United States v. Rahimi

Last updated

United States v. Rahimi
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 7, 2023
Full case nameUnited States, Petitioner v. Zackey Rahimi
Docket no. 22-915
Questions presented
Whether 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which prohibits the possession of firearms by persons subject to domestic-violence restraining orders, violates the Second Amendment on its face.
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Roberts
Associate Justices
Clarence Thomas  · Samuel Alito
Sonia Sotomayor  · Elena Kagan
Neil Gorsuch  · Brett Kavanaugh
Amy Coney Barrett  · Ketanji Brown Jackson

United States v. Rahimi (Docket 22-915) is a pending United States Supreme Court case regarding the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and whether it confers the government's ability to prohibit firearm possession by a person with a civil domestic violence restraining order in the absence of a corresponding criminal domestic violence conviction or charge. [1]

Contents

It came from a 2023 decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit invalidating a federal law prohibiting individuals from possessing firearms while under a restraining order relating to domestic abuse.

Background

In 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen , which changed the way courts assessed laws related to the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Rather than examining the history of the Second Amendment and its scope, then applying intermediate scrutiny if the former is unclear, the test articulated by Justice Clarence Thomas requires gun-related legislation to be in line with the country's historical firearm legislation. [2] [3] According to that opinion, laws must have "historical analogues" to laws existing at the time of the Second Amendment's ratification in 1791 or incorporation in 1868 via the Fourteenth Amendment. [4] [5]

Zackey Rahimi was issued a civil restraining order by a Texas state court on February 5, 2020; the order barred him from engaging in certain harassment-related behaviors towards his ex-girlfriend or her child, as well as owning firearms. The order came after an incident in December 2019 where Rahimi assaulted his girlfriend in a parking lot following an argument. Noticing that a bystander had witnessed the altercation, Rahimi fired a gun at the witness. Despite his prohibition on owning firearms and communicating with his girlfriend, Rahimi repeatedly defied the order. In May 2020, Rahimi was arrested after approaching her house in the middle of the night. In November 2020, he was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after threatening another woman with a gun.

Between December 2020 and January 2021, Rahimi took part in five shootings. First, he shot at a man who purchased drugs from him after the man spoke disrespectfully to him; Rahimi fired into the man's house with an AR-15. Second, the day after the prior shooting, Rahimi was involved in a traffic collision and fired at the other driver. Following this, he fled the scene of the crash, returned, fired more shots at the other driver, then fled again. Third, three days after the prior shooting, Rahimi fired a gun into the air while in the presence of children. Fourth, some weeks after the prior incident, a truck on the highway flashed its headlights at Rahimi when he sped past the truck; Rahimi then followed the truck off the highway and fired shots at another car that had been following the truck. Fifth, Rahimi fired a gun into the air at a fast food restaurant after a friend's credit card was declined.

Suspecting Rahimi of these shootings, officers executed a search warrant at his home, discovering a rifle and a pistol he admitted to possessing. Officers additionally found ammunition, magazines, and a copy of the protective order. He was charged and convicted in a federal district court of unlawful firearm possession under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which prohibits individuals from owning firearms if they are "subject to a court order that restrains [them] from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner." [3] [4]

Procedural history

Rahimi appealed his conviction, bringing a facial challenge to U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on Second Amendment grounds. The court rejected his challenge, [lower-alpha 1] and Rahimi appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. A panel for the Fifth Circuit initially upheld Section 922(g)(8), but while Rahimi's petition for a rehearing was pending, the Supreme Court decided Bruen, causing the panel to withdraw its opinion. [6] The parties filed supplementary briefs and re-argued the case before a new panel of three judges, two appointed by President Donald Trump and the third by President Ronald Reagan. [7]

On February 2, 2023, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) as unconstitutional, barring it from being enforced in Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. [3] The Fifth Circuit withdrew the panel's opinion and filed a revised opinion on March 2, 2023, reaching the same result. [7] On March 17, 2023, the United States Justice Department petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court decision and allow the federal law criminalizing firearm ownership by people under domestic violence restraining orders to stand. [8]

Opinions of the Fifth Circuit Court

Writing the February 2 opinion for the unanimous panel, Judge Cory T. Wilson rejected the government's argument that Second Amendment applies only to "law abiding, respectable citizens," citing Justice Amy Coney Barrett's dissent in Kanter v. Barr, when she served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. [3] [7] Justice Barrett argued, "Founding era legislatures did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons," or impose any "virtue-based restrictions" on that right. [3]

Judge Wilson then applied the historical tradition test articulated in Bruen in considering whether the historical analogues put forward by the Justice Department were applicable to Section 922(g)(8). [7] The Justice Department had submitted three categories of possible analogues: "(1) English and American laws...providing for the disarmament of 'dangerous' people, (2) English and American 'going armed' laws, and (3) colonial and early state surety laws". [7] The February 2 opinion stated that the historical laws disarming "dangerous" classes of people were not similar to the modern law, because "The purpose of these 'dangerousness' laws was the preservation of political and social order, not the protection of an identified person from the specific threat posed by another". [9]

