Court rejects appeal by parents in Trolley death

A federal appeals court has rejected an appeal by the parents of a victim of the Trolley Square massacre to declare her a victim of the man who sold the gun to her killer.

In a ruling handed down Tuesday, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver dismissed an appeal by Ken and Sue Antrobus to have Vanessa Quinn declared a victim of Mackenzie Hunter. It was Hunter who sold a .38 Special to Sulejman Talovic, who shot her twice during his February 2007 killing spree that left five dead and four more wounded. Talovic, 18, died in a shootout with police.

"If we were now to deem Ms. Quinn a victim under the (Crime Victims Rights Act), the Antrobuses would gain several rights, including the right to restitution and to speak at Mr. Hunter's sentencing hearing," the court said. "The right to speak at sentencing could only be vindicated by reopening the sentencing proceeding. To our knowledge, there is no precedent — nor any compelling justification — for allowing a nonparty, post-judgment appeal that would reopen a defendant's sentence and affect the defendant's rights."

Quinn's mother called the decision a "slap in the face."

"I'm just losing faith in the justice system," Sue Antrobus told the Deseret News on Tuesday. "You can sell an illegal weapon to a minor knowing he was going to use it for a crime and he got nothing. To me, where is the justice with that?"

Hunter pleaded guilty to being a drug user in possession of a firearm and, in exchange, federal prosecutors dropped a charge of unlawful transfer of a firearm to a juvenile. He served 15 months in prison and has already been released.

"They plea bargained for the drugs so he got literally not one day for the weapon," Antrobus said. "I think that's just wrong."

The Antrobuses sought to be declared victims of Hunter, who sold the .38-caliber handgun to Talovic for $800 in a McDonald's parking lot eight months before the shootings at Trolley Square. U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman said he was satisfied with the decision, saying that his office has extended every courtesy to the Antrobuses and other victims of the shooting rampage.

"We aggressively prosecuted the individuals responsible for transferring the firearms to Talovic," Tolman said in a statement. "However, the district court properly found that Hunter could not have reasonably foreseen that Talovic would use the firearms eight months later in the shooting rampage at Trolley Square."

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