Opinion ID: 2832718
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Issue Reserved in Beecham

Text: The Supreme Court granted certiorari in Beecham to resolve a circuit split about whether the choice of law clause in § 921(a)(20) applied to the post-conviction events (i.e., pardons, expungement, and restoration of rights) listed in the exemption clause. 511 U.S. at 370-71. The Eighth and Ninth Circuits had previously held that the choice of law clause applied only to the conviction itself, not to post-conviction events—leaving state law as the governing standard for the restoration of civil rights. United States v. Edwards, 946 F.2d 1347 (8th Cir. 1991); United States v. Geyler, 932 F.2d 1330, 1333-34 (9th Cir. 1991). The Fourth Circuit, in the two decisions reviewed by the Court in Beecham, reached the opposite result and rejected the proposition that state law governed the restoration of a federal felon’s civil rights. United States v. Beecham, 993 F.2d 1539 (4th Cir. 1993) (Table); United States v. Jones, 993 F.2d 1131 (4th Cir. 1993). The Supreme Court resolved the split in favor of the position taken by the Fourth Circuit, holding that whether a felon’s civil rights have been restored “is governed by the law of the convicting jurisdiction.” 511 U.S. at 371. Thus, for those convicted of federal felonies, courts “must look to whether [their] civil rights were restored under federal law.” Id. The Supreme Court stopped at this holding and on that basis affirmed the Fourth Circuit. Neither the Supreme Court nor the Fourth Circuit addressed how federal law applies to the question of whether a federal felon’s civil rights had been restored—an issue that had not been No. 14-5703 Walker v. United States Page 17 raised or briefed by the parties. The Supreme Court acknowledged the omission and expressly reserved the question of whether a federal felon’s civil rights may be restored under federal law, writing in footnote  (hereinafter “the Beecham footnote”): This is a complicated question, one which involves the interpretation of the federal law relating to federal civil rights, see U.S. Const., Art. I, § 2, cl 1 (right to vote for Representatives); U.S. Const., Amdt. XVII (right to vote for Senators); 28 U.S.C. § 1865 (right to serve on a jury); consideration of the possible relevance of 18 U.S.C § 925(c) (1988 ed., Supp. IV), which allows the Secretary of the Treasury to grant relief from the disability imposed by § 922(g); and the determination whether civil rights must be restored by an affirmative act of a Government Official, see United States v. Ramos, 961 F.2d 1003, 1008 (CA1), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 934, 113 S.Ct. 364, 121 L.Ed.2d 277 (1992), or whether they may be restored automatically by operation of law, see United States v. Hall, 20 F.3d 1066 (CA10 1994). We do not address these matters today. 511 U.S. at 373 n.. Both the government and the district court contend that Beecham forecloses Walker’s claim because the opinion addressed substantially identical facts—federal felons whose rights were restored under state law—and yet in Beecham the Court ultimately rejected the felons’ arguments that they were not subject to the federal firearm disability. The majority adopts a version of this argument by emphasizing that the Supreme Court could have reached the issues in the footnote, and suggests that the Court’s failure to do so is tantamount to a rejection of Walker’s claim. Contrary to the majority’s argument, it is clear that Beecham cannot be characterized as foreclosing a legal argument that it expressly declined to reach. Moreover, the Court’s reticence in this regard was perfectly understandable, and even to be expected. Of the several complex legal questions identified in the Beecham footnote, only the “possible relevance” of § 925(c) had received any attention—and even that attention was fleeting—in the parties’ briefing. The Supreme Court is of course free to disregard arguments not raised in the lower courts or advanced by the parties before it. See, e.g., Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 134 S.Ct. 2751, 2776 (2014) (“We do not generally entertain arguments that were not raised below and are not advanced in this Court by any party.”); Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 531 n.13 (1979) (declining to reach argument not passed on by the lower courts or urged by the parties); Knetsch v. United No. 14-5703 Walker v. United States Page 18 States, 364 U.S. 361, 370 (1960) (same). It is simply unremarkable that, in the exercise of judicial prudence, the Court chose to leave the issues identified by the footnote for another day. Now, more than a decade after Beecham and squarely presented with a claim that a felon’s civil rights have been restored under federal law, we have the benefit of subsequent precedent that provides clear guidance regarding the questions identified in the Beecham footnote. We know that a felon’s civil rights may be restored by operation of law, without any affirmative act of restoration or case-by-case decisionmaking by a government agency or official. Caron, 524 U.S. at 313. Additionally, the Sixth Circuit has identified the dispositive civil rights which must be restored in order for the exclusion to apply: “the right to vote, the right to seek and hold public office and the right to serve on a jury.”41 United States v. Cassidy, 899 F.2d 543, 549 (6th Cir. 1990); see also Hampton v. United States, 191 F.3d 695 (6th Cir. 1999) (closely examining Michigan law to determine that the petitioner was entitled to serve on a jury before concluding that his civil rights were indeed restored). A direct application of these principles in this case establishes that Walker’s federal civil rights have been restored. The majority’s efforts to avoid this result are strained and unconvincing.