Stimmel v. Lynch

• Decision Date: 28 September 2015
• Docket Number: CASE NO: 5:14CV2081
• Parties: Terry Lee Stimmel, Plaintiff, v. Loretta Lynch,et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio

Terry Lee Stimmel, Plaintiff, v. Loretta Lynch,et al., Defendants.

CASE NO: 5:14CV2081

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO EASTERN DIVISION

September 28, 2015

JUDGE JOHN ADAMS

ORDER AND DECISION

(Resolving Doc. 6)

Pending before the Court is Defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint (Doc. 6). Plaintiff Terry Lee Stimmel has opposed the motion, and Defendants have replied. The motion to dismiss is GRANTED.

I. Legal Standard

The Sixth Circuit stated the standard for reviewing a motion to dismiss in Assn. of Cleveland Fire Fighters v. Cleveland, 502 F.3d 545 (6th Cir. 2007) as follows:

The Supreme Court has recently clarified the law with respect to what a plaintiff must plead in order to survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007). The Court stated that "a plaintiff's obligation to provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do." Id. at 1964-65 (citations and quotation marks omitted). Additionally, the Court emphasized that even though a complaint need not contain "detailed" factual allegations, its "[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level on the assumption that all the allegations in the complaint are true." Id. (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). In so holding, the Court disavowed the oft-quoted Rule 12(b)(6) standard of Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46 (1957) (recognizing "the accepted rule that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of factsin support of his claim which would entitle him to relief"), characterizing that rule as one "best forgotten as an incomplete, negative gloss on an accepted pleading standard." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 563.

Id. at 548. Instead, "a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (internal quotations omitted).

If an allegation is capable of more than one inference, this Court must construe it in the plaintiff's favor. Columbia Natural Res., Inc. v. Tatum, 58 F.3d 1101, 1109 (6th Cir. 1995) (citing Allard v. Weitzman, 991 F.2d 1236, 1240 (6th Cir. 1993)). This Court may not grant a Rule 12(b)(6) motion merely because it may not believe the plaintiff's factual allegations. Id. Although this is a liberal standard of review, the plaintiff still must do more than merely assert bare legal conclusions. Id. Specifically, the complaint must contain "either direct or inferential allegations respecting all the material elements to sustain a recovery under some viable legal theory." Scheid v. Fanny Farmer Candy Shops, Inc., 859 F.2d 434, 436 (6th Cir. 1988) (quotations and emphasis omitted).

II. Facts

On November 6, 1997, Plaintiff Terry Stimmel pled no contest to domestic violence, a first degree misdemeanor. The victim was his wife at the time, Doris Stimmel. In 2002, Stimmel sought to purchase a firearm from his local Wal-Mart. Stimmel was informed by the salesperson that he failed the required background check and could not purchase a firearm. Stimmel appealed the denial of his purchase to the FBI. His appeal was denied because his conviction rendered him ineligible to own a firearm under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9). Stimmel now alleges that he desires to purchase and own a firearm for defending himself and his home. As such, he now seeks adeclaration that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) violates his Second Amendment rights and that certain acts by Congress have violated his right to equal protection under the law. The Government defendants have sought to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The Court now resolves the motion.

III. Analysis

The Second Amendment provides: "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." U.S. Const. amend. II. In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms without regard to Militia service. Id. at 595, 598-99. The Court held that the Second Amendment codified the pre-existing right to keep and bear arms. See id. at 592 (noting that "it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right"). The core right recognized in Heller is "the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home." Id. at 635.

At the present time, United States v. Greeno, 679 F.3d 510 (6th Cir. 2012) provides the framework for analyzing a Second Amendment claim in the Sixth Circuit.¹

Since the Supreme Court's decision in Heller, courts have wrestled with its text to develop a sound approach to resolving Second Amendment challenges. Several circuits have adopted a two-pronged approach. See United States v. Marzzarella, 614 F.3d 85, 89 (3d Cir. 2010) ("As we read Heller, it suggests a two-pronged approach to Second Amendment challenges."); Chester, 628 F.3d at 680 (applying two-pronged approach); Ezell v. City of Chicago, 651 F.3d 684, 701-03 (7th Cir. 2011) (same); United States v. Reese, 627 F.3d 792, 800-01 (10th Cir.2010) (same).

Under the first prong, the court asks whether the challenged law burdens conduct that falls within the scope of the Second Amendment right, as historically understood. Chester, 628 F.3d at 680. As the Seventh Circuit recognized, "Heller suggests that some federal gun laws will survive Second Amendment challenge because they regulate activity falling outside the terms of the right as publicly understood when the Bill of Rights was ratified." Ezell, 651 F.3d at 702. If the Government demonstrates that the challenged statute "regulates activity falling outside the scope of the Second Amendment right as it was understood at the relevant historical moment—1791 [Bill of Rights ratification] or 1868 [Fourteenth Amendment ratification]—then the analysis can stop there; the regulated activity is categorically unprotected, and the law is not subject to further Second Amendment review." Id. at 702-03.

"If the government cannot establish this—if the historical evidence is inconclusive or suggests that the regulated activity is not categorically unprotected—then there must be a second inquiry into the strength of the government's justification for restricting or regulating the exercise of Second Amendment rights." Id. at 703. Under this prong, the court applies the appropriate level of scrutiny. Marzzarella, 614 F.3d at 89. If the law satisfies the applicable standard, it is constitutional. Id. If it does not, "it is invalid." Id.

We find this two-pronged approach appropriate and, thus, adopt it in this Circuit.

United States v. Greeno, 679 F.3d 510, 518 (6th Cir. 2012).

In examining the first prong of the test adopted in Greeno, this Court must be mindful that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms "is not unlimited." Heller, 554 U.S. at 626. Heller explained that "[f]rom Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose." Id. While not defining the full scope of the Second Amendment right, Heller's dicta noted:

[N]othing in [the] opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

Id. at 626-27, 627 n. 26. "Relying on that language from Heller, this Court has held that § 922(g)(1) comports with the Second Amendment, stating that 'prohibitions on felon possession of firearms do not violate the Second Amendment,' and 'Congress's prohibition on felon possession of firearms is constitutional.' United States v. Carey, 602 F.3d 738, 741 (6th Cir. 2010)." United States v. Whisnant, 391 Fed. Appx. 426, 430 (6th Cir. 2010).

18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) provides that it is unlawful for any person "who has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce." In its motion, the Government urges that this type of prohibition is one that existed prior to the enactment of the Second Amendment and therefore falls outside the scope of the Amendment. In response, Stimmel contends that "the crime of domestic violence is of more recent vintage than the ratification of either the Bill of Rights or of the Fourteenth Amendment." Doc. 9 at 10. Stimmel then details that historically, well into the 1800s, it was not a crime for a husband to physically assault his wife in some capacity. Based upon those facts, Stimmelasserts that the prohibition at issue regulates activity that was traditionally within the scope of the Second Amendment.

Stimmel's arguments regarding the "more recent vintage" of domestic violence laws have been squarely rejected in an analogous context by the Sixth Circuit in Greeno:

The mere fact that drug laws and the Section 2D1.1(b)(1) enhancement were not enacted until recently does not automatically render the possession of weapons by drug traffickers within the scope of the Second Amendment right as historically understood. Nothing in Heller suggests such a static reading of the Second Amendment. Thus, we look to the broader question of whether the Second Amendment right, as

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