Calif. Supreme Court Will Hear Felon Body Armor Case

California’s Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to review a decision last year that overturned a law barring convicted felons from wearing body armor.

Last December the Second Appellate District Court of Appeal’s struck down the 1998  James Guelff Body Armor Act saying the law’s technical definition of body armor “failed to provide fair notice that his body vest was illegal.”

In doing so, the panel reversed a Los Angeles Superior Court’s 2007 decision against Ethan Saleem, who, when arrested by police, was wearing a camouflage vest that “weighed 10 pounds and was labeled, ‘body armor, fragmentation protective vest for ground troops;”  despite being released 9 days earlier on parole for a conviction of voluntary manslaughter – one of the violent felonies specified by Penal Code section 12370.

Body armor proscribed by the statute (section 12370)  must be certified based on its  “ballistic resistance to the penetration of . . . test ammunition.”(Cal. Code Regs., tit. 11, § 942, subd. (e).)

Justice Joan Dempsey Klein of the appeals court in the decision wrote: “[O]nly an expert would know if any particular protective body vest was proscribed by [the statute].  “And, if that is so,” writes Klein, “then we do not see how, without providing something like an official list of prohibited vests, the statute can be said to provide either fair notice to a defendant or meaningful guidelines to the officer on the street.”

California Attorney General Edmund Brown Jr. calls the state’s high court decision to review the case:  “a victory for police officers everywhere.”  “Allowing criminals and gang members to arm themselves with body armor makes no sense, and I’m confident the Supreme Court will reverse this wrong-headed decision,” said Brown.

Brown appealed to the state high court, contesting that the appellate court’s decision “failed to follow the test for determining whether a statute is vague; contradicted the Legislature’s intent in enacting a body armor statute; and needlessly abrogated the entire body armor statute.”

Related posts:

1. Confidence Builds As Supreme Court Will Hear School-Choice Case
2. Liberty Counsel Petitions U.S. Supreme Court to Hear School Graduation Free Speech Case
3. High Court Agreed To Hear Former Enron CEO’s Case
4. ABA Asks Supreme Court to Hear Case on Lack of Judicial Pay Raises
5. NH Supreme Court Will Hear Case of Home-Schooled Girl Ordered Into Government-Run School

Short URL: http://www.christianlawjournal.com/?p=17943