Court Rules Man With Drunk Driving Convictions Can’t Be Stripped Of Gun Rights

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that multiple drunk driving convictions were not sufficient to strip a person’s gun rights.

Under 18 USC 922(g)(1), which passed as part of the Gun Control Act of 1968, those convicted of a crime where they could be sentenced to more than a year in prison are prohibited from possessing firearms. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a district court’s ruling that dismissed charges under that statue against Edward Williams, who had two convictions for driving under the influence, the second of which had a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison.

“The Justice Department’s apparent attempt to broaden discrete crimes justly punished by death to include all felonies, much less all crimes punishable by more than one year imprisonment, misses the point,” United States Circuit Judge Paul Matey, a Trump appointee, wrote. “The word ‘felony’ has roots in mortal sin. But as time passed, felony’s substance was lost, as it came not to be defined by the character of the wrongdoer, but by the potential punishment.”

In its ruling by a full-panel of judges, the Third Circuit also ruled that despite the Justice Department re-starting a program through the pardon attorney to restore firearms rights, the courts could still intervene in the matter.

“Still, the United States offers optimism that once its proposed rules are finally effective (and, one imagines, judicially challenged), the floodgates of freedom will open,” the court’s opinion says. “Such speculation is simply outside this controversy. Our duty is to decide the case based on present facts, not future promises.”

The Supreme Court ruled in Hamedi v. United States that a regular marijuana user could not be prosecuted under 18 USC 922(g)(3), in a 9-0 decision authored by Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch in June. On Oct. 5, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging the same provision in the Third Circuit’s case after Joseph Frederick Johnson formally appealed roughly two months after the high court issued its ruling in Hemani v. United States, which struck down the use of a gun charge because Ali Hemani was a regular marijuana user.

However, despite the Hemani decision, the high court allowed charges of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition against Johnson, who was convicted of growing marijuana, to remain in place.