Court Rules Non-US Felonies Don’t Count
by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
In a stunning 5-3 decision, the US Supreme Court has ruled that foreign convictions do not prohibit firearm ownership in the United States,
The case involved Pennsylvania resident Gary Sherwood Small, who had been convicted of a firearms violation in Japan. Days after returning to this country in 1998 following his parole from a Japanese prison, Small purchased a handgun and when he filled out the federal Form 4473, he answered “no” to a question about whether he had ever been convicted of a felony.
In 2000, Small was indicted for lying on the form, and for owning the handgun and ammunition.
The majority opinion in the Supreme Court appeal was written by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who noted, “We have no reason to believe that Congress considered the added enforcement advantages flowing from inclusion of foreign crimes, weighing them against, say, the potential unfairness of preventing those with inapt foreign convictions from possessing guns.”
Breyer said that application of foreign convictions might not be fair, because foreign courts may not have the same protections for a defendant that American courts do.
While this case is a victory for Small, it could open the door for Thomas Lamar Bean of Texas to regain his firearms rights, said attorney Stephen Halbrook, an expert in gun rights cases. He told Gun Week that Bean’s attorney, Thomas Goldstein, should quickly file a motion to have that case reviewed.
Goldstein indicated that is exactly what might happen. At press time, he had not yet spoken with Bean.
“I would think that what happened to Tommy Bean, a great injustice, is going to finally now be addressed,” Goldstein said. “I would think this is a clear signal that his rights not only are going to be restored, but that they were never taken away lawfully anyway.”
In March 1998, Bean—then a licensed firearms dealer—was in Laredo, TX, attending a gun show. One evening he and his companions decided to cross the Rio Grande into Mexico for dinner. He had advised his assistants to remove all guns and ammunition from his Chevrolet Suburban, but somebody forgot one box of shotgun shells.
Bean was arrested at the border by Mexican police and charged with a felony: importing ammunition into Mexico. He was sentenced to five years in a Mexican prison, but was transferred back to the United States after only six months. Soon afterward, Bean was released.
The case caused something of an international uproar and led the Mexican government to reduce the severity of that crime to a misdemeanor. But the damage to Bean had been done because his foreign felony conviction stripped him of his right to own firearms and his right to a federal firearms license.
In July 1999, Bean petitioned the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for restoration of his rights, but because Congress halted funding for the ATF to conduct restoration investigations back in 1992, the process could not proceed. Bean then sued in federal court, and a judge granted Bean’s request to restore his rights. The government appealed and the case went to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed the decision. In December 2002, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the lower courts, leaving Bean without his gun rights.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing the unanimous opinion of the justices, said that Bean could only go to court if his request was denied by ATF. The bureau never acted on his application because it had been prevented from doing so by the continuing congressional denial of funding for ATF investigations necessary for a restoration of rights.
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