District Judge Stephen McGlynn denied a motion filed by Wood River attorney Thomas Maag for partial summary judgment due to the alleged vagueness of the so-called Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA), which prohibits certain firearm accessories and mandates registration of “assault weapons” by Jan. 1.
In his Dec. 14 order, McGlynn found that the plaintiffs “failed to meet their burden to prove that the specified provisions of PICA’s text are unconstitutional because of facial vagueness.”
“There are a number of outstanding legal challenges to various parts of PICA and the larger statutory scheme,” he added. “By this order, the court does not address any arguments suggesting that there may be other viable challenges to PICA, to the ISP-enforced registration requirement, or to any other part of the statutory scheme, including on an as-applied basis or under any other constitutional bases.”
Maag filed the motion for partial summary judgment on May 19 on behalf of plaintiffs Jeremy Langley, Timothy Jones and Matthew Wilson, also known as the Langley plaintiffs. He argued that the “statute is void for vagueness.”
“In this case, multiple portions of the statute are so vague and ambiguous and to be indecipherable, not just by lay persons, but even by experts,” he wrote.
He added that “most of the act is so vague and ambiguous as to call into serious question the competence in the subject matter of the persons that wrote it.”
Maag wrote that if the case were to go to trial, the plaintiffs would focus on the vagueness of the ammunition capacity issues for feeding devices and the “rifles, duplicates, variants, or altered facsimiles with the capability of any such weapon.”
For example, Maag explained that not all “assault weapons” use magazines. Some weapons feed ammunition from cloth belts, feed strips, and “disintegrating links.”
He also argued that some weapons are not specifically identified as handguns, rifles or shotguns.
Maag claimed the list of prohibited weapons was “written by persons with no actual knowledge of firearms, rather, it is just a list of guns that someone, without actual firearms knowledge, through (sic) might be similar, and even at that, failed.”
In response, Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly argued that the plaintiffs indicate in their own depositions that they are able to understand and apply the restrictions and are not confused by the magazine capacity limits.
McGlynn heard arguments on the vagueness claim on Oct. 11 and entered an order on Dec. 14 denying partial summary judgment.
McGlynn acknowledged that the gun ban criminalizes possession of prohibited items and unregistered “assault weapons,” but he concluded that the plaintiffs’ argument “does not negate the fact that … PICA does contain an explicit mens rea requirement that requires the government to prove that the accused ‘knowingly’ possessed a prohibited firearm or ammunition feeding device.”
“The Supreme Court has been clear that its ‘holdings squarely contradict the theory that a vague provision is constitutional merely because there is some conduct that clearly falls within the provision’s grasp,’” McGlynn wrote. “Thus, the fact that the statute has some valid provisions is not sufficient to defeat a facial challenge on vagueness.”
With that in mind, McGlynn held that the defendants only had to prove that PICA “has a discernable core.”
McGlynn also rejected the plaintiffs hypothetical situations used as examples of PICA’s vagueness, concluding that enforcement of PICA is better if addressed in an “as-applied challenge.”
“While this tactic of absurd reduction may be more apropos in an as-applied challenge for vagueness, this use of ‘hypothetical’ or ‘imaginary’ cases is inadequate and insufficient in the instant facial challenge on vagueness grounds,” he wrote.
“Therefore, the Langley plaintiffs’ facial challenge has not met constitutional muster,” he added. “Because of the inadequacy of their challenge, this court does not reach the question of severability and whether or not the Illinois ‘Statute on Statutes’ will save valid portions of PICA.”