Court Opinion

ID: 9668884
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:30:03.753708+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:49.306360
License: Public Domain

ROACH, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the majority opinion. However, I write separately to address the constitutionality of KRS 527.040. Ultimately, I think a proper historical understanding of the rights described in Section 1 of the Kentucky Constitution, particularly as they related to criminals, provides the sole ground necessary for the statute to withstand a constitutional challenge.
At first blush, Appellant’s semantic argument seems compelling based on the facts that the rights contained in Section 1 *182of the Kentucky Constitution are for “all men,” and, more specifically, that the subsection on the right to bear arms reserves to the General Assembly only the power to regulate the carrying of concealed weapons. But Appellant’s argument fails when these rights are understood in the context of the common law when the Constitution was adopted in 1891.
At the Constitutional Convention of 1890, Robert Rodes served as the Chairman of the Committee on Preamble and Bill of Rights. Rodes described the seven subsections of Section 1 of the Constitution of Kentucky as a “general statement of our rights.” 2 Official Report of the Proceedings and Debates in the Convention Assembled at Frankfort, on the Eighth Day of September, 1890, to Adopt, Amend or Change the Constitution of the State of Kentucky, at 435 (1890). He then described these rights, which he also claimed belong to “free men,” as “certain inalienable and indefeasible rights.” Id. at 436. In particular, Rodes traced these rights to the Magna Charta and the English Bill of Rights. Id. at 444-46; see also Ken Gormley & Rhonda G. Hartman, The Kentucky Bill of Rights: A Bicentennial Celebration, 80 Ky. L.J. 1, 5 (1990-91) (“Specifically, an examination of the Kentucky Bill of Rights of 1792 shows that it may be traced ultimately to the Magna Charta and the English Bill of Rights.”). Thus, Section 1 concerns a group of rights that were commonly called the rights or liberties of Englishmen, see 1 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England *144 (describing “the rights, or, as they are frequently termed, the liberties of Englishmen .... ”), which included the specific right to bear arms. See id. at *143-44 (“The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject ... is that of having arms for their defence — ”).
As pointed out by the majority opinion, felons did not have the right to possess firearms at common law. See also Robert Dowlut, The Right to Arms: Does the Constitution or the Predilection of Judges Reign?, 36 Okla. L.Rev. 65, 96 (1983) (“Colonial and English societies of the eighteenth century, as well as their modern counterparts, have excluded infants, idiots, lunatics, and felons [from possessing firearms].”). In fact, felons were stripped of all rights of station under the common law. Vernon M. Winters, Note, Criminal RICO Forfeitures and the Eight Amendment: ‘Rough’ Justice Is Not Enough, 14 Hastings Const. L.Q. 451, 457 (1987) (“A felon who had broken the social contract no longer had any right to social advantages, including transfer of property, and people believed that punishing the felon as well as his ancestors and heirs would serve as a more effective deterrent than would personal punishment alone.” (footnote omitted)). In essence, a felon “could not own any property himself, nor could any heir born before or after the felony claim through him.” 3 William S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law 69 (3d ed. 1927) (footnote omitted). This harsh treatment of felons was due to the legal effect of the felon’s “blood [being] corrupted or attaint-ed.” Id. Blackstone explained the reason behind the treatment as follows:
The true reason and only substantial ground of any forfeiture for crimes consist in this; that all property is derived from society, being one of those civil rights which are conferred upon individuals, in exchange for that degree of natural freedom, which every man must sacrifice when he enters into social communities. If, therefore, a member of any national community violates the fundamental contract of his association, by transgressing the municipal law, he forfeits his right to such privileges he claims by that contract; and the state *183may very justly resume that portion of property, or any part of it, which the law assigned him.
1 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England *299-300.
The severe concept of attainder, or corruption of blood, was not carried over into the law of the United States, see U.S. Const, art. Ill, § 3 (“[N]o Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person Attainted.”), or that of the individual states, including Kentucky. See Ky. Const. § 20 (“No person shall be attainted of treason or felony by the General Assembly, and no attainder shall work corruption of blood, nor, except during the life of the offender, forfeiture of estate to the Commonwealth.”). Despite the exclusion of this harsh doctrine, the law in the United States still allowed for significant limitations on the rights of felons. Thus, while the law could allow for forfeiture of the felons’ property, it simply could not affect their heirs.
The American colonists and early American citizens also understood that this deprivation of rights extended to the right to bear arms. Consider the following example: Part of the fight over ratification of the United States Constitution was the anti-Federalists’ concern that it did not contain a bill of rights. Several days after the Pennsylvania Convention voted 46 to 23 to ratify the Constitution, twenty-one of the Convention’s minority members issued a dissenting address calling for a Bill of Rights. Included in their proposed list of rights was a right to bear arms that stated in part: “[N]o law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals.... ” The Address and Reasons of Dissent of the Minority of the Convention of Pennsylvania to their Constituents, 1787 (emphasis added), excerpts reprinted in Bernard Schwartz, The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History 665 (1971). There is little doubt that the citizens of the early United States were sensitive to the possible deprivation of their rights and liberties at the hands of the newly-formed federal government. It is equally clear, however, that their concern did not extend to the rights and liberties of criminals.
Further, this approach makes sense, especially when one considers the simple fact that felons are no longer “free men” under the criminal law. The very nature of the criminal law requires limitations on the rights of those convicted, either through limitations on liberty (imprisonment) or property (fines), as punishment. Limitations on the right to bear arms are part and parcel of that deprivation of rights. Since felons at common law were stripped of their privileges and rights, they are not entitled to the right to bear arms under Section 1(7) of the Constitution of Kentucky. Therefore, I concur in the majority opinion’s conclusion that KRS 527.040 is constitutional.
JOHNSTONE, J., joins this concurring opinion.