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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Karmeier dissent in FOID challenge: Majority committed ‘meaningless act’ in remanding White County case

State Court

SPRINGFIELD – Supreme Court Justices who rejected a constitutional challenge to identification cards for firearms in homes committed “a meaningless and wasteful act,” according to Justice Lloyd Karmeier. 

“Nothing will have been gained,” Karmeier wrote in dissent on April 2. 

“Time will have been lost. Judicial resources will have been wasted.” 

Justice Mary Jane Theis joined the dissent. 

Four Justices found former White County judge Mark Stanley improperly ruled that mandatory cards violated the Second Amendment as applied in homes. 

Stanley dismissed a charge that defendant Vivian Brown broke Firearm Identification Card (FOID) law. 

The Justices didn’t uphold his constitutional ruling, but neither did they reinstate a charge that defendant Vivian Brown broke the card law. 

They remanded the case to White County court with directions to find that the Legislature didn’t intend to require cards for guns in homes. 

“To order the circuit court to enter such an order would be tantamount to compelling it to make a legal determination that none of the parties requested, that the court itself never meant to make, and that would have no chance of being affirmed on appeal,” Karmeier wrote. 

“And when the forced order is ultimately reversed by the appellate court, as the law would require, what will happen? 

“The circuit court will simply enter another order declaring the statute invalid, putting the parties and the litigation in precisely the same position they are now.” 

Stanley won’t deal with it. He retired last year. 

Vivian Brown’s estranged husband set events in motion on March 18, 2017, by telling White County deputies she shot a gun in her home near Carmi. 

Deputies found a Remington .22 caliber single shot bolt action rifle in her room. 

They found no evidence that anyone fired it or any other gun in the home. 

She denied firing it, and others in the home denied hearing shots. 

The state’s attorney filed criminal information, and Brown moved to find the statute unconstitutional. 

She stated that she kept the rifle to defend herself as a law abiding citizen with no criminal record. 

Stanley granted her motion in 2018, finding a requirement to fill out a form, provide a picture, and pay $10 for a card to exercise her right to a firearm in her home violated the Second Amendment. 

He later entered an order finding those who possess firearms must have a card on their persons and that compliance in a home was impossible. 

He wrote that no one could have a card on their person 24 hours each and every day with firearms in the house. 

The Supreme Court granted direct appeal, skipping the appellate court. 

For the majority, the second order provided a reason to reject jurisdiction. 

Chief Justice Anne Burke wrote that when a circuit court provides a basis for relief outside the Constitution, direct appeal cannot lie in the Supreme Court.        

“The court held that the firearm owner identification act did not apply to the act of possessing a firearm in the home as a matter of statutory interpretation and therefore could not apply to defendant,” Burke wrote. 

She wrote that the circuit court must modify its order, “to preserve the state’s right to seek review in the appellate court.” 

Karmeier responded that the majority resolved an issue no one raised and decided it through misapplication of principles they had no reason to discuss. 

He wrote that their theory was never argued in circuit court or Supreme Court. 

“It is an invention of the majority based on a single sentence taken out of context,” Karmeier wrote.

David Sigale of Glen Ellyn represented Brown. 

Attorney General Kwame Raoul represented the state.

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