CHICAGO (CN) - A Seventh Circuit panel Thursday denied to overturn a Wisconsin man's unlawful gun conviction, which he argued ran afoul of his Second Amendment rights.

Edlando Watson was arrested on outstanding cocaine possession and bail jumping charges in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2022. Police later searched a storage locker and found five guns that matched the DNA from Watson's arrest. Prosecutors subsequently charged him with unlawful gun possession in 2023 and argued he could not own a gun as a convicted felon.

"Here, the court asks us to conflate Mr. Watson's predicate convictions as an assumption of inherent dangerousness," Watson's attorney Ellen Matheson, of the Wisconsin firm Foley Lardner, argued before the three-judge panel at Marquette University's law school in September. Seventh Circuit arguments are typically held at the Dirksen Federal Building, but the September arguments were held at Marquette in Milwaukee.

The Seventh Circuit panel, however, disagreed with Matheson's characterization, maintaining that because Watson's drug conviction also included the intention to distribute, it's sufficient with disarmament.

"A dealer of illegal drugs is more than just irresponsible; he is a threat to the physical safety of society," U.S. Circuit Chief Judge Michael Brennan wrote in the panel's 25-page order.

Watson appealed his conviction after the 2022 Supreme Court case New York State Rifle & Pistol v. Bruen, which changed the constitutional muster required for gun restrictions.

Previously, the stringency of gun restrictions was determined by how much a particular restriction burdened the Second Amendment right to self-defense. That precedent was set by a 2008 Supreme Court case, District of Columbia v. Heller. Now, per Bruen, courts must rely on the historical tradition of gun regulations to determine if a particular gun restriction runs afoul of the Second Amendment.

"Congress made the common-sense decision to disarm drug dealers like Watson because they are dangerous," Brennan, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote in the final opinion and order. "History allows for that."

Brennan's characterization of Watson's conviction was unsurprising, as the panel of judges pushed back on the argument that drug convictions are considered nonviolent during oral arguments.

"There are a whole bunch of federal statutes treating people with drug convictions as people who have serious violent felonies on their record," U.S. Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook, a Ronald Reagan appointee, said.

Brennan noted in his order that during the Founding era, people who were thought to be a threat to someone's physical safety were categorically disarmed. During oral arguments, Matheson noted this precedent and 2024 Supreme Court case United States v. Rahimi, which found that if a person is deemed to be a credible danger to society, they may be disarmed consistent with Second Amendment tradition. She maintained that Watson didn't fall under that category.

But the three-judge panel wasn't entirely certain that her argument squared with Rahimi's precedent. Alongside Brennan and Easterbrook, U.S. Circuit Judge Diane Sykes, a George Bush appointee, appeared on the September panel.

"Rahimi also gave us an example of the appropriate level of generality, describing historical surety and going armed laws as restrictions on 'individuals ... threaten[ing] the physical safety of another.' Also important for our inquiry is that more than one kind of historical regulation may justify a single contemporary law," Brennan wrote in the order.

"This tells us that the government may point to more than one 'distinct legal regime' to justify a contemporary regulation," he continued.

Department of Justice attorney Joshua Handell repeatedly emphasized during the September arguments that, regardless of the violence of a particular crime, disarming felons is well in line with historical tradition.

Matheson also brought forward a Fourth Amendment claim and argued Watson's DNA swab exceeded the limit of his arrest warrant. The panel of judges disagreed and noted the affidavit for the warrant provided "more than enough evidence to implicate Watson and lawfully authorize the DNA swab that was taken."

Source: Courthouse News Service