Court Opinion

ID: 9496683
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:32:21.459899+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:43.461212
License: Public Domain

*996WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join the majority opinion with respect to parts II.A-C and II.E, but respectfully disagree with its conclusion in part II.D that Gillaum must have all civil rights restored by a discharge order before his prior Illinois convictions may be excluded at sentencing.
Section 921(a)(20) provides that “[a]ny conviction ... for which a person ... has had civil rights restored shall not be considered a conviction for purposes of this chapter, unless such ... restoration of civil rights expressly provides that the person may not ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms.” 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20) (emphasis added). On its face, the statute does not require that all civil rights be restored, and it is here that our inquiry should end. Hubbard v. United States, 514 U.S. 695, 703, 115 S.Ct. 1754, 131 L.Ed.2d 779 (1995) (“In the ordinary case, absent any ‘indication that doing so would frustrate Congress’s clear intention or yield patent absurdity, our obligation is to apply the statute as Congress wrote it.’ ”) (citation omitted); see also United States v. Chemetco, Inc., 274 F.3d 1154, 1159 (7th Cir.2001) (“When the language of a statute is clear and unambiguous, we must give effect to its plain meaning unless doing so would ‘thwart the purpose of the overall statutory scheme.’ ”) (citation omitted).
The cases on which the majority relies, see Dahler v. United States, 143 F.3d 1084 (7th Cir.1998), and United States v. Glaser, 14 F.3d 1213 (7th Cir.1994), are not outcome determinative because we were not in those cases addressing the question of whether all civil rights had to be restored before a conviction was to be excluded. Indeed, in those cases we were dealing with documents that explicitly restored “any” or “all” civil rights that had been lost as a result of conviction, and that is clearly not the case in the matter presently before us. See Dahler, 143 F.3d at 1087 (order provided that “[a]ny civil rights lost as a result of conviction ... are restored by virtue of this discharge”) (emphasis added); Glaser, 14 F.3d at 1218-19 (order restored Glaser to “all civil rights and to full citizenship ... the same as if such conviction had not taken place”) (emphasis added).1 Our commentary in United States v. Erwin, 902 F.2d 510 (7th Cir. 1990), that “[i]f the state sends the felon a piece of paper implying that he is no longer ‘convicted’ and that all civil rights have been restored, a reservation in a corner of the state’s penal code can not be the basis of a federal prosecution,” should not be read to require that all civil rights must be restored before a document restoring civil rights is sufficient to exclude a conviction as provided in section 921(a)(20). 902 F.2d at 512-13 (emphasis in original). This dicta at best discusses one situation in which a government document might actually restore civil rights. Any more expansive reading of Erwin is in direct conflict with the language in the statute.
I recognize the intuitive appeal of the argument that when only a few civil rights are explicitly restored by a discharge order, and others are not, a person such as Gillaum could not reasonably be “mousetrapped” into believing his right to carry firearms had been restored when it was not specifically enumerated in the order. The statute, however, does not make an enumeration distinction. It simply provides that if a person “had civil rights restored,” the conviction shall not count *997unless the person was informed in the right-restoring document that he or she “may not ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms.” 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20). Because Gillaum had civil rights restored by the discharge orders from the Governor of Illinois, and was not informed in those documents that he could not possess or carry a firearm, these prior convictions should not have been used in determining his sentence. For these reasons, I would vacate the judgment of the district court and remand for resentencing without the inclusion of these prior convictions.2

. This court’s decision in United States v. Wagner, 976 F.2d 354 (7th Cir.1992), is similarly inapposite as Wagner did not allege that he ever received any express notice that his civil rights had been restored, and the court was examining whether his civil right to carry guns had otherwise been restored under Indiana state law. Id. at 355.

. It may be that Gillaum ultimately receives the same sentence, as the district court only relied on three of his many previous convictions (only two of which are at issue here), and one or more of his other convictions (for which he did not receive a discharge order) may meet the requirements of 18 U.S.C. § 924. See Dahler, 143 F.3d at 1088.