THIS DOCUMENT MAY NOT BE DUPLICATED WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF THE CHIEF OF POLICE.

On August 28, 1998, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down part of the new federal law that prohibits police officers with convictions for domestic violence misdemeanors from carrying a firearm. The case is Fraternal Order of Police v. United States of America, ___F.3d___(D.C. Cir. No. 97-5304, filed August 28, 1998).

The court struck down the portion of 18 U.S.C. § 925(a)(1) that purported to withhold the public interest exception from those convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors. The court found that Congress did not have any rational basis to withhold the public interest exception from those convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors, but allow the exception to apply to those convicted of more serious felonies. In the absence of a rational basis for the distinction, the Court held that § 925(a)(1) denied those subject to its prohibitions to equal protection of the law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The decision does not address that part of the law that disqualifies officers who are subject to a court order which restrains such person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner of such person or child of such intimate partner or person, or engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury to the partner or child.

Technically, the decision binds only those federal district courts located in the District of Columbia Circuit. Additionally, the decision is probably not the last word on the law. The government will more than likely seek review of this decision in the United States Supreme Court. Unless and until the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit issues a similar decision or the United States Supreme Court rules on the law, the disqualification still applies in Kansas.

BY ORDER OF

THE CHIEF OF POLICE