The revised March 2 opinion included an expanded concurrence from Judge James C. Ho, arguing that "civil protective orders are too often misused as a tactical device in divorce proceedings – and issued without any actual threat of danger". [6] [10] Judge Wilson went further and argued that Section 922(g)(8) could even put victims of domestic violence "in greater danger than before", [6] because they would be unable to defend themselves against their abusers with guns, if a judge had issued a "mutual" protective order. [10]

Supreme Court

In their final order list of the October 2022 term, the Supreme Court agreed to hear this case on June 30, 2023. [1]

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops filed an amicus brief, arguing that protecting the innocent "is a proper consideration" when regulating firearms: [11]

As the Church teaches, and this Nation's historical traditions demonstrate, the right to bear arms is not an unqualified license that must leave vulnerable family members to live in fear. Abused victims are precisely the people whom a just government is tasked with protecting. The Second Amendment does not stand as a barrier to their safety. [11]

Oral arguments

Oral arguments were heard on November 7, 2023. The case was argued, on behalf of the United States, by Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar and, on behalf of Rahimi, J. Matthew Wright, Rahimi's local federal public defender.

Reactions

In an opinion for The New York Times following the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision, Linda Greenhouse stressed the importance of the government's appeal to the Supreme Court. Greenhouse predicted that the Court would take the case, and wrote that the Court's eventual decision would clarify how favorable the current Court is towards gun owners. [12]

Notes

  1. ↑ Stern 2023 writes that the district court ruled for Rahimi, but that version of events is not supported by other sources – the article cites United States v. Perez-Gallan , a separate case involving similar questions.

Related Research Articles

The Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban, often called the "Lautenberg Amendment", is an amendment to the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997, enacted by the 104th United States Congress in 1996, which bans access to firearms for life by people convicted of crimes of domestic violence. The act is often referred to as "the Lautenberg Amendment" after its sponsor, Senator Frank Lautenberg. Lautenberg proposed the amendment after a decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, involving underenforcement of domestic violence laws brought under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. President Bill Clinton signed the law as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1997.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Restraining order</span> Legal order prohibiting certain entities from specified actions

A restraining order or protective order, is an order used by a court to protect a person in a situation often involving alleged domestic violence, child abuse, assault, harassment, stalking, or sexual assault.

The Sullivan Act was a gun control law in New York state that took effect in 1911. The NY state law requires licenses for New Yorkers to possess firearms small enough to be concealed. Private possession of such firearms without a license was a misdemeanor, and carrying them in public is a felony. The law was the subject of controversy regarding both its selective enforcement and the licensing bribery schemes it enabled. The act was named for its primary legislative sponsor, state senator Timothy Sullivan, a Tammany Hall Democrat.

United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that involved a Second Amendment to the United States Constitution challenge to the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). The case is often cited in the ongoing American gun politics debate, as both sides claim that it supports their position.

Small v. United States, 544 U.S. 385 (2005), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), which makes it illegal to possess a firearm for individuals previously "convicted in any court" of crimes for which they could have been sentenced to more than one year in prison. The Court ruled, in a five to three decision, that "any court" does not include those in foreign countries. This decision resolved a circuit split on the issue, and reversed the lower ruling of the Third Circuit that the law did apply to foreign convictions.

Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that certain interim provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act violated the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Stras</span> American federal circuit judge (born 1974)

David Ryan Stras is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He is a former Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.

In the United States, the right to keep and bear arms is modulated by a variety of state and federal statutes. These laws generally regulate the manufacture, trade, possession, transfer, record keeping, transport, and destruction of firearms, ammunition, and firearms accessories. They are enforced by state, local and the federal agencies which include the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. It ruled that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms—unconnected with service in a militia—for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense within the home, and that the District of Columbia's handgun ban and requirement that lawfully owned rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock" violated this guarantee. It also stated that the right to bear arms is not unlimited and that certain restrictions on guns and gun ownership were permissible. It was the first Supreme Court case to decide whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense or whether the right was only intended for state militias.

United States v. Hayes, 555 U.S. 415 (2009), is a United States Supreme Court case interpreting Section 921(a)(33)(A) of the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, as amended in 1996. The Court held that a domestic relationship is not necessarily a defining element of the predicate offense to support a conviction for possession of a firearm by a person previously convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.

McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that found that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms", as protected under the Second Amendment, is incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment and is thereby enforceable against the states. The decision cleared up the uncertainty left in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) as to the scope of gun rights in regard to the states.

United States v. Alfonso D. Lopez, Jr., 514 U.S. 549 (1995), was a landmark case of the United States Supreme Court that struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (GFSZA) due to its being outside of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. It was the first case since 1937 in which the Court held that Congress had exceeded its power under the Commerce Clause.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gun laws in Maryland</span> Marylands gun law

Gun laws in Maryland regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the U.S. state of Maryland.

