Need court decisions for seminar

Open Carry is carrying a firearm unconcealed in Ohio. OC does not require a concealed handgun license, but the practice requires intimate knowledge of the law since there are places and situations where OC is prohibited but carrying concealed would be permitted. OC is also likely to attract attention. This forum is for discussion of OC, not for debating the pro's and con's or coordinating any type of protest events.

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xpd54
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Need court decisions for seminar

Post by xpd54 »

I'm puting together a seminar for LEOs on encounters with the legally armed citizen. Obviously, OC will be addressed. What I'm looking for are Appeals Court decisions which deal with open carry. Specifically, decisions which hammer LEOs for 4th Am violations for stopping an OC'er for just OCing.

Any help?
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djthomas
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Re: Need court decisions for seminar

Post by djthomas »

This is a tricky one because so many issues related to this don't get to the appellate level because the government sees a losing hand at the first level and moves to settle. Here's a great recent example from Portland, OR. Corvallis open carrier wins settlement.

In this case the federal judge found that the stop lacked reasonable suspicion. The city saw the writing on the wall and a modest settlement was just announced. Then on the flipside you've got a federal judge in another case saying that while the ultimate arrest was unlawful openly carrying a firearm, in and of itself, constituted reasonable suspicion.

I would suggest talking to the City of Columbus law department. I've heard some of their guys speak at LE conferences and they were quite clear that you've got to have more than just the weapons carrying. In the gist of one of the presentations I attended two or three years ago they warned that folks are itching for a confrontation and are likely recording everything. It almost sounded like their officers are on notice that if they take the bait they may be out on their own when the city goes "see we told you so/failure to follow procedure." I must presume that they've done the requisite research to arrive at that conclusion.
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Werz
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Re: Need court decisions for seminar

Post by Werz »

djthomas wrote:This is a tricky one because so many issues related to this don't get to the appellate level because the government sees a losing hand at the first level and moves to settle. Here's a great recent example from Portland, OR. Corvallis open carrier wins settlement.

In this case the federal judge found that the stop lacked reasonable suspicion. The city saw the writing on the wall and a modest settlement was just announced. Then on the flipside you've got a federal judge in another case saying that while the ultimate arrest was unlawful openly carrying a firearm, in and of itself, constituted reasonable suspicion.
As I noted here, the latter case is not as much of a conflict as it might seem to be. One must examine the law of the individual state first.

Given the current status of decisions by the federal appellate courts, the basic rules are something like this:
  • If state law allows open carry without licensure, observation of open carry does not constitute reasonable articulable suspicion to detain. See United States v. Black, 707 F.3d 531 (4th Cir. 2013).
  • If state law prohibits concealed carry without licensure, evidence of concealed carry does constitute reasonable articulable suspicion to detain. See United States v. Lewis, 674 F.3d 1298 (11th Cir. 2012).
"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life."
-- Robert A. Heinlein, Beyond This Horizon
"Remember that protecting our gun rights still boils down to keeping a majority in the electorate, and that our daily activities can have the impact of being ambassadors for the gun culture ..."
-- BobK
Open carry is a First Amendment exercise.
xpd54
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Re: Need court decisions for seminar

Post by xpd54 »

I had the black decision, but not the Lewis one. Thanks.
".....in the end we must still slosh our way through the factbound morass of reasonableness."
- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in Scott v. Harris

The views expressed in this post are my own. They have not been reviewed or approved by my employer.

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Chuck
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Re: Need court decisions for seminar

Post by Chuck »

Werz wrote:
djthomas wrote:This is a tricky one because so many issues related to this don't get to the appellate level because the government sees a losing hand at the first level and moves to settle. Here's a great recent example from Portland, OR. Corvallis open carrier wins settlement.

In this case the federal judge found that the stop lacked reasonable suspicion. The city saw the writing on the wall and a modest settlement was just announced. Then on the flipside you've got a federal judge in another case saying that while the ultimate arrest was unlawful openly carrying a firearm, in and of itself, constituted reasonable suspicion.
As I noted here, the latter case is not as much of a conflict as it might seem to be. One must examine the law of the individual state first.

Given the current status of decisions by the federal appellate courts, the basic rules are something like this:
  • If state law allows open carry without licensure, observation of open carry does not constitute reasonable articulable suspicion to detain. See United States v. Black, 707 F.3d 531 (4th Cir. 2013).
  • If state law prohibits concealed carry without licensure, evidence of concealed carry does constitute reasonable articulable suspicion to detain. See United States v. Lewis, 674 F.3d 1298 (11th Cir. 2012).
Yeah, thank you for this werz,,,,
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