Fifth Circuit Finds Reckless Driver Too Dangerous to Own Guns

The Fifth Circuit Court docket of Appeals has upheld the ban on firearm possession for a felon who was at fault in a reckless driving incident.

On Wednesday, a unanimous three-judge panel tossed Joseph Lee Betancourt’s Second Modification problem to the federal felon gun ban. They rejected his argument that his conviction shouldn’t result in disarmament as a result of he didn’t deliberately hurt these injured within the automobile accident he induced. As a substitute, the panel discovered his acts confirmed he’s a hazard to society, and the federal government can bar him from proudly owning weapons.

“The small print of Betancourt’s aggravated assault convictions present that his Second Modification problem should fail,” Choose Catharina Haynes wrote in US v. Betancourt. “As described above, Betancourt disregarded a flashing crimson gentle whereas driving at his car’s most pace, 107 miles per hour, inflicting a significant crash and critical accidents to 2 folks. He accordingly ‘poses a menace to public security.’”

The ruling is among the first the place an appeals court docket has held that the Second Modification doesn’t defend a felon whose conduct didn’t contain a firearm or intent. It provides to the decrease court docket break up over which felons may be disarmed and continues the development of courts upholding most purposes of federal gun legal guidelines. The development started with 2024’s US v. Rahimi when the Supreme Court docket allowed the federal government to disarm a person for being a “clear menace of bodily violence” if they’d a home violence restraining order issued in opposition to them.

In Rahimi, the defendant was convicted of possessing firearms after his home violence restraining order had stripped him of his Second Modification rights. Since then, the Supreme Court docket has not taken up every other disarmament instances, however a number of decrease courts have expounded on different offenses they consider justify the punishment.

This case stems from a pair of felony convictions for aggravated assault associated to the identical incident.

“Betancourt had been driving at his car’s most pace of 107 miles per hour, with the accelerator totally activated,” Choose  “He disregarded a flashing crimson gentle and induced a significant collision. His car flipped a number of instances, and his passenger was ejected from the car. The passenger and the motive force of the opposite car had been hospitalized. The passenger wanted stitches to shut a laceration on her face, and the opposite driver wanted surgical procedure to restore a ruptured small gut.”

Betancourt pled responsible to the costs. After he served the time for the aggravated assault conviction from the reckless driving, he was arrested throughout a separate home violence incident–which might independently result in his disarmament below federal legislation. Police searched Betancourt’s house and located weapons and ammunition. He was charged with violating the federal felon-in-possession ban.

Betancourt pled responsible to that cost as effectively, however with the choice to file for enchantment. He then appealed on the premise that the federal ban, as utilized to him, violates the Second Modification. He claimed that his predicate felony conduct was dedicated out of recklessness slightly than intent to injure others, and since his predicate offense didn’t contain a firearm, his offense was not a ample cause to strip away his rights.

Betancourt argued that the Second Modification protected his proper to own a firearm as a result of there aren’t any analogous Founding-Period gun restrictions that may have seen him equally disarmed for his conviction stemming from the reckless driving incident.

The panel, which additionally included a pair of Invoice Clinton appointees, disagreed. It cited the check established in 2022’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Affiliation v. Bruen, which assesses when a authorities regulation violates the Second Modification. The panel stated the primary a part of the check assesses whether or not the Second Modification’s plain textual content covers the regulated conduct. Then, it argued the court docket “should reveal that the regulation is in line with this Nation’s historic custom of firearm regulation.”

The panel pointed to latest instances the place judges outlined the Founding Period authorized custom and argued they had been “relevantly related” to the case at hand.

In Rahimi, the Supreme Court docket dominated that “[a]n particular person discovered by a court docket to pose a reputable menace to the bodily security of one other could also be briefly disarmed in line with the Second Modification.” Final 12 months, in Diaz v. US, the Fifth Circuit dominated that regulating an individual’s possession of a firearm primarily based on prior convictions which can be “punishable by imprisonment for a time period exceeding one 12 months” match into the American custom of arms regulation and, thus, Second Modification protections don’t apply.

The panel additionally cited 2025’s US v. Schnur. In Schnur, the defendant was equally convicted of possessing a firearm after a predicate offense that didn’t contain a firearm. The panel held that Schnur was a legitimate precedent in opposition to Betancourt’s argument that he couldn’t be disarmed as a result of his preliminary conviction wasn’t gun-related.

“Instances like Diaz, Schnur, and Williams reveal the existence of a Founding-era authorized custom that was utilized in a method ‘relevantly related’ to the appliance at present of § 922(g)(1) to Betancourt,” Choose Haynes wrote.

In the end, the panel dominated that in Betancourt’s predicate felony, he had put his passenger and the passengers of the opposite car in danger, thus putting him within the class of “clear menace to bodily violence.”

“Particularly, he ‘put’ his passenger’s ‘security in danger,’ together with the protection of the motive force of the opposite car, who wanted surgical procedure after Betancourt induced the crash. In brief, the Second Modification doesn’t prohibit making use of § 922(g)(1) to him right here.” Choose Haynes wrote. “We subsequently are unpersuaded by Betancourt’s argument that there’s not a sufficiently apt Founding-era analogue for his aggravated assault convictions below which the Founding technology would have disarmed the offender.”