Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
From: [l v c] at [cbvox1.att.com]
Subject: Supreme Court to hear case involving ex-felons, firearms
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 01:49:56 GMT

Copyright 1993 by UPI
Reposted with permission from the ClariNet Electronic Newspaper
newsgroup clari.news.law.supreme.  For more info on ClariNet,
write to [i--o] at [clarinet.com] or phone 1-800-USE-NETS.

	WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal
involving the rights of convicted felons and under what conditions they
can possess a firearm.
	The justices are being asked to decide whether state or federal law
prevails when it comes to restoring civil rights.
	Two cases are being reviewed.
	The first involves a man who was convicted in 1979 of a federal
firearms felony in western Tennessee, but who eventually had his civil
rights automatically restored by the state. While a car dealer in
Raleigh, N.C., however, the man was again arrested in 1990 on federal
charges after he applied for a firearms' dealers license.
	The man wrote ``no'' on a federal form that asked him whether he'd
ever been convicted of a felony.
	A federal jury convicted the man of 11 firearms violations, but the
judge granted a motion of acquittal because of the Tennessee statute.
	The second case involves a West Virginia man convicted of felonies in
state courts in 1968 and 1978, and in federal court in 1971. When he was
released from a West Virginia prison in 1982, the man received a
certificate from the state saying his civil rights had been restored.
	But he was indicted and convicted on federal firearms violations
similar to the North Carolina car dealer.