A Ninth Circuit panel Thursday ruled that a blanket prohibition on convicted felons possessing firearms violates their Second Amendment rights, at least when it comes to nonviolent offenders who served out their sentence.
In a split decision, the three-judge panel threw out firearm possession conviction of a Los Angeles member of a street gang who had five prior felony convictions and was later sentenced to 51 months in federal prison for being a "felon-in-possession."
Writing for the majority, U.S. Circuit Judge Carlos Bea, a George W. Bush appointee, said the landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen requires that the government shows that there is a historical tradition that supports the categorical prohibition on defendants such as Steve Duarte possessing a firearm.
This, according to the judge, the government failed to do because there was no analogous law at the time of the Founding Fathers that someone like Duarte would have been deprived of their right to bear arms. In fact, the judge said, his offenses would have been considered misdemeanors rather than felonies or not even have existed at all in the 18th and 19th centuries.
U.S. Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke, a Donald Trump appointee, joined Bea in the majority opinion.
U.S. District Judge Milan Smith Jr., another George W. Bush appointee, dissented and said that Supreme Court's Bruen decision didn't invalidate existing Ninth Circuit law on the issue but in fact reiterated "that the Second Amendment right belongs only to law-abiding citizens."
