Minnesota prosecutors start reviewing BB gun convictions

In August 2014, 19-year-old Robert Jamal Poole was arrested in Brooklyn Center after he was found carrying a black BB gun. His criminal record made him ineligible to possess a firearm and because of that he was sentenced to four years in prison.

However, after the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled this week that a BB gun is not a firearm, Poole and perhaps many others will be out of prison well before their scheduled released dates.

In Hennepin County, prosecutors such as David Brown, who heads the criminal division at the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, will begin reviewing hundreds of firearms cases.

"Initially, we're obviously most worried about people who might be in jail right now," said Brown.

Some felons caught with BB guns will be eligible for immediate release he added. Others currently awaiting trial must still have their cases heard to deal with any additional charges that are pending.

And there could be host of other repercussions from the court's ruling.

Criminals who've already been convicted and served their time for carrying BB guns may ask to get those convictions expunged or erased from their records.

The Minnesota Supreme Court's ruling is a response to a challenge by David Lee Haywood, a Ramsey County man with a prior felony conviction who was caught with a BB gun in 2013 and sentenced to prison. The ruling reverses Haywood's conviction.

An attorney representing Poole, Sara J. Euteneuer, said she expects the Supreme Court to take up his case in the next month. Poole's prison term at the state prison in Faribault is scheduled to expire in September 2017.

Legislators could respond to the ruling by changing the law to make it illegal for people with criminal convictions to possess BB guns. But Hennepin County prosecutor David Brown said any future law change would not be retroactive.

"You can't criminalize things in the past," he said. "You can only criminalize things in the future."