IL Supremes Uphold FOID for man with old DV conviction

[ELB]

This is an interesting case, and I wonder if the basic argument has any applicability to Texas and firearms ownership and CHLs.

http://www.state.il.us/court/Opinions/S ... 113867.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It is a very long opinion from the Illinois Supreme Court, with lots of details and references to several federal statutes and cases on firearms laws.

As I understand it after one reading, an Illinois man applied for a Firearms Owner ID (FOID) but was denied by the State Police because he had a misdemeanor DV conviction 17 years prior, for which he paid $100 fine and was on probation for 12 months. He went to court armed with an otherwise clean record and a recommendation from a psychologist that he was not a threat and should be issued a FOID. The judge agreed and ordered the State to issue a FOID to him.

The State appealed, saying among other things, that Federal law prohibited possession of firearms by those convicted of misdemeanor DV, so it could not issue a FOID to him.

However, the same Federal law also says that misdemeanor DV convictions don't count for those who have had their civil rights "restored." The State argued that this did not apply to this particular plaintiff, because in Illinois you only lose your civil rights (and then, apparently, only the right to vote) if you are incarcerated. Since plaintiff was never incarcerated, he never lost his civil rights, therefore they were never "restored," therefore that Federal exception did not apply. (!)

The Illinois Supreme Court noted that this is, to paraphrase, completely nuts. A presumably more dangerous person who gets incarcerated could have his rights restored (I think automatically in Illinois) and therefore would be eligible for a FOID, but a guy not dangerous enough to put in jail could not.

More to the point, the Court held that Congress provides both federal and state routes to getting relief from Federal bars to firearm possession via review of individual cases, and that's what plaintiff did he went to court in the first place. By virtue of the trial court judge's decision, the misdemeanor DV conviction did not count under the Federal law, and therefore the State Police could not use that to deny the FOID.

There is a lot of history about the various Federal firearms laws and significant cases, including the perennial Logan Amendment that forbids the ATF from using any funds to consider applications for relief at the federal level.

(BTW, he plead guilty to misdemeanor DV for slapping his live-in girlfriend after she told him she was having sex with other men. At the time, this was not a bar to firearms possession.)