Solomon v. Cook Cnty. Bd. of Commissioners
| Decision Date | 13 September 2021 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 17-cv-6144 |
| Citation | 559 F.Supp.3d 675 |
| Parties | Simon SOLOMON, Plaintiff, v. The COOK COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Marshall C. Libert, Marshall C. Libert, Attorney at Law, Westmont, IL, Sheldon M. Sorosky, Law Office of Sheldon Sorosky, Wilmette, IL, 1st Ilia Usharovich, Ilia Usharovich, Attorney at Law, Wheeling, IL, for Plaintiff.
Blanca R. Dominguez, Office of the Illinois Attorney General, Chicago, IL, for Defendant Lisa Madigan.
Jessica Megan Scheller, Jennifer C. King, Lauren Elizabeth Miller, Paul Anthony Castiglione, Office of the Cook County States Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Defendants Thomas Dart, Kimberly Foxx, luis arroyo, Jr., Richard Boykin, Jerry Butler, John P. Daley, Dennis Deer, John Fritchy, Bridget Gainer, Jesus G. Garcia, Gregg Goslin, Edward Moody, Stanley Moore, Sean M. Morrison, Timothy O. Schneider, Peter N. Silvestri, Deborah Sims, Larry Suffredin, Jeffrey Tobolski.
For the reasons set forth below, the Court grants in part and denies in part Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment [100] and grants in part and denies in part the cross-motions of the County Defendants [105] and Intervenor-Defendant [103]. Specifically, Plaintiff's motion is granted as to Count I and denied as to Counts II and III, and the cross-motions of the County Defendants [105] and Intervenor-Defendant [103] are denied as to Count I and granted as to Counts II and III. As a consequence of its ruling in Plaintiff's favor on Count I, the Court finds the firearms regulations at issue to be unconstitutionally overbroad. Nevertheless, the Court temporarily stays enforcement of its ruling for six months—i.e. , until March 15, 2022—to provide the General Assembly an opportunity to act definitively on this matter if it chooses to do so.
Plaintiff Simon Solomon challenges a state law and a forest preserve ordinance that prevent concealed carry license holders from carrying concealed weapons in the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. He alleges that the statute and the ordinance violate the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, as well as the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. He sued various Cook County entities and officials, who, along with Intervenor-Defendant the State of Illinois, vigorously defend the statute and the ordinance on the grounds that the entire Forest Preserve District is a "sensitive place" on which firearms regulations are presumptively lawful, and that the regulations pass intermediate scrutiny because they are substantially related to public safety. The factual and procedural background of the case is as follows.
Plaintiff Simon Solomon is 63 years old and a resident of Cook County. [94 at ¶ 66[A].]2 For the past 25 years, Plaintiff has owned and operated a carpet cleaning business. [Id. at ¶ [67[A].] Plaintiff has never served in the military, worked in law enforcement, or worked in any unit of government, nor has he ever worked for the Forest Preserve District of Cook County or had employment within a forest preserve. [Id. at ¶¶ 68[A], 69[A].] Plaintiff is also a firearm owner and obtained his Illinois concealed carry license ("CCL") approximately five years ago. [Id. at ¶ 70[A].] The process included completing a paper application and attending a 16-hour, two-day class. Id. [Id. at ¶ 70[A].]
Plaintiff has been visiting properties owned by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County ("FPDCC" or the "Forest Preserve") for about forty years. [Id. at ¶ 71.] In addition to FPDCC property, Plaintiff also visits forest preserve properties within DuPage County and Kane County. [Id. at ¶ 84.] He spends "99 percent" of his time on FPDCC property fishing. [Id. at ¶ 72.] In the summertime, Plaintiff drives to the Skokie Lagoons and fishes at the same spot every night on his way home from work. [Id. at ¶¶ 73, 74.] The Skokie Lagoons are FPDCC property, which Plaintiff knows, and consist of seven lagoons connected by channels on the Skokie River. [Id. at ¶ 75.] The property closes each night at sunset, which Plaintiff also knows. [Id. at ¶ 77.]
On April 30, 2015, Plaintiff stopped at his usual fishing location within the Skokie Lagoons on his way home from work. [Id. at ¶ 79.] As Plaintiff was finishing his fishing for the night, he was approached by a FPDCC police officer for being on FPDCC property after sunset. [Id. at ¶ 80.] The FPDCC officer discovered that Plaintiff was carrying a weapon in violation of FPDCC Ordinance 3-3-6 (discussed below) and arrested him. [Id. at ¶ 81.] The FPDCC confiscated two firearms from Plaintiff: a 45 caliber Colt Semi Auto handgun and a North America Arms 22 caliber Derringer. [Id. at ¶ 82.] Plaintiff has never been assaulted, attacked, or threatened on FPDCC property. [Id. at ¶ 83.]
