Opinion ID: 2442859
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The ErrorUnconstitutionality of the UA Statute as Applied to Appellant

Text: In Heller, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for purposes of self-defense. The Court subsequently held this right to be fundamental necessary to our system of ordered liberty and deeply rooted in the history and traditions of our Nationand hence incorporated in the concept of due process (and enforceable against state as well as federal limitations on the possession and use of arms). [14] The right to keep and bear arms is presumptively enjoyed by all American citizens (the people [15] ), though some individuals may be disqualified from exercising it because they cannot satisfy, or have not complied with, valid regulatory conditions. [16] In view of the fundamental nature of the right, however, any restrictions on its exercise are subject to heightened judicial scrutiny. [17] The Second Amendment right is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. [18] But it does encompass a right to keep ordinary handguns in the home for use in self-defense. Heller specifically held that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense. [19] The latter prohibition, derived from a District statute requiring lawfully-possessed firearms to be kept unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device, [20] was unconstitutional because it made it impossible for citizens to use [their handguns] for the core lawful purpose of self-defense. [21] In neither Heller nor McDonald did the Supreme Court directly address restrictions on the possession of ammunition per se. (The District's requirement that lawfully-maintained firearms be kept unloaded was not challenged in Heller. ) Nonetheless, from the Court's reasoning, it logically follows that the right to keep and bear arms extends to the possession of handgun ammunition in the home; for if such possession could be banned (and not simply regulated), that would make it impossible for citizens to use [their handguns] for the core lawful purpose of self-defense. [22] By the same token, given the obvious connection between handgun ammunition and the right protected by the Second Amendment, we are hard-pressed to see how a flat ban on the possession of such ammunition in the home could survive heightened scrutiny of any kind. We therefore conclude that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to possess ammunition in the home that is coextensive with the right to possess a usable handgun there. The government has not taken issue with that conclusion. As we discussed, the UA statute makes it a crime to possess ammunition of any kind anywhere, regardless of its use or purpose; and the prosecution may obtain a conviction under the statute without having to prove that the possessor violated any registration, licensing or regulatory requirement or was otherwise disqualified from exercising his Second Amendment right. A UA conviction therefore may be based solely on proof that the defendant possessed handgun ammunition in his homesolely, that is, on proof of conduct protected by the Second Amendment. In a prosecution such as this one, where nothing more was proved at trial to show that the defendant was disqualified from exercising his Second Amendment rights there was no evidence, for example, that he possessed the ammunition for an illegal purpose [23] or that he had failed to comply with applicable registration requirements for a firearm corresponding to the ammunition [24] the UA statute is unconstitutional as applied. [25] In light of the constitutionally-protected nature of the conduct addressed by the UA statute, its provision of an affirmative defense if the accused had registered a corresponding firearm only compounds the problem. The Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged. [26] While legislatures do have leeway to reallocate burdens of proof so as to require the accused to prove some facts as affirmative defenses (rather than requiring the prosecution to negate those facts as an element of the offense), there are obviously constitutional limits beyond which [a legislature] may not go in this regard. [27] Where the Constitutionin this case, the Second Amendmentimposes substantive limits on what conduct may be defined as a crime, a legislature may not circumvent those limits by enacting a statute that presumes criminality from constitutionally-protected conduct and puts the burden of persuasion on the accused to prove facts necessary to establish innocence. [28] That, however, is precisely what the UA statute (as we construed it in Logan ) does with respect to the possession of handgun ammunition in the home, by making the defendant's compliance with the registration condition an affirmative defense. The limited nature of our holding should be understood. The Second Amendment permits the District to condition the lawful possession of handgun ammunition in the home on the possession of a valid registration certificate for a corresponding handgun (so long as the registration scheme is constitutional). [29] While Logan held as a matter of statutory interpretation that proper registration is an affirmative defense to UA, the prosecution may assume the burden of charging and proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant lacked the necessary registration in order to satisfy the Second Amendment. [30] By doing so, the prosecution would establish that the defendant indeed was disqualified from exercising his Second Amendment right to possess handgun ammunition in the home. [31] The application of the UA statute to the defendant in such a case would not be unconstitutional. Because the UA statute was applied unconstitutionally to appellant, the first prong of the plain error testthe presence of erroris satisfied.