From Alaska Court of Appeals Judge Timothy Terrell's concurrence Wednesday in Ivyories v. State:
I write separately to set out my view that the Second Amendment does not permit persons convicted of nonviolent felonies to be deprived of their gun rights after they have served their sentence and any post-release supervision period….
A majority of federal circuit courts have continued to rely on the language from the United States Supreme Court in Heller and succeeding cases and have concluded that statutes prohibiting felons from possessing firearms do not violate the Second Amendment. But the Third Circuit has rejected this view and concluded that persons convicted of nonviolent felonies should not necessarily permanently lose their gun rights. Other circuits have leaned toward that approach or left open the issue of whether some felons (particularly nonviolent felons) may have a viable as-applied challenge to felon-in-possession bans.
I agree with the Third Circuit and write separately to add my voice to the list of judges and courts who have concluded that felon-in-possession bans are unconstitutional as applied to those persons convicted of nonviolent felonies. I recognize that, in Alaska, this issue is currently governed by the Alaska Supreme Court's decision in Farmer v. State. Accordingly, I will not analyze the underlying legal issues in detail. However, cognizant of the possibility that the Alaska Supreme Court may choose to revisit its holding in Farmer, I note below the cases pertinent to the key issues and lay out other jurists' observations that are helpful in thinking about the scope of the Second Amendment.
