Professor Jacob Charles Cited in United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico Case, United States v. Pierret-Mercedes

Professor Jacob D. Charles is cited in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico Second Amendment case, United States of America v. Diwel Jose Pierret-Mercedes. The case involves a motion to dismiss a charge against Pierret-Mercedes for unlawful posession of a firearm as a prohibited person, 18 U.S.C. section 922(g)(5).

Excerpts from United States of America v. Diwel Jose Pierret-Mercedes:

State restrictions on fundamental rights based on race and religion, such as those these laws may reasonable be seen as representing, would surely be unconstitutional today. However, the Court must objectively consider the why behind them in order to ascertain the scope and limitations of the right enshrined in the Second Amendment. This will sometimes entail examining in some detail the darkest chapters of the nation's history. Bruen all but forces this methodology. See generally Jacob D. Charles, On Sordid Sources in Second Amendment Litigation, 76 Stan. L. Rev. Online 30 (2023), available at https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/on-sordid-sources-in-second-amendment-litigation/ [https://perma.cc/2NGB-4YDT] (last visited Apr. 18, 2024).

---------------

The Supreme Court's Bruen test is a novel standard and, as such, its application can be reasonably expected to vary across the hundreds of federal and state courts in the United States.44

44 For a preliminary survey of the hundreds of cases that have already applied Bruen, see Jacob D. Charles, The Dead Hand of a Silent Past: Bruen, Gun Rights, and the Shackles of History, 73 Duke L.J. 67 (2023).

The complete case may be found at United States v. Pierret-Mercedes