Frat Order Plce v. United States , 173 F.3d 898 ( 1998 )

United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued May 15, 1998 Decided August 28, 1998
No. 97-5304
Fraternal Order of Police,
Appellant
v.
United States of America,
Appellee
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(No. 97cv00145)
William J. Friedman, IV argued the cause and filed the
briefs for appellant.
Robert M. Loeb, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,
argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were
Frank W. Hunger, Assistant Attorney General, Wilma A.
Lewis, U.S. Attorney, and Mark B. Stern, Attorney, U.S.
Department of Justice.
Before: Williams, Ginsburg and Randolph, Circuit Judges.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Williams.
Williams, Circuit Judge: The Fraternal Order of Police, an
association of law enforcement officers, brought suit challeng-
ing certain provisions of the 1996 amendments to the Gun
Control Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. s 921 et seq. The Order
alleged that these provisions exceeded Congress's power un-
der the Commerce Clause, and also that they ran afoul of the
Second, Fifth, and Tenth Amendments. The district court
granted summary judgment for the government. Finding
that the Order has standing to raise its claim under the equal
protection component of Fifth Amendment due process, see
Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 499 (1954), and finding merit
in that claim, we reverse.
* * *
As relevant here, the essence of the 1996 amendments was
to (1) extend a pre-existing criminalization of firearms posses-
sion by persons convicted of domestic violence felonies to
persons convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors; and (2)
to withhold from the misdemeanants--but not the felons--an
exception for firearms issued for the use of any state or
locality (the so-called "public interest exception"). The Gun
Control Act, now as before, also applies to anyone who
supplies a person with a firearm in the face of this and
related proscriptions.
The amendments bringing about this change are as follows:
Section 922(d)(9) of Title 18 makes it illegal to provide a
firearm to any person "convicted in any court of a misde-
meanor crime of domestic violence"; s 922(g)(9) prohibits
such misdemeanants from possessing or receiving firearms.
Section 922(g)(9) limits its scope to possession in or affecting
interstate commerce, or firearms transported in interstate
commerce; s 922(d)(9) contains no similar limitation. Relief
from the disability thus imposed is governed in part by
s 925(a)(1), which provides that the prohibitions of s 922
generally do not apply to firearms issued for the use of "any
State or any department, agency, or political subdivision
thereof." Section 925(a)(1) explicitly excludes ss 922(d)(9)
and 922(g)(9) from this public interest exception.
Sections 922(d)(9) and (g)(9) thus forbid the states to arm
those members of their police forces, militias, or National
Guards who possess disabling misdemeanor convictions; they
criminalize both the officers' acceptance of the states' fire-
arms and the provision of the firearms by any person, includ-
ing (presumably) any state's representative. The disability
operates regardless of the date of the conviction. So the new
bans can be expected to affect a significant number of current
police officers. The Joint Appendix contains several newspa-
per articles recounting instances in which officers were re-
quired to turn in their guns, and it was in view of this
prospect--though not solely on behalf of members directly
threatened with the firearm disability--that the Order
brought suit.
* * *
The threshold question on appeal is whether the Order has
standing to pursue its claims. We find it necessary to
address only the standing claim based on the interests of
members who are chief law enforcement officers ("CLEOs").
Although the Order's briefs make vague allusions to some
legal theories that would entail broader relief than is suitable
for the Equal Protection claim brought by the Order on
behalf of the CLEOs, they fail to develop such theories. So
there is no need to assess the standing possibly underlying
such inchoate claims.
For a party to establish the sort of "case" or "controversy"
over which Article III creates federal jurisdiction, it must
satisfy the now familiar tripartite requirements of "(1) an
injury in fact, (2) a causal relationship between the injury and
the challenged conduct, and (3) a likelihood that the injury
will be redressed by a favorable decision." United Food and
Commercial Workers Union Local 751 v. Brown Group, Inc.,
517 U.S. 544, 551 (1996). An association such as the Order,
which alleges no injury to itself as an organization, may,
according to Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising
Comm'n, 432 U.S. 333 (1977), sue on behalf of its members if
it can show that "(a) its members would otherwise have
standing to sue in their own right; (b) the interests it seeks
to protect are germane to the organization's purpose; and (c)
neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires
the participation of individual members in the lawsuit." Id.
at 343. The first of these elements ensures the presence of a
case or controversy and is constitutional in nature. See
Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 511 (1975). It is the only one
the government contests and the only one with respect to
which we can see any difficulty.
