Name: Court Watch: High Court Upholds Gun Possession Ban for Felons
Brand: urbanmilwaukee.com
SKU: urbanmilwaukee-com-39
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Court Watch: High Court Upholds Gun Possession Ban for Felons

preview

Court WatchBut state research used to push for this criticized in Supreme Court decision.//end headline wrapper ?&gt;Get a daily rundown of the top stories on Urban MilwaukeeWisconsin Supreme Court. Photo by Dave Reid.Did the state misrepresent data it used to argue that convicted felons should never be allowed to own guns?State Supreme Court Justice said yes, and an analysis of the data suggests the state’s presentation was misleading, at best.It is unclear, though, that having more accurate data would have changed the court’s ruling in &nbsp;a decision that upheld the gun possession ban law that courts had previously upheld.Assistant State Attorney General and Attorney General contended in a brief that a&nbsp; &nbsp;showed that&nbsp;“Public-order offenders had a significant rate of recidivating with violent crimes. For example, based on data from prisoners released in 2011 for public order offenses, 21.4% recidivated with a violent offense…”But this reporter’s analysis of the data contained in the report found that only 6% of public-order offenders recidivated with violent crimes.When asked for comment for this via email, Burgundy simply referred me to the DOC study.Public-order offenses, the study said,&nbsp; included non-property, non-violent crimes such as fifth- or sixth-offense drunk driving, felony failure to pay child support, possession of a firearm by a felon, and felony bail jumping.The appellant in the gun case, , was convicted in 2003 of felony failure to pay child support and was placed on probation, which he completed. But in 2015, police found a gun under his mattress, and he was convicted of felon in possession of a gun and sentenced to 18 months in prison and 18 months of extended supervision.Roundtree argued unsuccessfully that the gun ban was unconstitutional when applied to non-violent offenders like him.DOC defined recidivism in its report asBurgundy and Kaul, in their brief, also said the study’s data showed that “the 21.4% of public-order offenders recidivating with a violent crime was higher than that of property offenders (16%) and drug offenders (17.9%),” they wrote. “And it was just seven percentage points lower than the rate of violent offenders (28.3%).This reporter’s analysis found that 6.6% of property offenders, 5.5% of drug offenders, and 7.7% of violent offenders recidivated with violent crimes.The DOC study did&nbsp;not&nbsp;measure the released offenders who recidivated with violent crimes, as the brief suggested. It measured instead the share of&nbsp;recidivists&nbsp;who committed such crimes, as Hagedorn said in his dissent.The state’s brief did not make clear that the percentages it cited so prominently represented&nbsp;a percentage of percentages.Justice cited the state’s figures in the majority opinion upholding the gun possession ban.“This data is surely sufficient to support a substantial relation between keeping firearms out of the hands of those convicted of nonviolent felonies and the public safety objective of preventing gun violence,” Walsh Bradley wrote.Hagedorn, in dissent, disagreed.“That’s simply not what the study says, and it is an egregious error in light of its almost singular prominence in the State’s effort to prove the requisite connection,” Hagedorn wrote in a dissent​“It should be obvious, then, that this (21.4%) statistic offers no assistance in establishing the relationship between past crime and a person’s risk to commit gun-related violent crime in the future, which is the core inquiry of the intermediate scrutiny analysis,” he noted.&nbsp;writes a&nbsp;&nbsp;for&nbsp;, whose mission is “To improve the quality of justice in Wisconsin by educating the public about legal issues and encouraging civic engagement in and debate about the judicial system and its operation.”: ,You must be an Urban Milwaukee member to leave a comment. Membership, which includes a host of perks, including an ad-free website, tickets to marquee events like Summerfest, the Wisconsin State Fair and the Florentine Opera, a better photo browser and access to members-only, behind-the-scenes tours, . ..If you are an existing member, to leave a comment.Have questions? Need to report an error?755 N. Milwaukee St.Milwaukee, WI 53202414-395-0632© 2022, Urban Milwaukee, Inc. All rights reserved.This ad will close automatically in 15 seconds.Tired of seeing banner ads on Urban Milwaukee? .

Court WatchBut state research used to push for this criticized in Supreme Court decision.//end headline wrapper ?&gt;Get a daily rundown of the top stories on Urban MilwaukeeWisconsin Supreme Court. Photo by Dave Reid.Did the state misrepresent data it used to argue that convicted felons should never be allowed to own guns?State Supreme Court Justice said yes, and an analysis of the data suggests the state’s presentation was misleading, at best.It is unclear, though, that having more accurate data would have changed the court’s ruling in &nbsp;a decision that upheld the gun possession ban...

Court Watch: High Court Upholds Gun Possession Ban for Felons

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS