Subject: No way to felons get RKBA back until Congress acts.
Date: 11 Dec 2002 18:22:23 GMT
From today's front page Deseret News. I wonder if any of our "pro-gun" congressmen or senators (either GOP or democrat) will be pushing to correct the current catch-22. Not only should the ban on the BATF processing these requests be lifted, but a hard time limit should be imposed for the agency to render a decision on any given case AND to provide an appeal to the courts if a request is denied.
Of course eliminating the automatic life-time ban for all non-violent felonies or even treating RKBA the same way freedom of religion, assoication, etc, are treeted, would be way too scary and radical.
Charles
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Supreme Court rules against felons in guns-rights case
By Gina Holland
Associated Press writer
WASHINGTON ù The Supreme Court shut the door Tuesday on felons going straight to court to get their gun rights restored, leaving no options for people who claim a conviction shouldn't stop them from being a gun owner.
The justices ruled unanimously that felons must go through a federal agency. That agency, however, has been banned by Congress since 1992 from processing requests.
Federal law prohibits felons from carrying guns, but they can ask for an exception.
In this case, a former Texas gun dealer argued that the process gives him no option. He sued and a lower court gave Thomas Lamar Bean his firearms license back. Tuesday's decision took it away again.
Bean, a well-known businessman, was convicted of violating Mexican law after officers found 200 rounds of bullets in his car during a dinner trip across the border four years ago. He said he'd told his assistants to remove the bullets.
When Bean tried to get his gun rights ù and livelihood ù back, he was supported by two police chiefs, a sheriff, a judge, a prosecutor and a Baptist preacher.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the justices, said that Bean could only go to court if his request was denied by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The bureau didn't act on his application.
Thomas said the ATF, not a judge, was best prepared to look into whether an applicant could be a danger to public safety.
The justices rejected Bean's argument that the government's inability to act amounted to a denial.
The ruling had been expected. Nelson Lund, a law professor at George Mason University, said an appeals court decision that allowed Bean to bypass the ATF "looked like an effort by the court to solve an injustice through some creative legal innovation."
"If you think this is a problem, the obvious way to solve it is through Congress. Congress created this situation and they can fix it, which they may do when the Republicans have control of both houses and the presidency," Lund said.
Subject: One last chance to oppose anti-gun nominees to Utah SC. FAX number av
Date: 26 Dec 2002 17:35:14 GMT
For any who have not already sent in a letter to oppose the nomination of anti-gun Sen. Hillyard, and Judges James Z. Davis, Robert Hilder, K.
L. McIff, and Ronald Nehring to the Utah Supreme Court, there is one last chance to be heard.
ALL public comments MUST be received by close of business TOMORROW, Friday, December 27. If you have not already put a letter in the mail, it is probably too late. (From within Salt Lake City, there is about a 50-50 chance normally that mail is delivered overnight. With the holiday crush of mailing and shipping...)
However, comments may also be faxed to the commission either today or tomorrow. The fax number is (SLC area):
801-578-3968
Below is a sample letter (modified from a recent GOUtah! Alert so as to include Sen. Hillyard) that you are free to cut and paste directly or modify as you deem fit. Anyone as antigun as these men are, probably have all kinds of other reasons that would make them poor choices for the high bench. If you know of any, by all means, mention them.
However, at this point, volume of comments is probably more important that elegant reasons. I do encourage that all letters be professional in tone however. Get your wife and teenage or adult children and neighbor to sign a copy and fax it in as well.
Sometimes my email program does bad things to the end of line carriage returns or wraping. My apologies if some reformating is needed to make the cut and paste letter readable.
Thanks.
Charles
------ Cut Here ------------
Dec. 26, 2002
Your Name
Your address
Your city State, and Zip
Your phone number
Mr. David J. Jordan, Chairman
Appellate Judicial Nomination Commission
c/o Administrative Office of the Courts
450 South State Street
P.O. Box 140241
Salt Lake City, UT 84114-0241
801-578-3968 -- FAX
Dear Mr. Jordan:
I strongly oppose the nomination of State Sen. Lyle Hillyard, and Judges James Z. Davis, Robert Hilder, K.L. McIff, and Ronald Nehring for the Utah Supreme Court.
As a currently sitting and senior member of the legislature, Sen. Hillyard has doubtless been intimately involved in many pieces of recently passed, and potentially challanged legislation. How can he be expected to sit in impartial judgement of the constitutionality of a law that he may well have been instrumental in passing in the first place. Similarly, could he really be impartial should a law come before the court which had passed over the strong objections of the Senator?
Also, without any experience as a judge, the citizens of Utah have no way of knowing whether Sen. Hillyard has the various traits so essential to a good judge, which is a far different job than being a lawyer or a politician. I request that you drop his name from consideration for this important position.
I also request that you drop from consideration the four judges mentioned above: James Z. Davis, Robert Hilder, K.L. McIff, and Ronald Nehring. All four of these judges were instrumental in getting the Utah Judicial Council to require Utah's courts to violate state law.
The Utah Code invests the State Legislature with exclusive authority to
regulate the possession and carrying of firearms. The Legislature has passed laws that prohibit the carrying of firearms in courtrooms by properly licensed private citizens, but only if certain requirements are met by the court. One of these requirements is that lockers be provided outside the courtroom or courthouse to facilitate the safe storage of legally-carried self-defense weapons. Please refer to U.C.A. 76-10-501, U.C.A. 76-10-500, U.C.A. 78-7-6, and U.C.A. 76-8-311.1.
In August, the Judicial Council voted to prohibit courts from installing
storage lockers (a move which automatically invalidates the existing
statutory ban on guns in courtrooms), and voted to impose a new courtroom gun ban via judicial fiat (an action prohibited by state law, because the Judicial Council isn't the State Legislature). Judges Davis and Hilder, as members of the Council, voted in favor of this illegal policy, as evidenced by the minutes of the Council's meeting in August of 2002. Judges McIff and Nehring, although not members of the Judicial Council at the time, implemented this illegal policy in their own district courts before the Council had even voted on the matter, and openly encouraged other judges to do the same, as documented extensively by the local news media (see, for example, The Deseret News, May 10, 2002, page A1).
The American judicial system is supposed to be founded on the rule of law. Any judge who willfully ignores or violates state law ought not to serve as a Justice on the Utah Supreme Court. Please remove these judges' names from consideration.
Thank you for taking the time to consider my opinion.
