The case arose from a January 2022 armed standoff between Christopher McKinney and law enforcement at his home, after which officers seized numerous firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Christopher later pleaded no contest to terroristic threats and was sentenced to jail time and supervision. After his conviction, his father David McKinney sought to intervene in destruction proceedings, claiming Christopher had transferred ownership of the seized weapons to him in April 2023 — after the seizure but before Christopher's guilty plea.
Writing for a unanimous seven-judge panel, Justice Cassel rejected the state's position that Nebraska Revised Statute § 29-818 created a complete bar on ownership transfers during seizure. 'Absent statutory language to the contrary, we decline to hold that § 29-818 completely barred Christopher from transferring any of his ownership interest without the court's prior approval,' Cassel wrote. The court distinguished between possession and ownership, noting that while the state properly maintained custody of the weapons as evidence, Christopher's ownership rights were not automatically extinguished.
The court delivered particularly sharp language about the state's overreaching interpretation of the jurisdiction statute. 'It is not within the province of the courts to read meaning into a statute that is not there or to read anything direct and plain out of a statute,' Justice Cassel wrote. The court emphasized that the statute's plain language focused on keeping property for evidentiary purposes, not eliminating all ownership rights during that period.
The district court had originally ordered destruction of all seized items after the Otoe County prosecutor's office filed a petition seeking their destruction. District Judge Julie D. Smith had ruled that Christopher lacked authority to transfer the weapons and that all items constituted contraband. David McKinney, represented by Trevin H. Preble of Preble Law Firm, successfully moved to intervene but lost on the merits before appealing to the Nebraska Supreme Court.
However, the high court largely upheld the destruction order on different grounds, finding that nearly all the seized weapons qualified as 'derivative contraband' because Christopher used them during his crime. The court adopted the definition from the 'use of a deadly weapon' statute, which includes 'communication to another indicating the presence of a firearm ... during, immediately prior to, or immediately after the commission of a felony.' Justice Cassel noted that Christopher had specifically told officers about his 'large arsenal of weapons' and threatened them with specific firearms during the standoff.
The court made an exception for one weapon — a Marlin .17 HMR rifle — which the state conceded was not used in the crime. Christopher had told officers 'that he just got it and didn't have any bullets for it yet,' according to the court's findings. For this single firearm, the Nebraska Supreme Court reversed the destruction order and remanded for further proceedings to determine whether David could prove the validity of his father's gift.
Justice Cassel explained that the threshold question on remand would be whether the purported transfer met the legal requirements for an inter vivos gift, including 'intention to transfer title to property, delivery by the donor, and acceptance by the donee.' Since the weapon was in law enforcement custody when Christopher allegedly gave it to David, the court would need to determine whether Christopher 'did that which, under the circumstances, will in reason be considered equivalent to actual delivery.' The ruling could have broader implications for how Nebraska courts handle ownership disputes over seized property in ongoing criminal cases.