Convicted of five felonies, Glen Prince was about to face a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison after being charged in federal court with possession of a firearm as a felon, following an armed robbery on a CTA train in 2021.
However, Prince’s case was recently dismissed by a federal judge who ruled the law prohibiting felons from owning firearms unconstitutional, citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman is the first of its kind in Chicago’s federal court and adds to the ongoing legal uncertainty surrounding this issue as it makes its way back to the Supreme Court.
This carries significant implications in Chicago, where numerous pending cases of felons in possession of firearms were being prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office, in an effort to combat the city’s pervasive gun violence.
However, the U.S. attorney’s office has immediately appealed Gettleman’s decision, which contradicts previous rulings by other district judges upholding the law, asserting that Second Amendment rights on gun possession traditionally apply only to “law-abiding citizens.”
Nationally, the U.S. Justice Department has urged the Supreme Court to overturn a lower-court ruling that found the law violated the constitutional rights of a felon who possessed a weapon after pleading guilty to food-stamp fraud.
These legal battles stem from Congress’s 1961 decision to institute a lifetime ban on firearm possession for all convicted felons, which was recently challenged and expanded by the Supreme Court in its 2022 ruling in New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
In his opinion, Gettleman highlighted the historical precedents and constitutional protections for gun possession, stating that these cases “rest on the severity” of the law rather than its categorical prohibition.
Prince’s case, however, has taken a dramatic turn as he now faces new charges in Cook County, which resulted in his immediate arrest after being released from federal custody.
Amid the ongoing legal battle and escalating charges, Prince’s case has become emblematic of the complex and evolving legal landscape surrounding the possession of firearms by felons, with far-reaching implications for similar cases across the country.
