Prior Record Question

I am a Michigan resident and have a thirty year criminal record for stealing a car and possessing a slide hammer. I was a punk back then and am lucky that I lived to tell about it. I am now in my fifties with a grad school degree, a professional license, and a full governor's pardon. I am one of less than 100 hundred people in my state who have managed to get one since they toughened the rules in the 1960s. I also have a Michigan Concealed Carry Permit which I have had for several years and with no disciplinary history.

Colorado and Michigan theoretically have reciprocity, but I've heard about your wonderful CBI. Since my record is sealed and I easily pass a federal background check I know that the chance of my record ever coming up is very slim, but I wondered what if it did? Can I be prosecuted in Colorado?Assuming that I don't wind up somehow making national headlines is it likely? The scary thing about question "B" is that the only way that I would make the national headlines was if I used the weapon defensively and the "victim's" decedents had a very large set of lungs.

I know that some of you will want to tell me what they would have done if they caught me. The scary thing is I would probably do the same thing to myself today. I was a damn fool and am lucky that the cops caught me rather than the car-owner. Boy I see the world differently now in my 50s.

Bashful-in-Michigan

Bashful in Michigan said:

I am a Michigan resident and have a thirty year criminal record for stealing a car and possessing a slide hammer. I was a punk back then and am lucky that I lived to tell about it. I am now in my fifties with a grad school degree, a professional license, and a full governor's pardon. I am one of less than 100 hundred people in my state who have managed to get one since they toughened the rules in the 1960s. I also have a Michigan Concealed Carry Permit which I have had for several years and with no disciplinary history.

Colorado and Michigan theoretically have reciprocity, but I've heard about your wonderful CBI. Since my record is sealed and I easily pass a federal background check I know that the chance of my record ever coming up is very slim, but I wondered what if it did? Can I be prosecuted in Colorado?Assuming that I don't wind up somehow making national headlines is it likely? The scary thing about question "B" is that the only way that I would make the national headlines was if I used the weapon defensively and the "victim's" decedents had a very large set of lungs.

I know that some of you will want to tell me what they would have done if they caught me. The scary thing is I would probably do the same thing to myself today. I was a damn fool and am lucky that the cops caught me rather than the car-owner. Boy I see the world differently now in my 50s.

Bashful-in-Michigan

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Prosecuted in Colorado? Not unless you commit a crime there.

Grapeshot said:

Prosecuted in Colorado? Not unless you commit a crime there.

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The only "crime" I am concerned about is "felon" in possession of a firearm.

Bashful

PS: My crack about shooting car thieves was only talking about how times have changed. I recognize that the issue is far more legally complex and I would only shoot in self-defense (wise cracks aside).

Bashful in Michigan said:

The only "crime" I am concerned about is "felon" in possession of a firearm.

Bashful

PS: My crack about shooting car thieves was only talking about how times have changed. I recognize that the issue is far more legally complex and I would only shoot in self-defense (wise cracks aside).

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From what you have said in the OP, you are not in fact a felon. You have been pardoned.

If you are still in doubt, I would recommend having a a conversation with a Colorado attorney specialising in such matters.

Grapeshot said:

From what you have said in the OP, you are not in fact a felon. You have been pardoned.

If you are still in doubt, I would recommend having a a conversation with a Colorado attorney specialising in such matters.

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Probably sensible advice. I found this chart prepared for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys by Attorney Margaret Love out of DC:

https://www.nacdl.org/uploadedFiles...ef_from_Federal_Firearms_Act_Disabilities.pdf

It seems to be a great resource for all 50 states. Googling her, she appears to be a national authority on the pardon power.

https://www.google.com/search?q=mar...j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8

I had also found this Colorado Court of Appeals ruling which said that a Michigan expunged conviction is ok:

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/co-court-of-appeals/1475023.html

The Court went on to note:

The existence of these exceptions led the Michigan Court of Appeals to conclude that the expungement of records under Mich. Comp. Laws section 780.621 “does not fully relieve an individual of the legal disabilities flowing from the conviction.”  People v. Van Heck, 252 Mich.App. 207, 215, 651 N.W.2d 174, 178 (2002).   The court of appeals contrasted the existence of these “continuing legal disabilities” with the effect of a gubernatorial pardon, which “blots out of existence [a defendant's] guilt, so that under the law [he or she] is considered to have never committed the pardoned offenses.”   Id. at 216, 651 N.W.2d at 179.


I think based on this I am ok. I recently read an article about a guy in Tennessee who had a Georgia pardon and was told that he was still a convicted felon. The horrible thing about this mess is that there can be 49 (I know Michigan's answer) to this question.

http://www.tncourts.gov/sites/default/files/blackwelld._opn.correc2.pdf

It was a discussion in this forum about how your CBI ignoring your own state's law about restoration of rights that had be concerned. I am a pretty good researcher and can usually figure these things out, but a mad dog central police agency can throw off my research. I can going to be working Colorado off and on for probably 12 weeks over the next 18 months. A prior thread on this forum freaked me out:

http://forum.opencarry.org/forums/s...ip-under-persons-convicted-under-Colorado-law

The problem with hiring attorneys is: (a) I travel and would have to do this and update it for every state I visit; and, (b) most of them are so risk adverse that the opinion I get would be so full of caveats and disclaimers that I could never use it as a defense. I know that there advice I should just leave my piece at home and avoid the grief.

The funny thing is that when I got the pardon I thought I was golden, I literally went to my gym and did an hour plus run (my lifetime record). As I started doing the research, I discovered many states don't honor other states pardons and that you have many people who simply say: "what part of have you ever been convicted of a felony don't you understand?" Even though a Michigan pardon is completely retroactive ("nunc pro tunc"), I hear disclaimers like "that doesn't apply here, there, etc."

Addendum: Prof./Former Presidential Pardon Attorney/Lawyer Love says that the only way to get firearm rights back in Colorado is through a governor's pardon yet I found a Colorado decision saying that they would honor a Michigan expungment. You also seem to have a restoration of gun rights provision that she is ignoring/missing.

Perhaps I'm just overthinking this.

You have done a great deal more research than have I on the subject.

Trust that you will never have cause to see your pardon tested, but think, my opinion, you're are truly golden.

May you out live your concerns.