## Facts

- In summer 2006, Mackenzie Glade Hunter transferred a handgun to Sulejman Talovic, who was a juvenile within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 922(x).
- On February 12, 2007, Talovic carried out a shooting at a Salt Lake City shopping center, killing five people (including Vanessa Quinn) and injuring four others.
- Talovic used multiple firearms; the movants asserted that one handgun used was the one Hunter unlawfully transferred.
- Talovic was killed at the scene.
- Hunter pleaded guilty to transferring a handgun to a juvenile in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(x)(1).
- Quinn’s parents, Sue and Ken Antrobus, moved under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (CVRA), 18 U.S.C. § 3771, to have Quinn recognized as a “crime victim” of Hunter’s offense so they could be heard at sentencing and seek restitution.
- For purposes of the motion, the court proceeded on the assumption that the handgun transferred by Hunter was the weapon that killed Quinn, and stated the outcome would be unchanged even if additional allegations about Talovic’s criminal intentions at the time of transfer were accepted.

## Issues

1. Whether Vanessa Quinn was “directly and proximately harmed” by Hunter’s federal offense of transferring a handgun to a juvenile, making her a “crime victim” under 18 U.S.C. § 3771(e).
2. Whether the causal link between Hunter’s unlawful transfer and Quinn’s death was sufficiently foreseeable and non-attenuated to support CVRA rights at sentencing and restitution.

## Decision

- The district court denied the Antrobuses’ motion for CVRA victim status.
- The court held that the Antrobuses failed to establish that Hunter’s § 922(x) offense was a direct and proximate cause of Quinn’s death.
- Because Quinn was not a CVRA “crime victim” of Hunter’s offense, the Antrobuses were not entitled to exercise CVRA rights in Hunter’s sentencing proceeding, including being heard and seeking restitution.

## Legal Principles

- Under the CVRA, a “crime victim” is a person “directly and proximately harmed as a result of the commission of a Federal offense.” 18 U.S.C. § 3771(e).
- CVRA victim status requires more than but-for causation; it requires a legally proximate causal relationship between the charged federal offense and the claimed harm.
- A third party’s later criminal acts may break proximate causation where the resulting harm is too remote or not reasonably foreseeable from the defendant’s offense conduct.
- Even where factual assumptions favor the movant (including assuming the transferred firearm caused the death), CVRA victim status may still be denied if proximate cause is not shown.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that the later mass shooting and Quinn’s death were too attenuated from, and not a reasonably foreseeable result of, Hunter’s unlawful handgun transfer to satisfy the CVRA’s “direct and proximate harm” requirement, so Quinn was not a “crime victim” of Hunter’s offense and her parents could not assert CVRA sentencing or restitution rights in the case.


United States v. Hunter, No. 2:07-CR-307-DAK, 2008 WL 53125 (D. Utah Jan. 3, 2008)