LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A Louisville judge who ruled last week that a convicted felon can't be prosecuted on a firearms charge because it violates his Second Amendment rights will issue a new or at least expanded order after checking with the state Court of Appeals, she said in court Tuesday.

"I've made a lot of people mad and I've made a lot of people happy," Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Melissa Logan Bellows said of her March 13 ruling. "But that's the job of the judge."

Her order ruled it is 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."

Frazier was back in court Tuesday as he still has a tampering with physical evidence charge pending in the case.

At the pre-trial hearing, the judge told the Jefferson Commonwealth's Attorney's office and defense attorney Rob Eggert that there will be a "supplemental order" on the gun possession charge issued soon.

The prosecution asked whether the order would change her ruling or just add additional information, as the office is considering an appeal.

Bellows responded that she would "have to discuss that with her staff attorney" but that the court was "seeking clarification" from the Kentucky Court of Appeals.

"It's where it's going," she said, referring to the case likely being appealed. 

Eggert said he was not sure about whether any similar cases have been appealed in Kentucky but that he did know the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the issue in an out-of-state case. 

"So we might be getting some clarification soon?" she asked. "Wow. I didn't realize that. I thought I was the first in Kentucky to rule on this, but I'm not?"

Bellows then asked Eggert when a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court might happen. 

"I don't know, but if they say you are right, judge, you're home free and so am I and so is Mr. Frazier," Eggert said.

Bellows noted that her ruling currently only affects the Frazier case.

In fact, another defendant was sentenced by Bellows to probation on Tuesday after being convicted on the charge of possession of a gun by a felon. 

The prosecution has argued before Bellows that 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.

But Bellows, who was elected in 2022, cited a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that there is a "strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans."

"Therefore, the Court is reluctant to accept that the limits on the right protected by the Second Amendment are defined by a person's virtue or good character," Bellows ruled.

Bellows also ruled the 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."

Frazier was arrested on Nov. 6, 2021, after Louisville Metro Police were called to the 3900 block of Taylor Boulevard, 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.

In October, Eggert, 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.

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Jackson Rice argued in a motion in the case that the U.S. high court rulings cited by Eggert and Bellows did not state that felons should be allowed to own guns.

"While the defendant's conduct — possessing a firearm — might be covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment, the historical tradition of firearm regulation plainly supports a ban on convicted felons being in possession of a firearm," he wrote in a motion.

As far as the historical argument, Rice wrote that in colonial times, convicted felons could not own "property or chattels and, thereby, implicitly, could not possess a firearm."

This story may be updated. 

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