LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – The Kentucky Court of Appeals on Friday reversed a controversial and first-of-its-kind ruling in Louisville that found a convicted felon can't be prosecuted on a firearms charge because it violated his Second Amendment rights.
Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Melissa Logan Bellows ruled in March 2024 that it was unconstitutional for prosecutors to move forward with their case against Jecory Lamont Frazier under a state law prohibiting felons from owning a gun because it doesn’t outweigh the Second Amendment right that belongs to “all Americans.”
State and local prosecutors appealed the ruling, arguing the U.S. justice system has consistently disarmed people "who it deems to be unvirtuous, such as felons" and that the Kentucky Supreme Court has supported this argument.
The appeals court agreed and found Bellows erred, ruling unanimously that the Kentucky Supreme Court, among other high courts, have ruled “felon-in-possession statutes are presumptively constitutional.”
Bellows had ruled prosecutors did not present evidence of a historical tradition of disarming felons after the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791. Prosecutors, she said, failed to prove that state law “is consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
The judge concluded that taking away the right for a felon to have a gun would conclude they are not considered among “the people."
But the court of appeals ruled “history and tradition relevant to the Second Amendment support Congress’ power to disarm those that it deems dangerous,” according to the ruling.
In fact, the appeals court pointed out that penalties for convicted felons owning a gun were harsh “at the time of the founding” and included disarming the person.
Frazier’s charges will be reinstated, according to the ruling.
Attorney Rob Eggert, who represents Frazier, declined to comment.
Frazier was arrested Nov. 6, 2021, after Louisville Metro Police were called to the 3900 block of Taylor Blvd., after a driver hit a pole.
Police claim Frazier attempted to hide something in his vehicle when police arrived and then pulled out a handgun and handed it to a co-defendant “to conceal from officers that he is a felon in possession of a handgun,” according to the arrest citation.
His previous convictions include drug trafficking, fraud, tampering which physical evidence and being a felon in possession of a handgun.
Eggert had asked to dismiss the gun charge and cited a 2019 case in front of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who is now a Supreme Court Justice, where she ruled that “founding-era legislators did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons.”
Eggert wrote that other appeals courts across the nation, including in Mississippi, are ruling that laws prohibiting felons from owning firearms are unconstitutional.
And he pointed out that in 2006, Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Will T. Scott wrote in a dissenting opinion that, historically, Kentucky did not prohibit anyone from owning a firearm, including convicted felons.
The court of appeals noted Scott's dissent and argued the “current scope of convicted felons included persons who would not have been considered dangerous at the time the Kentucky Constitution was both originally drafted and at the time of ratification.”
This story may be updated.
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