Corkrean

Paul Eugene Corkrean was charged with possession of a machine gun in violation of Penal Code section 12220. A jury was waived and he was tried by the court. The court found him guilty and placed him on three years probation. The question presented by his appeal is whether an element of the crime proscribed by section 12220 is knowledge that the weapon possessed is an automatic one. We hold that it is not.

Facts

Solano County Deputy Sheriff Hall, responding to a civil dispute on Jamison Canyon Road, observed appellant’s car parked in the driveway. In plain view on the passenger side floorboard of the car was an AR 15 automatic rifle. Appellant acknowledged that the weapon was his.

A weapons expert testified that the AR 15 is a semiautomatic rifle which can be converted to a fully automatic weapon by the exchange of certain of its parts with M-16 parts. The necessary exchange of parts had been made on appellant’s rifle. Appellant testified that he had recently rebuilt his weapon with parts he had purchased at a gun show. He stated that he had not had an opportunity to fire the weapon since making the changes and that it had been his belief that the weapon would fire only…