Several CLEOs allege that enforcement of the 1996 amend-
ments conflicts with their obligations under state law. Al-
though there is no indication that this is true in the hard core
sense of federal law requiring any CLEO to do something
state law forbids (or vice versa), it seems true in the broader
practical sense that if a CLEO complies with the domestic
violence misdemeanor provisions, he will find himself, in any
enforcement activity requiring firearms, unable to use officers
who fall under the federal ban, even where in his judgment it
is highly desirable or even critical to use such officers. The
government presents no reason to think that this interference
should not qualify as an Article III injury, and we can see
none.
There remains the issue of whether the CLEOs would have
"prudential standing," i.e., whether the interests they seek to
advance are "arguably within the zone of interests to be
protected or regulated by the statute or constitutional guar-
antee in question." Ass'n of Data Processing Service Orgs. v.
Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 153 (1970).1 As to the equal protection
__________
1 Whether a prudential defect in a member's standing translates
to a constitutional defect in the association's is a nice question.
Superficially, one might conclude that it would, since the cases treat
the first element of the Washington Apple test as (entirely) consti-
tutional. See, e.g., United Food and Commercial Workers, 517
U.S. at 554-55. But since this constitutional character stems from
the case or controversy requirement, see id., and prudential defects
claim (the only claim it is necessary to reach), of course, the
CLEOs are not members of the class that the statute is said
to illegally disadvantage--law officers convicted of domestic
violence misdemeanors, who are barred from the benefits of
the public interest exception (as opposed to law officers
convicted of domestic violence felonies, who are not). But
where a person is effectively used by the government to
implement a discriminatory scheme, he may, as we held in
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod v. FCC, 141 F.3d 344, 350
(D.C. Cir. 1998), "attack that scheme by raising a third
party's constitutional rights." There we followed Barrows v.
Jackson, 346 U.S. 249, 259 (1953), which allowed a white
homeowner to invoke the equal protection rights of non-
Caucasian third parties in resisting the petitioner's effort to
enforce a racially restrictive covenant, and Craig v. Boren,
429 U.S. 190, 194-97 (1976), which allowed a licensed beer
vendor to invoke the equal protection claims of males aged 18
to 21 who were barred from beer purchase by a statute that
allowed purchases by females of that age.
Although neither Barrows nor Craig is crystal clear as to
just when a person whose injury qualifies under Article III
may invoke the interests of a third party, the Court in Craig
seemed to embrace the proposition asserted in a student law
review note, namely, that he should be able to assert those
third-party rights that would be infringed by his compliance.
See 429 U.S. at 195, citing Note, Standing to Assert Constitu-
tional Jus Tertii, 88 Harv. L. Rev. 423, 432 (1974). As any
CLEO who gave a firearm to a law enforcement officer who
had been convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor would
be liable himself under s 922(d)(9), his compliance (i.e., not
supplying the officer with the gun) would indeed defeat the
right-holder's interest. Thus CLEOs have standing to assert
the equal protection rights of police officers--members or
not--threatened with deprivation of their firearms; the pres-
__________
do not affect the existence of a case or controversy, it seems more
likely that a member's lack of prudential standing translates to a
similar prudential failing for the association.
ence of CLEOs as members gives the Order standing to
makes these claims as well.
* * *
Equal protection analysis is substantially identical under
the Fifth Amendment and the Fourteenth. See Adarand
Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200, 227 (1995). Usually
the outcome turns largely on the level of scrutiny to be
applied. If a law neither burdens a fundamental right nor
targets a suspect class, courts must uphold the legislative
classification so long as it bears a rational relation to some
legitimate end. See, e.g., Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 319
(1993). Laws that fall into either of the above categories,
however, are subjected to strict scrutiny. See, e.g., City of
Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432, 439-40
(1985) (discussing tiers of scrutiny). The Order concedes that
persons convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors are not
a suspect class but asserts that the 1996 amendments impinge
on a fundamental right--the right to bear arms guaranteed
by the Second Amendment. The government responds that
the Second Amendment right does not belong to individuals,
but exists only in relation to "the preservation or efficiency of
a well regulated militia," United States v. Miller, 307 U.S.