The Forest Preserve District of Cook County was created more than a hundred years ago for the purpose of "protecting and preserving the flora, fauna, and scenic beauties within such district, and to restore, restock, protect and preserve the natural forests and such lands ... in their natural state and condition, for the purpose of the education, pleasure, and recreation of the public...." 70 ILCS 810/7 ; [94 at ¶ 6.] The Forest Preserve District contains roughly 70,000 acres throughout Cook County and owns 3,538 acres of land within Chicago city limits. [Id. at ¶¶ 8, 10.] The FPDCC estimates that it receives approximately 62 million visits by county residents annually. [Id. at ¶ 7.]
The FPDCC features many family-friendly attractions, including the Brookfield Zoo and the Chicago Botanic Garden, which together host nearly three million visitors annually. [Id. at ¶ 11.] Brookfield Zoo estimates that it received 1,909,187 visitors in 2018, including 1,188 children at its Zoo Camp and 1,644 adults and children in its family play programs. [Id. at ¶¶ 12,13.] Zoo Camp is offered in the summer to children ages four to fourteen at Brookfield Zoo. [Id. at ¶ 13.] The Botanic Garden hosted more than one million visitors in 2018, including 25,000 students through guided field trips. [Id. at ¶ 14.]
The FPDCC also contains four snowmobile areas and eight designated sledding hills [id. at ¶ 15]; three aquatic centers and eleven boat launch areas [id. at ¶ 16]; and five campgrounds and almost 300 picnic groves [id. at ¶ 17].
As noted above, one purpose of the FPDCC is to protect and preserve natural forests and land, together with their flora and fauna, "as nearly as may be, in their natural state and condition, for the purpose of the education, pleasure, and recreation of the public." 70 ILCS 810/7 ; [94 at ¶ 19.] To this end, the FPDCC features six Nature Centers, which provide educational programming about FPDCC flora and fauna to pre-K through 12th grade students. The Nature Centers are also designed for service-learning projects and nature play. [Id. at ¶ 20.] The total number of people served at Nature Centers was 485,630 in 2017 and 449,273 in 2018. [Id. at ¶ 21.] The FPDCC Nature Centers hosted 866 school programs in 2017 and 771 school programs in 2018. [Id. at ¶ 22.]
The FPDCC requires permits for multiple activities on its property, including camping, facility rentals, large group picnics, and organized athletic events. [Id. at ¶ 23.] In 2018, the FPDCC issued 7,398 picnic and event permits, including athletic permits, for events on FPDCC property. [Id. at ¶ 24.] (This total does not include permits given out by the FPDCC for volunteer events.) In total, 788,745 individuals attended the 7,398 permitted non-volunteer events in 2018. [Id. at ¶ 25.] Separately, there were 31 and 29 athletic leagues registered to use FPDCC facilities in 2017 and 2018, respectively. [Id. at ¶ 26.] The majority of these athletic leagues are for persons under the age of 18, including high school athletic programs and various youth leagues. [Id. at ¶ 27.] Each of the hundreds of events hosted at an FPDCC site by athletic leagues in 2017 and 2018 ranged in attendance from 20 to 100 people. [Id. at ¶ 28.]
Additionally, the FPDCC provided over 100 education groups with permits to facilitate their own education programming at various FPDCC sites outside of the Nature Centers in 2018. [Id. at ¶ 29.] Of the 107 education groups that received FPDCC permits in 2018, 95 groups included youths or teens or both, while twelve groups conducted educational programming for college-aged adults. Of those 95 groups, 89 included only youths or teens, two included teens and adults, and four included people of all ages. [Id. at ¶ 30.] In total, the FPDCC hosted education programming for 7,894 youths and teens in 2018. [Id. at ¶ 31.]
In 2018, the FPDCC held 58 Litter Cleanup Volunteer Workdays, during which school, youth, and community groups, facilitated by the FPDCC, cleaned up a grove, river, lake, or trail on FPDCC property. [Id. at ¶ 32.] In 2018, 1,978 people participated in the Litter Cleanup Volunteer Program. The FPDCC estimates that 1,780 of these individuals were youth participants. [Id. at ¶ 33.] The FPDCC also runs an Ecological Stewardship Program, through which Ecological Stewardship volunteers help increase native biodiversity and protect threatened plant and wildlife habitats on FPDCC property. [Id. at ¶ 34.] In 2018, the FPDCC estimates that 2,106 youth participated in the Ecological Stewardship Program. [Id. at ¶ 35.] The number of youths that participated in the FPDCC-affiliated youth Mighty Acorns (MA) and Citizen Scientists (CS) programs totaled 8,015 in 2017 and 10,045 in 2018. [Id. at ¶ 36.]
The FPDCC Sign Manual & Standards ("the Manual") outlines FPDCC protocol as to where and how signs...
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