No. 24-7318

Wesley Eron Swick v. United States

Lower Court: Fifth Circuit
Docketed: 2025-05-29
Status: Denied
Type: IFP
Response WaivedIFP Experienced Counsel
Tags: constitutional-rights criminal-law federal-statute gun-rights second-amendment statutory-interpretation
Latest Conference: 2025-06-26
Question Presented (from Petition)

I. Circuit courts of appeals applying Heller, Bruen, and Rahimi have adopted different approaches to testing 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), but each has overlooked three important points about the text and history of the Second Amendment. First, the right to keep and bear arms belongs to "the people," and on its plain meaning, that term of art includes ex-offenders. Second, at the Founding, there was no tradition of premising the rights to keep or bear arms on the absence of a criminal record. Third, all of the contemporary textual and constitutional evidence points in the opposite direction. A criminal conviction might disqualify an ex-offender from holding office or voting, but not a single American jurisdiction exempted the same class from those protected by the Second Amendment or its state-level analogues.

The question presented is:

Whether there is an obvious and irreconcilable clash between § 922(g)(1) and the rights protected by the Second Amendment.

Question Presented (AI Summary)

Whether there is an obvious and irreconcilable clash between § 922(g)(1) and the rights protected by the Second Amendment

Docket Entries

2025-06-30
Petition DENIED.
2025-06-11
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 6/26/2025.
2025-06-05
Waiver of United States of right to respond submitted.
2025-06-05
Waiver of right of respondent United States to respond filed.
2025-05-27
Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due June 30, 2025)

Attorneys

United States
D. John SauerSolicitor General, Respondent
Wesley Eron Swick
Taylor Wills Edwards BrownFederal Public Defender, NDTX, Petitioner