By: Liv Caputo, The Florida Phoenix<\/p>\n
In an exceedingly rare split over guns, the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association filed a court brief Friday opposing Attorney General James Uthmeier\u2019s new push to arm non-dangerous felons, the Florida Phoenix has learned.<\/p>\n
The organization accused Uthmeier of using strained logic to justify his election-year decision to try to reverse a long-standing state law that denies gun ownership to anyone convicted of a felony.<\/p>\n
\u201cProhibitions on the possession of firearms by convicted felons are consistent with the nation\u2019s historical tradition,\u201d the association wrote in its brief. \u201cAny opinion to the contrary would result in needless uncertainty, confusion, and inconsistent application of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s 20 elected prosecutors \u2014 15 of whom are Republicans, like Uthmeier \u2014 are engaging in a remarkable dispute: They rarely ever head to court to oppose the attorney general over the issue of fighting crime.<\/p>\n
Uthmeier, however, believes that non-dangerous felons should be able to possess guns. Only those involved in \u201cpotentially dangerous\u201d activities or those that pose a public safety risk should have their guns taken away. Both violent offenses and drug crimes would fall under these categories, he argued.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs noted in their brief, the FPAA does not speak for the State. That authority belongs exclusively to the Attorney General,\u201d Jeremy Redfern, Uthmeier\u2019s deputy chief of staff, told the Phoenix.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Attorney General has a duty to uphold the rights of the people, and it\u2019s the State\u2019s position that the Second Amendment rights of Floridians who pose no danger to the community should not be infringed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The case is now before the Florida First District Court of Appeal, where the parties have filed briefs arguing over whether a swath of ex-convicts should be able to own guns.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s divided the legal bedfellows down the middle, creating an unusual triangulation: Uthmeier siding with the man he was prosecuting while the state\u2019s attorneys urge the judge to oppose both.<\/p>\n
They want Judge Stephen Everett to ignore Uthmeier\u2019s claims and uphold the law as is.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors argued Uthmeier\u2019s decision is dangerous because it could create subjective, case-by-case arguments shifting from felon to felon. This could include wiggle room for violent felons convicted of lesser offenses, the prosecutors argue.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a constitutional perspective, all felons are dangerous felons,\u201d FPPA wrote. Uthmeier\u2019s attempt to parse which are dangerous and which are not is \u201ccontrived and forced,\u201d and leads to \u201cconfusion,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
How did it get here?<\/p>\n
The differences evolved from a 2022 gun case centering on Christopher Michael Morgan, a felon convicted in Tallahassee for possessing a firearm. Morgan had been previously convicted in Pennsylvania of carrying a firearm without a permit, a third-degree felony in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
Morgan has tried to appeal his case, and initially Uthmeier opposed him \u2014 opting to uphold state and federal law barring felons from owning guns.<\/p>\n
But weeks later, Uthmeier reversed course.<\/p>\n
He filed a new brief siding with Morgan, arguing felons who don\u2019t pose a threat or \u201cdisturb the peace\u201d should be able to carry under the Second Amendment. He employed a variety of case law, relying heavily on a group of 1600s English and colonial laws that preceded the Constitution and Reconstruction era laws banning drunkards and \u201ctramps\u201d from carrying.<\/p>\n
Florida law does allow felons who have completed all terms of their sentence to apply to get their gun rights back, but that process only begins after a waiting period of at least eight years from the time of the completion of their sentence, the Phoenix\u00a0previously reported.<\/p>\n
Federal law\u00a0also bans felons from possessing firearms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But in 2024, a federal appeals court judge\u00a0predicted\u00a0that\u00a0 \u201c[o]ne day \u2014 likely sooner, rather than later \u2014 the Supreme Court will address the constitutionality of Section 922(g)(1) or otherwise provide clearer guidance on whether felons are protected by the Second Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By: Liv Caputo, The Florida Phoenix In an exceedingly rare split over guns, the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-211323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}