United States of America v. Larry Jones

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 24-2603
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Larry Jones
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Northern District of Iowa - Eastern
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Submitted: October 20, 2025
Filed: December 9, 2025
[Unpublished]
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Before COLLOTON, Chief Judge, LOKEN and BENTON, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
A jury convicted Larry Jones of being a felon in possession of a firearm and
possessing an unregistered National Firearms Act device in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(8) and 26 U.S.C. §§ 5841, 5861(d), 5871. The district court1
1 The Honorable C.J. Williams, Chief Judge, United States District Court for
the Northern District of Iowa.

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sentenced him to 47 months in prison. He appeals his conviction. Having
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, this court affirms.
In September 2022, Pierre Montgomery called police to Jones’s home to assist
with a dispute about money owed on a vehicle. When Waterloo police officer Drew
Hereid arrived, Montgomery showed him a video of Jones carrying a sawed-off
shotgun. Other officers arrived. Montgomery sent them a still image of Jones with
the shotgun. Jones told officers that he had a shotgun and that he was a felon.
Officers brought him to the police station. There, he told them the gun was in his
backyard with a tarp over it. Asked why it looked short, he replied that it was a
sawed-off shotgun, so it was shortened. He also told officers there were shotgun
shells in his house. Officers located the gun where Jones had described it.
Jones argues that the district court erred by admitting a portion of body-cam
footage where Montgomery told an officer that Jones said he would “blow your
fucking head off.” This court reverses “a district court’s evidentiary rulings only if
they are a clear abuse of discretion that prejudices the defendant.” United States v.
Fechner, 952 F.3d 954, 958 (8th Cir. 2020). This court will not reverse an error that
was harmless. United States v. Petroske, 928 F.3d 767, 771 (8th Cir. 2019). “The
test for harmless error is whether the erroneous evidentiary ruling had a substantial
influence on the jury’s verdict.” Id.
This court need not decide whether the district court erred in admitting the
body-cam footage because the evidence of Jones’s guilt was overwhelming. At trial,
the jury saw the photo of Jones holding the sawed-off shotgun. They heard audio of
him telling officers that he had wrapped the shotgun in a tarp, threw it in the back
yard, and knew that it was shortened. They heard him describe where the shotgun
was in the back yard. They saw body-cam footage of an officer finding the shotgun
where Jones described. Any alleged error was harmless. Id. at 772 n.2 (noting that
“any error that might exist” was harmless given defendant’s self-incriminating
testimony).

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The judgment is affirmed.
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