Hunter Biden’s lawyers officially seek new trial after gun conviction
Lawyers for Hunter Biden officially requested a new gun trial Monday, saying the trial judge didn’t have jurisdiction over his case because of a legal technicality.
The move comes a week after attorneys for President Biden’s son filed the same motion before mysteriously withdrawing it minutes later, days after he was convicted of unlawfully owning a gun while hooked on drugs.
In the new motion, Hunter, 54, asked for his June 17 conviction to be scrapped, claiming Delaware federal Judge Maryellen Noreika didn’t have jurisdiction over the trial because of pending rulings in his appeals case.
A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals rejected two of the Biden scion’s appeals earlier this year, finding they couldn’t rule until a verdict in the case.
But Hunter’s team says the appellate court didn’t yet rule on his request to have a full panel of judges hear his two appeals, which delayed the Third Circuit issuing a mandate that would have officially returned the case to Noreika.
“Here, no mandate was issued during the trial or even now, and the Special Counsel did not move the Third Circuit for an expedited mandate after it ruled,” Hunter’s lawyers wrote in a filing from Monday. “Consequently, the conviction must be vacated.”
The embattled first son was convicted earlier this month on three felony counts connected to the fact he falsely claimed he didn’t use drugs when he bought a revolver in Wilmington, Del., on Oct. 12, 2018, during a time prosecutors say he was battling a serious crack cocaine addiction.
He faces up to 25 years behind bars when he’s sentenced, though he’s unlikely to get such a heavy sentence under federal sentencing guidelines. Noreika has yet to schedule a sentencing date.
Hunter is also slated to go on trial in September in a Los Angeles federal case accusing him evading $1.4 million in taxes for the years 2016 through 2019.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment.