<i>Woollard v. Gallagher</i> Civil lawsuit

Woollard v. Sheridan, 863 F. Supp. 2d 462, reversed sub. nom., Woollard v Gallagher, 712 F.3d 865, was a civil lawsuit brought on behalf of Raymond Woollard, a resident of the State of Maryland, by the Second Amendment Foundation against Terrence Sheridan, Secretary of the Maryland State Police, and members of the Maryland Handgun Permit Review Board. Plaintiffs allege that the Defendants' refusal to grant a concealed carry permit renewal to Mr. Woollard on the basis that he "...ha[d] not demonstrated a good and substantial reason to wear, carry or transport a handgun as a reasonable precaution against apprehended danger in the State of Maryland" was a violation of Mr. Woollard's rights under the Second and Fourteenth Amendments, and therefore unconstitutional. The trial court found in favor of Mr. Woollard, However, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the trial court and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review that decision.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2016 California Proposition 63</span> 2016 California ballot proposition

The 2016 Proposition 63, titled Firearms and Ammunition Sales, is a California ballot proposition that passed on the November 8, 2016 ballot. It requires a background check and California Department of Justice authorization to purchase ammunition, prohibits possession of high-capacity ammunition magazines over ten rounds, levies fines for failing to report when guns are stolen or lost, establishes procedures for enforcing laws prohibiting firearm possession by specified persons, and requires California Department of Justice's participation in the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James C. Ho</span> American judge (born 1973)

James Chiun-Yue Ho is a Taiwanese-born American lawyer and jurist serving since 2018 as a U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He was appointed by President Donald Trump. Ho formerly served as Solicitor General of Texas from 2008 to 2010.

Rehaif v. United States, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), was a case before the United States Supreme Court dealing with mens rea. The Court held that when a person is charged with possessing a gun while prohibited from doing so under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), the prosecution must prove both that the accused knew that they possessed a gun and that they knew they held the relevant status.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), abbreviated NYSRPA v. Bruen and also known as NYSRPA II or Bruen to distinguish it from the 2020 case, is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court related to the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. The case concerned the constitutionality of the 1911 Sullivan Act, a New York State law requiring applicants for a pistol concealed carry license to show "proper cause", or a special need distinguishable from that of the general public, in their application.

<i>Miller v. Bonta</i> 2021 pending federal appellate court case regarding Californias assault weapon ban

Miller v. Bonta is a pending court case before Judge Roger Benitez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California concerning California's assault weapon ban, the Roberti–Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 (AWCA). Judge Roger Benitez struck down the ban in a ruling on June 5, 2021. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit issued a stay of the ruling on June 21, 2021, which left the ban in place as appeals were litigated. The panel then vacated Judge Benitez’s ruling and remanded it back down after [] was decided. The case was known as Miller v. Becerra before Rob Bonta succeeded Xavier Becerra as Attorney General of California in April 2021.

References

  1. 1 2 "The last grants of October Term 2022?". SCOTUSblog. June 29, 2023. Archived from the original on December 1, 2023. Retrieved June 30, 2023.
  2. ↑ Ian Millhiser,  It's Now Legal for Domestic Abusers to Own a Gun in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi , Vox  (February 2, 2023).
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Marcia Coyle,  Analysis: How a Supreme Court Ruling Led to the Overturning of a Guns and Domestic Violence Law , PBS NewsHour  (February 8, 2023).
  4. 1 2 Stern, Mark Joseph (February 2, 2023). "5th Circuit Rules That People Accused of Domestic Violence Have a Right to Keep Their Guns". Slate. Archived from the original on October 29, 2023. Retrieved October 29, 2023.
  5. ↑ Shawn Hubler (March 14, 2023). "In the Gun Law Fights of 2023, a Need for Experts on the Weapons of 1791". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 29, 2023. Retrieved October 29, 2023.
  6. 1 2 3 United States v. Rahimi,No. 21-11001(5th Cir.).
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Andrew Willinger,  Fifth Circuit Strikes Down Domestic-Violence Prohibitor in United States v. Rahimi , Duke Center for Firearms Law (February 6, 2023).
  8. ↑ Gram Slattery & Nate Raymond,  US asks Supreme Court to uphold domestic violence gun law , Reuters  (March 20, 2023).
  9. ↑ Tierney Sneed,  Law barring people with domestic violence restraining orders from having guns is unconstitutional, court rules , CNN  (February 3, 2023).
  10. 1 2 Ruth Marcus,  Revised ruling on guns for domestic offenders just makes things worse , The Washington Post  (March 3, 2023).
  11. 1 2 Asher, Julie (September 1, 2023). "USCCB argues protecting innocent life must be priority in gun rights case before high court". The Pilot. Vol. 194, no. 33. p. 3.
  12. ↑ Greenhouse, Linda (March 29, 2023). "We're About to Find Out How Far the Supreme Court Will Go to Arm America". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 29, 2023. Retrieved October 29, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.