United States v. Rahimi

United States v. Rahimi, No. 21-11001, is a 2023 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit invalidating a federal law prohibiting individuals from possessing firearms while under a restraining order related to domestic abuse.

United States v. Rahimi
CourtUnited States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedMarch 2, 2023
Case history
Appealed toSupreme Court of the United States
Court membership
Judges sittingCory T. Wilson, James C. Ho, Edith Jones
Case opinions
Decision byWilson

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.[1][2] 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.[3]

Zackey Rahimi was issued a civil restraining order by a Texas state court on February 5, 2020, after his ex-girlfriend accused him of assaulting her; the order barred him from engaging in certain harassment-related behaviors towards his ex-girlfriend or her child, as well as owning firearms. Suspecting Rahimi of an unrelated crime, officers executed a search warrant at his home, discovering a rifle and a pistol he admitted to possessing. He was charged and convicted in a federal district court of unlawful firearm possession under 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."[2][3]

Procedural history

Rahimi appealed his conviction, bringing a facial challenge to U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) in the 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.[4] 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.[5]

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.[2] The Fifth Circuit withdrew the panel's opinion and filed a revised opinion on March 2, 2023, reaching the same result.[5] 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.[6]

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.[2][5] Justice Barrett had 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.[2]

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).[5] The Justice Department had submitted three categories of possible analogues: "(1) English and American laws...providing for disarmament of 'dangerous' people, (2) English and American 'going armed' laws, and (3) colonial and early state surety laws".[5] 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".[7]

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".[4][8] Judge Wilson went further and argued that Section 922(g)(8) could even put victims of domestic violence "in greater danger than before",[4] because they would be unable to defend themselves against their abusers with guns, if a judge had issued a "mutual" protective order.[8]

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.[9]

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.

References
  1. Ian Millhiser, It's Now Legal for Domestic Abusers to Own a Gun in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, Vox (February 2, 2023).
  2. Marcia Coyle, Analysis: How a Supreme Court Ruling Led to the Overturning of a Guns and Domestic Violence Law, PBS NewsHour (February 8, 2023).
  3. Mark Joseph Stern, 5th Circuit Rules That People Accused of Domestic Violence Have a Right to Keep Their Guns, Slate (February 2, 2023).
  4. United States v. Rahimi, No. 21-11001 (5th Cir.).
  5. Andrew Willinger, Fifth Circuit Strikes Down Domestic-Violence Prohibitor in United States v. Rahimi, Duke Center for Firearms Law (February 6, 2023).
  6. Gram Slattery & Nate Raymond, US asks Supreme Court to uphold domestic violence gun law, Reuters (March 20, 2023).
  7. Tierney Sneed, Law barring people with domestic violence restraining orders from having guns is unconstitutional, court rules, CNN (February 3, 2023).
  8. Ruth Marcus, Revised ruling on guns for domestic offenders just makes things worse, The Washington Post (March 3, 2023).
  9. Linda Greenhouse, We’re About to Find Out How Far the Supreme Court Will Go to Arm America, The New York Times (March 29, 2023).
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