Posted on 04/25/2002 9:33:58 AM PDT by MissTargets
Update: We've been advised that only a stay has been issued. The court order does not include any hearing, nor does it suggest that the OSC will even take the case into consideration yet.
Ohioans For Concealed Carry has been informed by our lawyers that the Ohio Supreme Court has issued an emergency stay and granted the request for an expedited hearing.
It should be noted that the Ohio Senate is trying to take advantage of the State of Ohio's appeal in regard to our lawsuit in Hamilton County. The theory is that, even though two courts have declared this law unconstitutional, and the Ohio Supreme Court has refused to issue an emergency stay in the matter, the Ohio Senate will continue to delay progress on this legislation until the court moves on this issue. Assuming the Ohio Supreme Court even decides to hear this case, it is conceivable that they wouldn't rule on it until well into 2003. In the still-pending school funding issue the Supreme Court first heard of the case in 1995, more than seven years ago. It's time for us to call our Senators and tell them to stop stalling.
Effective immediately the felony prohibition on carrying a concealed firearm existsing in Hamilton County and anyone who has been taking advantage of the permanent injunction handed down by the appeals court should take notice immediately.
Ohioans For Concealed Carry applauds the Ohio Supreme Court's efforts to take this issue into consideration in an expedited fashion. Based on the assaults this lawsuit victory has received from numerous liberal news media organizations, it is time for the Ohio Supreme Court to re-affirm the unanimous ruling of the four previous judges. The Ohio Supreme Court has the opportunity to do something right for Ohioans and the Ohio Constitution.
By LIZ SIDOTI
The Associated Press
4/25/02 12:43 PM
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- The Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday said police can once again enforce a concealed weapons ban in Hamilton County while the court decides whether it is constitutional.
Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery had asked the Supreme Court to stop a state appeals court ruling that allows people to carry concealed weapons in the county, which includes Cincinnati.
Montgomery said she wanted the justices to have time to hear an appeal of the 1st Ohio District Court of Appeals' ruling. The justices, without comment, granted the stay.
The appeals court ruled on April 10 that the state's decades-old ban on carrying concealed weapons violates the state constitution's guarantee that people can arm themselves for self-defense.
Since then, no restrictions on carrying handguns had been in place.
"That's why we wanted to get the stay as soon as possible," said Bret Crow, Montgomery's spokesman.
The appeals court accepted the argument of five people, including a private investigator, fitness trainer and hairdresser, who said their jobs take them into areas where they need to be able to protect themselves.
Lawyers for Cincinnati, Hamilton County and the state had argued that government has the right to regulate the manner in which weapons are carried.
Concealed-carry bill holstered
Senate chief: Why vote on this before Supreme Court rules?
By Brian Clark
Enquirer Columbus Bureau
COLUMBUS — Ohioans hoping for a law to allow them to carry concealed weapons will have to wait for the Ohio Supreme Court.
After the bill's first hearing in a Senate Judiciary subcommittee Wednesday, Senate President Richard Finan, R-Evendale, said more hearings could be useless until justices weigh in on a Hamilton County court decision that called Ohio's gun laws unconstitutional.
“I want to see what the courts are going to do,” Mr. Finan said. “There's not much to be gained by having hearings on a bill (that is) before the Supreme Court.”
The bill has passed the House and is the first conceal-and-carry bill to pass a chamber of the General Assembly in seven years.
Representatives who worked more than a year on the bill in the House say the court case shouldn't cause delays in the Senate but should instead spur more demand for a new law that allows Ohioans to carry concealed handguns. Rep. Bill Seitz, R-Green Township, emphasized the need to pass the bill in the wake of the Ohio 1st District Court of Appeals ruling.
The courts have determined “the current Ohio law about conceal and carry is unconstitutional,” Mr. Seitz said. “It is only a matter of time until Ohio has no conceal-and-carry law whatsoever.”
The House-approved proposal would require applicants to submit to a criminal background check and training that includes classroom study and firing range experience. Those who receive permits could carry concealed weapons except in bars — with an allowance for undercover police officers — schools, universities, airport terminals, prisons and some other locations.
The appeals court ruling affected only Hamilton County, where the original suit saying Ohio's laws prohibited people from carrying concealed weapons was brought.
Gov. Bob Taft has said he would veto a bill that did not have the support of state law enforcement. The Buckeye Sheriffs Association supports the bill, but the State Highway Patrol, the Fraternal Order of Police and the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police are opposed.
Some legislators note, however, that when the House passed the bill, it did so with enough votes to override a veto by the governor.
Courting confusion
Concealed-carry ruling should be on hold
Thursday, April 25, 2002
The Ohio Supreme Court should grant the state attorney general's request for a stay of a lower court's decision that has made Hamilton County a place where Ohioans legally can carry concealed weapons of any type.
The state's ban on carrying concealed weapons, a law that has been on the books since at least 1917, ought to apply statewide.
In declaring this law unconstitutional on April 10, the 1st Ohio District Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld the ruling of Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman in January that the state law cannot be enforced in that county.
Now, in one county, people can hide arms ranging from switchblades to revolvers inside their clothing, in pockets and in purses, and they can carry loaded guns inside their cars, in easy reach of drivers and passengers.
The state law still in effect in the other 87 counties specifies that in vehicles, guns can be carried unloaded, with the ammunition secured and out of reach, such as in the trunk, or loaded guns can be locked in the trunk. Most people do not have an unfettered right to carry concealed weapons otherwise, although a person who does so and finds himself arrested may defend himself against the charge by arguing that he falls under exceptions to the law.
Whether any so-called affirmative defense of this type would pass the state's requirement that the situation was such that "a prudent person'' would go armed is a matter for a judge or a jury to decide in the event a person chooses this course and finds himself arrested and charged with violating the law against concealed carry.
