U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball noted that he might have the authority to release a report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. However, he said he is unwilling to set a precedent for people who are trying to establish that they are victims of an offense.
"Until Congress affords members of the public the right to prosecution files to determine their potential victim status, this court finds no basis for allowing the intrusion or interference with an ongoing criminal matter," Kimball wrote in a Monday ruling.
The decision is a blow to Sue and Ken Antrobus, who contend Mackenzie Glade Hunter had a reasonable belief that a gun he sold to Trolley Square gunman Sulejman Talovic would be used in a violent crime.
The couple, the parents of victim Vanessa Quinn, believe Hunter told investigators that he thought Talovic was planning to use the handgun to rob a bank.
The parents sought to have their daughter declared a victim of the gun sale under the federal Crime Victims' Rights Act (CVRA). As her representatives, the Antrobuses then would have had the right to speak at Hunter's sentencing on charges of transferring a handgun to a juvenile and being a drug user in possession of a gun.
But Kimball ruled that although the Antrobuses were victims of the shooting, they are not considered victims under the CVRA of the gun sale. He sentenced Hunter in January to 15 months in prison; the Antrobuses wanted to request a 99-month term.
The judge's decision that the Antrobuses were not victims under the CVRA was later upheld by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which agreed the parents had no right to obtain the government's prosecution files.
The 10th Circuit, however, also said that Kimball himself had the discretion to release "any or all of this information." And the U.S. Attorney's Office in Utah, while saying it would not release the ATF report, said it had no objection if the judge chose to do so.
The Antrobuses then filed a motion asking Kimball to let them see an edited version of that report, leading to Monday's ruling.
pmanson@sltrib.com
Armed with a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun and a 12-gauge shotgun, Talovic killed five shoppers at the Trolley Square mall and injured four others on Feb. 12, 2007. The shots that killed Vanessa Quinn came from the handgun.