174, 178 (1939), and that the 1996 amendments do not restrict
state militias.
Analysis of the character of the Second Amendment right
has recently burgeoned. See, e.g., Akhil Reed Amar, The
Bill of Rights 257-67 (1998); David C. Williams, Civic Repub-
licanism and the Citizen Militia: The Terrifying Second
Amendment, 101 Yale L.J. 551, 572-86 (1991); compare
Hickman v. Block, 81 F.3d 98, 101-03 (9th Cir. 1996), with
United States v. Gomez, 92 F.3d 770, 774 n.7 (9th Cir. 1996).
Despite the intriguing questions raised, we will not attempt to
resolve the status of the Second Amendment right, for we
find that the 1996 amendments fall into the narrow class of
provisions that fail even the most permissive, "rational basis,"
review. See, e.g., City of Cleburne, 473 U.S. 432.
Section 925 extends the "public interest" exception to all
sources of the firearm disability except domestic violence
misdemeanors. It thus allows the states to arm police offi-
cers convicted of violent felonies, and even crimes of domestic
violence so long as those crimes are felonies, while withhold-
ing this privilege with respect to domestic violence misde-
meanors. No reason is offered for imposing the heavier
disability on the lighter offense. The government's brief
argues that a special focus on domestic violence as compared
to other misdemeanors is rational, and we agree. The defect
is the neglect of more severe crimes of domestic violence,
about which the government says nothing.
A conceivable justification comes to mind. As a law sur-
vives rational basis review if it is rational under any "reason-
ably conceivable state of facts," Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312,
320 (1993) (citation omitted), we address this despite the
government's having failed to mention it. Most states appear
to bar convicted felons from possessing guns. See, e.g., Cal.
Penal Code s 12021(a)(1) (felon's possession of firearm is
felony); North Carolina Stat. s 14-415.1 (same) Oklahoma
Stat. Title 21 s 1283 (same); Rhode Island Gen. Laws
s 11-47-5 (same); Texas Penal Code s 46.04 (same); Wis-
consin Stat. s 941.29 (same); Wyoming Stat. s 6-8-102
(same). Few--perhaps only New York--provide any public
interest exception. See N.Y. Penal L. s 265.20 (exempting
New York military, police officers, and peace officers). The
government might therefore argue that federal law has
stepped in merely to fill a practical gap: concluding that all
persons guilty of domestic violence should be barred from
possession of firearms, without regard to public interest, but
noting that the states have satisfactorily addressed the issue
except for the misdemeanor offender, Congress has taken
care of this neglected problem. But this analysis would allow
a rougher notion of justice than even "rational basis" review
allows.
The problem is that the states' laws are neither sufficiently
consistent, nor sufficiently severe, to make this a rational
approach. New Hampshire, for example, requires three felo-
nies for the prohibition to attach. See N.H. Stat. Title XII
s 159:3-a. Vermont does not prohibit gun possession by
felons who are convicted but never incarcerated. McGrath v.
United States, 60 F.3d 1005, 1007 (2d Cir. 1995). As we have
noted, at least New York seems to offer a public interest
exception. And while the laws of most states do bar felons
from possessing firearms even in the public interest, many
states have disabilities of limited duration, and the duration
varies from state to state. See, e.g., Maine Rev. Stat. Title 15
s 393 (application for permit allowed after five years); North
Dakota Stat. s 62.1-02-01 (ten years); South Dakota Stat.
s 22-14-15 (fifteen years). Once these periods have expired,
firearm rights are restored. The resulting anomalies flow
well beyond those normally arising from federalism. The
worse offenders may enjoy some restoration of lost rights
under state law, while the lesser face an implacable bar.
The government notes, following up its point that Congress
may distinguish between crimes of domestic and violence and
other crimes, that a legislature does not violate the equal
protection clause merely because it approaches an issue "one
step at a time, addressing itself to the phase of the problem
which seems most acute to the legislative mind." Williamson
v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc., 348 U.S. 483, 489 (1955).
But this aspect of equal protection law is of little help for
Congress's decision to impose a more severe regime on
domestic violence misdemeanants than on domestic violence
felons. Whatever precise elements may influence a state's
classification of offenses between those two categories, what
is uniform and undisputed is that the presence of some
aggravating circumstance (or perhaps the absence of a miti-
gating one) is necessary to establish a felony. Of course
Congress may take "one step at a time." But here, while
incorporating state law (and judgments thereunder) into its
scheme, it has stepped most harshly on those persons the
states have systematically deemed less culpable.
We note, finally, that the treatment of domestic violence
misdemeanants intersects with certain anomalies in Con-
gress's provision for deferring to state law on restoration of
civil rights. For the purposes of the firearm disability gener-
ally, 18 U.S.C. s 921(a)(20) provides that convictions for
which civil rights have been restored do not trigger the
disability. See United States v. Bost, 87 F.3d 1333, 1335
(D.C. Cir. 1996) (discussing state restoration of rights). An
equivalent provision, s 921(a)(33)(B)(ii), allows state restora-
tion of civil rights to lift the federal disability from domestic
violence misdemeanants. But few states (if any) deprive such
misdemeanants of civil rights. With no deprivation, there can
be no "restoration" in the ordinary sense of the term. See
McGrath, 60 F.3d at 1007-10 (holding that felon whose civil
rights were not revoked could not argue that they had been
restored). Thus the plain text of the statute seems to put
misdemeanants who have never lost their rights in a worse
situation than felons whose rights are restored, often by
automatic operation of state law. See, e.g., United States v.
Caron, 77 F.3d 1, 2-4 (1st Cir. 1996) (holding that individual-
ized restoration of civil rights is not required to lift firearm
disability).
This anomalous consequence of the "civil rights restored"
provision is not confined to domestic violence misdemeanors.
Any conviction that triggers the disability but does not de-
prive the convict of civil rights will produce a similar result.
Thus misdemeanors carrying a sentence of more than two
years (which count as qualifying convictions under
s 921(a)(20)), or felonies not accompanied by revocation of
civil rights, will also activate the federal disability with no
prospect of relief via restoration of civil rights.
The First Circuit has responded to this discrepancy by
holding that the "civil rights restored" provision of
s 921(a)(20) protects those who have never been deprived of
civil rights. See United States v. Indelicato, 97 F.3d 627,
630-31 (1st Cir. 1996). That case involved a person convicted
of a misdemeanor for which state law provided a maximum
term of two and a half years, i.e., a felony for purposes of
s 921(a)(20). But its reasoning applies to s 921(a)(33)(B)(ii)
equally, and in that context cuts much more deeply. So far
as we know, no state responds to a domestic violence misde-
meanor conviction by revoking the right to vote, hold office,
or serve on a jury. (These are the civil rights on which the
statute focuses. See Bost, 87 F.3d at 1335.) If failure to
revoke is treated as restoration, then ss 922(g)(9) and (d)(9)
become entirely without effect: no conviction for a domestic
violence misdemeanor would trigger the federal disability,
since no such misdemeanor would qualify under s 921(a)(33).
On the other hand, if the absence of any initial deprivation
renders the restoration provisions inapplicable, then
s 921(a)(33)(B)(ii), expressly inserted to provide for restora-
tion in the case of domestic violence misdemeanors, is itself
without effect. Because we find ss 922(g)(9) and (d)(9) in
violation of equal protection requirements independently, we
need not address the interpretive and other issues posed by
the "restoration" provisions.
* * *
This brings us to the question of remedy. The Order
makes various alternative requests, one of which is that we
hold s 925 inoperative. Section 928 of the Gun Control Act
explicitly provides that the invalidation of one provision shall
not affect the remainder of the Act. We think the most
appropriate remedy is consequently to hold that s 925 is
unconstitutional insofar as it purports to withhold the public
interest exception from those convicted of domestic violence
misdemeanors. The government may not bar such people
from possessing firearms in the public interest while it impos-
es a lesser restriction on those convicted of crimes that differ
only in being more serious. Of course we do not decide
whether a broader revocation of the public interest excep-
tion--for example, from all those convicted of any crime of
domestic violence--would be constitutional.
So ordered.