the federal ban on drug customers proudly owning weapons. For instance, the Fifth Circuit Courtroom of Appeals in New Orleans dominated in August that drug customers shouldn’t routinely be banned from having weapons.
Different decrease courts have upheld the ban and the Justice Division has appealed the fifth Circuit ruling to the Supreme Courtroom. The excessive court docket has not but determined whether or not to take up the case.
Federal regulation usually prohibits individuals from possessing firearms if they’ve been convicted of a felony, been dedicated to a psychological establishment or are an illegal consumer of a managed substance, amongst different issues.
America Sentencing Fee reported that just about 8,700 individuals have been convicted below the regulation final 12 months. The fee didn’t present an in depth breakdown of what number of have been charged due to their drug use. But it surely stated practically 88% of them have been convicted due to a previous felony conviction.
Karen O’Keefe, director of state insurance policies for the pro-legalization group Marijuana Coverage Mission, instructed The Related Press in June that about 18% of People admitted to utilizing hashish within the final 12 months and about 40% owned weapons.
Wants remedy, not incarceration
Taylor’s attorneys had requested the decide for probation and residential confinement, in keeping with court docket filings. Her attorneys stated Taylor was a sufferer of home abuse and had skilled a number of miscarriages and postpartum despair. They argued Taylor wants counseling for points that embrace schizoaffective dysfunction, a situation that shares signs with schizophrenia and bipolar dysfunction.
“Ms. Taylor is deeply saddened, extraordinarily despondent, and fully remorseful for the unintended penalties and errors that led to this horrible capturing,” her attorneys wrote.
Additionally they stated she wants remedy for marijuana habit.
“Habit is a illness and incarceration just isn’t the remedy,” her attorneys wrote.
Newport Information Each day Press by way of Getty Photographs
Taylor’s grandfather has had full custody of her son, now age 7, for the reason that capturing, in keeping with court docket paperwork.
The boy instructed authorities he obtained the gun by climbing onto a drawer to succeed in the highest of a dresser, the place the firearm was in his mother’s purse. His mom instructed police that usually she saved the gun in a lock field or her purse with a set off lock in place, in keeping with a search warrant.
Taylor thought the gun was in her purse on prime of her dresser on the morning of the capturing, police stated. The important thing for the set off lock was below her mattress, she stated.
Investigators, nonetheless, stated they could not discover a set off lock or a lock field throughout searches of Taylor’s residence or her mom’s residence.
Instantly after the capturing, the kid instructed a studying specialist who restrained him: “I shot that (expletive) lifeless” and “I bought my mother’s gun final evening,” in keeping with search warrants.
It was not the primary time Taylor’s gun was fired in public, prosecutors wrote. Taylor shot at her son’s father in December after seeing him along with his girlfriend.
Someday after her son shot his trainer, Taylor smoked two blunts, prosecutors added. She additionally failed drug exams whereas awaiting sentencing on the federal fees.
