By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
The Illinois 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed and remanded a lower court ruling in the long-running case of People v. Vivian Claudine Brown, challenging the state requirement for a Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card in order to possess a firearm anywhere in the state.
This is the third time the case will be bounced back down to the trial court level, Brown was prosecuted for having a rifle in her home, but no FOID card, back in the spring of 2017. The case has made it clear to the state Supreme Court on a procedural issue, and it may be headed back in that direction.
Brown’s case was brought, and is being financed by the Second Amendment Foundation and Illinois State Rifle Association, which teamed up in 2010 for the landmark case of McDonald v. City of Chicago, nullifying that city’s 30-year handgun ban and incorporating the Second Amendment to the states via the 14th Amendment.
According to a SAF release, the case “could ultimately end up before the Illinois State Supreme Court,” again, this time perhaps determining whether the FOID requirement is constitutional.
“We’re delighted the courts will finally have an opportunity to hear arguments in the actual case which challenge the constitutionality of the FOID card,” said Alan Gottlieb, SAF founder and executive vice president. “Hopefully, this time around, we won’t see the case bogged down by more procedural issues which have allowed the court to avoid addressing the main issue at hand, which is whether the FOID card requirement actually passes constitutional muster.”
As detailed in the five-page remand order, Brown was charged with a single count of unlawful possession of a firearm without having a FOID card, “based on her alleged possession of a firearm in her home… Brown filed a motion to declare the Act unconstitutional as applied to her. The trial court granted that motion and the State filed a motion to reconsider, which was denied. In its order denying reconsideration, the trial court found that “if section 430 ILCS 65/2(a)(1) is constitutional then it becomes obvious the legislature did not intend the statute to apply in one’s own home due to the impossibility of compliance” because “no person could have their FOID card on their person 24 hours each and every day when firearms or ammunition are in the house” and that “every person who has knowledge of the firearms
or ammunition and has immediate and exclusive control of where the firearms is located, who does not have a FOID card, would be in violation of the statute.”
The opinion was delivered by Justice Thomas M. Welch, with Justices John B. Barberis and Barry L. Vaughan concurring.”
