It isn’t often that criminal defense attorneys get to celebrate a unanimous victory in the Supreme Court of Virginia, but here ya’ have it. Fans of the Tiger King Netflix documentary series will remember Antle, who stars in this case. 

(Please do yourself a favor and read Antle’s Wikipedia page. There aren’t many “spiritualist”/magician/alleged-polygamists/alternative-medicine-practitioners out there who also dabble in private zoo ownership. And some might say…there is still one too many.)

Antle bought two baby lions from another unsavory character in Winchester. Antle was later indicted for: (1) purchasing lion cubs; and (2) conspiring to sell or purchase lion cubs. It sounds pretty illegal, folks. But thanks to the creativity of Antle’s attorney, Antle wins a reversal on all of his convictions.

In a surprise twist that no one saw coming (certainly not the General Assembly), the Supreme Court held that the statute only forbade selling endangered animals, not buying them. The relevant statute explicitly used the word “sale” but omitted “purchasing” in Va. Code Section 29.1-564. Reasoning that we must strictly construe penal statutes, both the CAV and the SCV agreed that everyone’s least favorite conservationist gets a pass on this one. 

The SCV additionally reversed the conspiracy counts that the CAV had upheld. Why? If purchasing lion cubs was not a criminal offense, the indictment improperly allowed Antle to be convicted of conspiring to commit a non-crime.  

Takeaways:

• For all of us: It is shockingly inexpensive to (legally??) purchase endangered species. $5,000 got Antle two lion cubs. And the Supreme Court had a few other cases in June that are worth a read. 
• For attorneys: Read your relevant code sections carefully and be creative. Ever been in a brainstorming session and asked yourself: “is this really smart or really dumb?” This is one of those times that the exotic* idea worked. Nice job, defense counsel.
• For the General Assembly: We might want to take a look at Code Section 29.1-564.
• For friends of the firm: We were excited to win two reversals in one day in June. Making this an even more exciting month, we also welcomed two new legal assistants. We can’t wait to see what the next month brings.

Speaking of July: Cheers to the America 250 celebration. It somehow feels fitting that the corresponding blog post was about a reality TV star, the rule of law, and our legal system accidentally omitting a key word from a statute. The founders would be proud (kinda).