Who was the defendant in District of Columbia v Heller

The Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling at the end of last year’s term with the case District of Columbia v. Heller. Richard Heller challenged the District’s law banning virtually all handguns on Second Amendment grounds. The Court agreed with Heller, finding the ban unconstitutional and holding that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep suitable weapons at home for self-defense unconnected to militia service. The impact of this decision will continue to be analyzed for many years.

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Summary

In 2008, the Supreme Court did something it had not done in seventy years: it ruled on the meaning of the Second Amendment. Furthermore, District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) was the first time the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment in terms of what it meant for an individual’s right to possess weapons for private uses such as self-defense.

The District of Columbia had one of the strictest gun laws in the country. It included a ban on virtually all handguns. Furthermore, long guns had to be kept unloaded, and disassembled or trigger-locked. Richard Heller believed the law made it impossible for him to defend himself in his home. He also believed that the law violated the Second Amendment.

The District of Columbia argued that the opening phrase of the amendment, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,” known as the prefatory clause, limited the “right of the people” to have weapons only in connection with militia service. The city also pointed out that the law did not ban all guns, and that it was a reasonable way to prevent crime.

The Court agreed with Heller and overturned the District’s law. The Court reasoned that the prefatory clause gave one reason for the Second Amendment, but it did not limit the right listed in the operative clause—the second part of the amendment—to own weapons only for militia service. “The prefatory clause does not suggest that preserving the militia was the only reason Americans valued the ancient right…” The Court also reasoned that elsewhere in the Constitution, such as the First, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments, the phrase “the right of the people” is used only to refer to individual rights—that is, rights held by people as individuals. It is this phrasing that is used in the operative clause of the Second Amendment.

Finally, the Court reasoned that the right to own weapons for self-defense was an “inherent” (in-born) right of all people. “It has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it ‘shall not be infringed.’”

Four of the nine Supreme Court Justices dissented. (They disagreed with the Court’s ruling.) Some of the dissenters agreed that the Second Amendment protected an individual right. However, they argued that the scope of that individual right was limited by the amendment’s prefatory clause. One dissenter agreed that the Second Amendment protected an individual right, but argued that the District law was a reasonable restriction.

One thing is certain. Like all other rights in the Bill of Rights (such as freedom of speech and press), the right to keep and bear arms has limits. Working out the limits of the Second Amendment’s protection will continue to challenge society.

Questions

1. Read the Second Amendment and underline the prefatory clause. Circle the operative clause.
2. Why did Richard Heller challenge the District of Columbia’s law banning virtually all handguns?
3. What arguments did the District of Columbia make in support of the law’s constitutionality?
4. How did the Supreme Court rule, and what was its reasoning?
5. Do you agree with the Court’s ruling? Why or why not?

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller directly impacted only a handful of gun owners, but it was one of the most significant Second Amendment rulings in the country's history. Although the Heller decision only specifically addressed gun ownership by residents of federal enclaves like Washington, D.C., it marked the first time the nation’s highest court gave a definitive answer on whether the Second Amendment provides an individual with the right to keep and bear arms.

• Case Argued: March 18, 2008
• Decision Issued: June 26, 2008
• Petitioner: District of Columbia et al.
• Respondent: Dick Anthony Heller
• Key Questions: Did the provisions of the District of Columbia Code that restrict the licensing of handguns and require licensed firearms kept in the home to be kept nonfunctional violate the Second Amendment?
• Majority Decision: Justices Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito
• Dissenting: Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
• Ruling: The Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to bear arms and that the district’s handgun ban and trigger lock requirement violated the Second Amendment.

Dick Anthony Heller was the plaintiff in D.C. v. Heller. He was a licensed special police officer in Washington who was issued and carried a handgun as part of his job. Yet federal law prevented him from owning and keeping a handgun in his District of Columbia home.

After learning of the plight of fellow D.C. resident Adrian Plesha, Heller unsuccessfully sought help from the National Rifle Association with a lawsuit to overturn the gun ban in D.C.

Plesha was convicted and sentenced to probation and 120 hours of community service after shooting and wounding a man who was burglarizing his home in 1997. Although the burglar admitted to the crime, handgun ownership had been illegal in D.C. since 1976.

Heller was unsuccessful in convincing the NRA to take up the case, but he connected with Cato Institute scholar Robert Levy. Levy planned a self-financed lawsuit to overturn the D.C. gun ban and hand-selected six plaintiffs, including Heller, to challenge the law.

Heller and his five co-plaintiffs — software designer Shelly Parker, the Cato Institute’s Tom G. Palmer, mortgage broker Gillian St. Lawrence, USDA employee Tracey Ambeau and attorney George Lyon — filed their initial lawsuit in February 2003.

The initial lawsuit was dismissed by a U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. The court found that the challenge to the constitutionality of D.C.’s handgun ban was without merit. But the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed the lower court’s ruling four years later. In a 2-1 decision in D.C. v. Parker, the court struck down sections of the 1975 Firearms Control Regulation Act for plaintiff Shelly Parker. The court ruled that portions of the law banning handgun ownership in D.C. and requiring that rifles be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock were unconstitutional.

State attorneys general in Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah and Wyoming all joined Levy in support of Heller and his co-plaintiffs. The state attorney general offices in Massachusetts, Maryland and New Jersey, as well as representatives in Chicago, New York City and San Francisco, joined in support of the District's gun ban. 

Not surprisingly, the National Rifle Association joined the cause of the Heller team, while the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence cast its support to the D.C. team. D.C.

Mayor Adrian Fenty petitioned the court to hear the case again weeks after the appeals court ruling. His petition was rejected by a 6-4 vote. D.C. then petitioned the Supreme Court to hear the case.

The case title technically changed from D.C. v. Parker at the appeals court level to D.C. v. Heller at the Supreme Court level because the appeals court determined that only Heller’s challenge to the gun ban’s constitutionality had standing. The other five plaintiffs were dismissed from the lawsuit.

This didn't change the merit of the appeals court’s decision, however. The Second Amendment was set to take center stage at the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time in generations.

D.C. v. Heller garnered national attention as individuals and organizations both in favor of and opposed to the gun ban lined up to support either side in the debate. The 2008 presidential election was just around the corner. Republican candidate John McCain joined a majority of U.S. Senators – 55 of them – who signed a brief favoring Heller, while Democrat candidate Barack Obama did not.

The George W. Bush administration sided with the District of Columbia with the U.S. Department of Justice arguing that the case should be remanded by the Supreme Court. But Vice President Dick Cheney broke from that stance by signing the brief in support of Heller.

A number of other states joined the fight in addition to those that had cast their support for Heller earlier: Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia. Hawaii and New York joined the states supporting the District of Columbia.

The Supreme Court sided with Heller by a 5-4 majority, affirming the appeals court’s decision. Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the court’s opinion and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., and justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, Jr. Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer dissented. 

The court ruled that the District of Columbia must give Heller a license to possess a handgun inside his home. In the process, the court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to bear arms and that the district’s handgun ban and trigger lock requirement violated the Second Amendment.

The court’s decision did not prohibit many existing federal limitations to gun ownership, including limitations for convicted felons and the mentally ill. It didn't affect limitations preventing the possession of firearms in schools and government buildings.