A federal court has ruled it is constitutional to block a defendant’s Second Amendment rights while they are awaiting trial.
On March 18, the three-judge panel in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the restriction on the rights of Jesus Perez-Garcia and John Thomas Fencl to bear firearms is constitutional because it is consistent with historic legal precedent.
While these are two separate cases, with Judge Gonzalo Paul Curiel ruling on Mr. Perez-Garcia’s case on Dec. 2, 2022, and Judge Janis Lynn Sammartino ruling on Mr. Fencl’s case on Dec. 7, 2022, both men brought their legal challenge before the federal appeals court on Jan. 26, 2023.
In the 47-page appellate court opinion (pdf), Judge Gabriel P. Sanchez said, “Here, the historical evidence, when considered as a whole, shows a long and broad history of legislatures exercising authority to disarm people whose possession of firearms would pose an unusual danger, beyond the ordinary citizen, to themselves or others.
“The temporary disarmament of Fencl and Perez-Garcia as a means reasonably necessary to protect public safety falls within that historical tradition,” Judge Sanchez wrote further, adding that the court found that restricting the defendants’ right to own firearms is “consistent with our nation’s long history of temporarily disarming criminal defendants facing serious charges and those deemed dangerous or unwilling to follow the law.”
Judge Sanchez wrote that the decision to confiscate the guns owned by Mr. Perez-Garcia and Mr. Fencl was “consistent with our nation’s long history of temporarily disarming criminal defendants facing serious charges and those deemed dangerous or unwilling to follow the law.”
Hellbound and Down 