Determining the validity of such claims on a case-by-case basis is proper. Judges and juries similarly have to weigh the facts and decide who is the assailant and who is the victim when two people are in a fight. A person who defends himself by hitting someone in the face can explain in court why he himself shouldn't be charged with assault. This, too, is an affirmative defense.
The person who conceals a weapon and the person who hits another person both are violating Ohio laws. The question judge and jury must answer is whether there was justification for such a violation.
In Hamilton County, five people who wish to carry concealed weapons on a regular basis filed the lawsuit challenging the state's law. The Second Amendment Foundation, a group based in Washington state, has supported the plaintiffs in this case.
The foundation, the National Rifle Association and other members of the gun lobby won't be satisfied until Ohioans can carry concealed guns just about anywhere they might wish -- including into day-care centers, hospitals and ballparks. And they have been pushing legislation to this end at the Statehouse.
These groups are ecstatic over Judge Mark Painter's decision, which was joined by two other judges on the appeals court.
In declaring the state's ban on carrying concealed weapons unconstitutional and the affirmative-defense guidelines too vague, Painter virtually ignored earlier Ohio Supreme Court rulings that have upheld the law and have upheld other state and local gun-control laws.
In a 1920 decision, the high court said, "The statute does not operate as a prohibition against carrying weapons, but as a regulation of the manner of carrying them.''
Then and even now, there is no law against carrying weapons openly, although the practice was once more common than it is today. The court in 1920 affirmed the idea that concealed carry tended to make other people less secure and, hence, was not in society's interests. The court also noted that similar laws had been upheld in other states.
Painter accepted the plaintiffs' arguments that people carrying weapons openly today are likely to be arrested on charges of disorderly conduct or inducing panic and, he said, therefore, that their fundamental right to carry weapons, granted by the Ohio Constitution, is violated.
The fact that people bearing arms openly might be arrested for other crimes appears irrelevant. A person who believes he merely is exercising his free-speech rights might be arrested for inciting a riot. The burden of proving that a person is inducing panic, engaged in disorderly conduct or inciting a riot would be on the prosecution, and the person would be presumed innocent until proved guilty.
In contrast, if arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, the person has to show that mitigating circumstances should excuse his behavior, because the Ohio Supreme Court already has ruled that concealed carry is not a fundamental right.
Why would a person who believes he is in such grave danger that he might be attacked prefer to risk being arrested for concealed carry, which clearly is illegal, than simply to carry openly?
Until the gun lobby's national campaign in the 1980s, which spurred legislatures to allow concealed carry, about 40 states banned it. Now Ohio is one of only six states with the law, which served Ohio and most of the rest of the country well for generations. Few people want to have to wonder whether a person with a bulge in his jacket who is on the bus, at the next restaurant table or in the next theater row has self-defense or criminal intentions in mind.
With a ban on concealed carry in place, a person hiding a gun is presumed guilty -- and rightly so -- because he already has violated a law.
Thursday, April 25, 2002
Lee Leonard
Dispatch Statehouse Reporter
The co-sponsor of legislation to give Ohioans a limited right to carry concealed handguns told an Ohio Senate panel yesterday that surrounding states with similar laws show no evidence of increased violence.
"Have you heard about any widespread gun mayhem in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Kentucky or West Virginia?'' Rep. Bill Seitz asked the Senate Judiciary Committee on Civil Justice. "I know I haven't.''
In fact, the Cincinnati Republican said, enforcement of Ohio's concealed-weapons ban has been suspended in his home county of Hamilton since April 10 with no apparent ill effects.
"It is time for Ohio to join the other 44 states'' that allow concealed weapons, Seitz said.
Seitz presented House Bill 274, which the House passed 66-28 on March 21, on behalf of chief sponsor Rep. James Aslanides, R-Coshocton, whose wife was reportedly seriously ill.
Senate President Richard H. Finan, R-Cincinnati, has said that before senators re-craft the bill, he wants to await the outcome of litigation in Hamilton County that claims the state concealed-weapons ban is unconstitutional.
The 1st District Court of Appeals upheld a lower-court ruling that the ban is unconstitutional. Attorney General Betty D. Montgomery is expected to appeal the ruling to the Ohio Supreme Court. She has asked for an emergency stay to prevent the appellate ruling from taking effect, but the court has not yet ruled on her request.
Seitz warned the senators that the high court could declare the ban unconstitutional throughout the state, leaving Ohio with an unregulated situation, as in Vermont.
Seitz said that under the proposal, anyone authorized to carry concealed weapons in another state also could do so in Ohio, and law- enforcement officers would be given special privileges.
Sen. Eric D. Fingerhut, D-Cleveland, said that would mean "a rodent-control officer from Wyoming'' would be allowed to carry a concealed weapon in Ohio. Seitz agreed.
Sen. Jeff Jacobson, R-Vandalia, committee chairman, said there would be further testimony at future hearings. But Finan said he sees no point in proceeding until the Supreme Court rules, which could be within three months.
Governor Taft won't sign it, this dude won't if elected.
The OSC seems our only hope.
You got to read post #6
BARF ALERT!
"In 1920, the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Mexican for carrying a concealed handgun -- while he was asleep in his own bed."
-'The Racist Roots of Gun Control' by Clayton E. Cramer
It's pretty sad that all of our judges in this country can't follow the presiding judge who wrote that he believed what they wrote[The Ohio Constitution] was what they meant.
Stays should only be allowed when the lower court prescription is for some action to take place that can never be "undone".
Justice Stratton: Born in another country, a trial lawyer -- this one is a loss
Justice Douglas : Former military, but a professor too... this one is a tossup
Justice Resnick: Total flaming liberal. "Womans issues" judge.
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