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.