Notable state court ruling finds violation of Iowa Constitution prosecuting gun possession by "nonviolent drug-offense felons"

In the wake of Bruen and Rahimi, I have primarily sought to follow federal Second Amendment litigation over various provisions of federal criminal gun dispossession laws.  But a kind reader has sent me a notable new state court ruling on this topic, Iowa v. Dickson, No. FECR020524 (Iowa D. Ct. Sept. 13, 2024).  The full ruling, which can be downloaded below, runs a full 31-pages and covers lots of state and federal law.  Here are a few excerpts which highlight why its merits a full read:

This Court ... generally finds [persuasive] the historical analysis set forth in a dissenting opinion by then-Judge Barrett in Kanter v. Barr, 919 F.3d 437 (7th Cir. 2019).... [showing] that history does not support a conclusion that a legislature may disarm all felons — violent and nonviolent alike — merely on account of their status as felons.  But this Court is not convinced that the historical evidence discussed in Jackson and then-Judge Barrett's dissent in Kanter is really best read as establishing the principle that a legislature may, consistent with the right to keep and bear arms, prohibit the possession of arms by all of the members of any group which the legislature, constrained only by its own discretion, deems to be dangerous.

The Court's doubt about the conclusion is based in part on common sense.  If that broad reading of the principle reflected in the historical evidence is correct, then, for example, Congress presumably could pass a statute categorically prohibiting all persons who are not members of the military or sworn peace officers from keeping and bearing arms, and so long as that statute contained a statement declaring that the law arose from Congress's conclusion that persons other than members of the military and sworn peace officers are too dangerous to possess firearms, the prohibition would be constitutional under the Second Amendment.  It seems to this Court exceedingly unlikely that the right to keep and bear arms which the Second Amendment protects has ever been understood to permit firearms regulations of that kind, or to be consistent with a principle from which such a regulation could arise....

Accordingly, the Court is not persuaded that our General Assembly may, consistent with the right to keep and bear arms recognized in article 1, section 1A, disarm any category of individuals whom the General Assembly deems to be dangerous.  And the Court therefore concludes that the State has failed to carry its burden to "affirmatively prove that" § 724.26(1), as applied to nonviolent drug-offense felons like the Defendant here, "is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms." Bruen, 597 U.S. at 19....

The Defendant's prior felony convictions are for nonviolent drug distribution offenses.  Nothing about such offenses inherently raises a suspicion that a person who has committed such offenses is a threat to public safety.  And the State has produced no evidence suggesting that one convicted of such offenses is likely to be violent or dangerous.

Accordingly, the Court is unable to conclude that that § 724.26(1), to the extent that it disarms nonviolent felons like the Defendant, is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest.  And as such, the Court concludes that § 724.26(1) is unconstitutional as applied to the Defendant, under article 1, section 1A of the Iowa Constitution.

Download Order granting motion to dismiss filed 9-13-24 Iowa v. Dickson 922g