Posted on 05/11/2006 8:13:42 PM PDT by neverdem
Associated Press
CHEYENNE - Wyoming Attorney General Pat Crank has sued the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, saying the agency is relying on a "hyper-technicality" to refuse some Wyoming residents - people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence - the right to bear arms.
"We really are arguing about what is an 'expungement' - that is the critical question here," Crank said Wednesday.
"Essentially, what the dispute involves is the meaning of the word 'expungement' and how it is applied to firearms disability under federal law," said Eric Epstein, division counsel for the ATF field office in Phoenix.
Federal law prohibits anyone convicted of "a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence" from possessing a firearm. In 1986, Congress amended that law to allow states to set rules for restoring gun rights to people who've been pardoned or whose convictions have been "expunged, or set aside."
In 2004, Wyoming's legislature passed a law meant to govern how such convictions could be expunged: Individuals would have to wait one year after completing their sentence; they would not qualify if their misdemeanor conviction involved the use or attempted use of a firearm; and they could not have any other convictions that prohibit them from owning guns.
Furthermore, Wyoming's law stated that a record of the "expunged" conviction would be kept by the state Division of Criminal Investigation and could be used to enhance penalties for future convictions.
Correspondence between ATF and Crank's office show ATF doesn't feel the Wyoming statute "expunges" the records.
In August 2004, shortly after Wyoming's law was passed, ATF Special Agent Lester Martz wrote to Crank, saying the federal law applied only to convictions that were completely eliminated. Citing a 1991 opinion from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Martz wrote: "The word 'expunge' generally means the physical destruction of information."
Nice to see somebody stand up to the jackbooted government thugs.
Someone needs to. This is a huge gray area of the law, at least in interpretation. Prosecutors like it because it saves them from having to go to trial over relatively minor cases, and it offers the offender a second chance. They have to keep some record of the offence so people do not abuse the system by claiming a first offence when in reality they have been convicted numerous times. Law enforcement and background check companies abuse the system by claiming that if the record exists, then the person's record is not expunged. Supposedly, only law enforcement has access to the record, but in reality background check companies and others get to it through police corruption. Instead of subscribing to public criminal databases, the companies pay a cop under the table to run background checks for them in confidential databases, thus harming folks who, in good faith, made a deal with the prosecutors in return for a clean record. The end result is that defense attorneys will no longer accept expungments because they are a dead letter.
Anti-thug ping!
Bump!
FYI
AMENDMENT X to the Constitution of the United States:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
I don't recall the ATF being established by a Constitutional Amendment. Someone please direct me to the appropriate amendment, please.
Wake up, AMENDMENT X!!!
Wake up!!!
Sounds like a great state. One of the last few left.
Porcuping! Maybe the location for the final redoubt!
Well, a kindly thank you is in order for the good folks in Wyoming.
Its the Wyoming legislators who screwed this one (probably to please some screeching anti-gun feminazi harpies) and now they are pointing the finger at the feds.
Think about it. It ain't expungement if anyone keeps a record of it for possible future use against you.
This Wyoming law is an outrage, NOT the Feds position on it...
Instead of whining they need to amend the law to delete the provision allowing for the expunged record to be used against you in sentencing for a future offense.
THAT is the key. THAT is why its not expungement under any definition that I am aware of.
One last thought; "Expunge" is kind of like "Pardon" in the sense that it means that all record of the conviction is erased.
If you reserve the right to later use the evidence of the conviction that was "pardoned" in the sentencing phase of a later prosecution, its not a "Pardon".
The exact same analogy applies to "Expungement". The Wyoming law does not provide to expunging the records in these cases, hence the Feds won't honor it.
The question y'all ought to be asking is 'WTH did the Wyoming legislature buckle under to PC and try to parse words here instead of doing what is right'?
You know the answer - the better not to offend anti-gun feminazis. That's why.
The Wyoming Attorney General would be far better served to publicly address himself to the legislature instead of filing a 'can't-win' suit against the ATF as a publicity stunt.
THIS is why the Wyoming law, at present, does not really provide for expunging these offenses - and why the ATF is correct in their legal position.
I've never even been to Wyoming but I am almost PO'd enough to email their Atty Gen.
Few things frustrate me more than seeing good people spin their wheels going down the wrong alley....
There is another area of the Federal and many State laws I would like to see challenged – “Have you ever been committed to a mental hospital?”
This does not apply just to psychopaths, but also to the citizen who suspects they have been under too much stress, the person who realizes they drink too much etc.
What does this have to do with the safety of the general population? The person who ignores the early warning signs and avoids treatment retains 2nd Amendment rights. The citizen who recognizes the problem and takes steps to head off trouble forfeits 2nd Amendment rights.
I don't recall the ATF being established by a Constitutional Amendment. Someone please direct me to the appropriate amendment, please.
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