A federal judge ruled on Monday that court orders prohibiting two criminal defendants from possessing weapons while they were awaiting test were in line with traditional restrictions on firearms and so legal.
The judge’s examination, while specific to the two scenarios in question, adds to one of the most controversial legal conversations: the scope of the Second Amendment’s protections for accused thieves.
Judge Gabriel P. Sanchez, who wrote for a majority three-judge section of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, stated that American laws have long sought to destroy harmful criminal defendants and that this wide history justified the limitations imposed on Californians John Thomas Fencl and Jesus Perez-Garcia, whose legal challenges were consolidated in Monday’s purchase.
” Around, the historical evidence, when considered as a whole, shows a long and broad history of parliament exercising authority to disarm persons whose possession of firearms would cause an unusual risk, beyond the ordinary member, to themselves or people”, Sanchez wrote. ” The temporary detonation of Fencl and Perez-Garcia as a means deemed necessary to protect public safety falls within that historical tradition.”
Katie Hurrelbrink, an attorney for both men, said she intended to” continue litigating this” by asking for a review by a larger, en banc appellate panel and, if necessary, the Supreme Court. She otherwise declined to comment.
The U. S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of California, where the two cases originated, did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
Sanchez’s analysis is the latest by an appellate court to grapple with the “history and tradition” test the U. S. Supreme Court established in 2022 for assessing the constitutionality of gun laws nationwide. In New York State Rifle &, Pistol Assn. In Bruen v. Bruen, the high court ruled that gun laws are valid only if they are rooted in the country’s history and tradition or are sufficiently comparable to some historical law.
The Bruen decision led to a surge in challenges to gun laws, many of them successful. For example, California ‘s , bans on assault- style weapons , and , large- capacity ammunition magazines , have been overturned, though those decisions are under appeal.
However, there has also been substantial disagreement among the lower courts on how to apply the Bruen decision, which experts say lacked clarity — including , how precisely a historic law must match the circumstances in a modern case , to be relevant.
Many are watching for additional guidance from the high court , in another case,  , U. S. vs. Rahimi. In that case, the government is asked about whether it is possible to stop people from possessing firearms who have restraining orders for domestic violence.
Lower courts are still making their own interpretations of Bruen, as the 9th Circuit did on Monday.
In accordance with court records, Fencl was detained and charged with various crimes after law enforcement found more than 100 guns in his home in the San Diego suburbs, including three illegal short-barreled rifles and 10 unregistered “ghost guns.” According to court documents, Perez-Garcia was detained at the U.S. Mexican border after a customs inspection of a passenger’s car revealed about 11 kilograms of methamphetamine and about 50 kilograms of fentanyl.
Both men appealed the terms of their release under Bruen, and both were freed from custody while their cases were being tried.
When he traveled abroad for work,” Fencl wanted to carry guns to protect his home and for self-defense. Perez-Garcia “wanted to carry guns so that he could work as an armed security officer and safeguard his family,” the court wrote.
In January 2023, the 9th Circuit ruled against the men, without providing a full decision. A full explanation was anticipated to be provided.
Fencl was subsequently convicted at trial, and Perez- Garcia’s bond was revoked for repeated failures to appear for hearings, according to court records. Since neither of their challenges to the gun restrictions was still available for pretrial release, their attorneys argued that the 9th Circuit still had a case to defend its earlier ruling in whole, in part because the issue was likely to arise again in other cases.
Fencl and Perez-Garcia both claimed that while detained defendants historically had firearms taken from them, there was no evidence that detainees who had been released from detention had been made to be unable to possess firearms.
The United States government claimed that it was acceptable to limit the men’s Second Amendment rights as a condition of pretrial release and that this was a lesser restriction than the government’s total deprivation of liberty that it could have imposed by completely denying them release. Additionally, it stated that the restrictions were in line with prior prohibitions against defendants who faced serious charges and waited to be tried.
Sanchez, an appointee of President Biden, rejected the government’s former argument but accepted the latter.
According to our historical review,” we all agree that our society has historically placed temporary restrictions on criminal defendants ‘ liberty, including those that affect their ability to keep and bear arms,” in order to protect public safety and ensure defendants ‘ attendance at trial,” Sanchez wrote.
Sanchez refrained from Fencl and Perez-Garcia’s claim that the historical limitations did not adhere to the Bruen-defined standards enough to address their own circumstances.
Sanchez wrote that both men would likely have been detained, not released, in the founding era. Their focus on the specifics of their circumstances, he wrote, disregarded Bruen’s suggestion that a “dead ringer” cannot support a “modern” law.
The Second Amendment, according to Sanchez, forbids such regulation if the Government can identify a historical regulation in which Perez-Garcia and Fencl, specifically, would have been disarmed prior to pretrial release in the 18th century. ” They are mistaken”.
Sanchez claimed that the decision was in line with “our country’s long history of temporarily disarming criminal defendants facing serious charges and those deemed dangerous or unwilling to follow the law.”
Sanchez was joined by Circuit Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, an appointee of President Clinton, and Circuit Judge Richard R. Clifton, an appointee of President George W. Bush.
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