Professor Jacob Charles Cited in Court of Appeals for Indiana Case, Arthur Moore v. State of Indiana

Professor Jacob D. Charles is cited in the Court of Appeals for Indiana case, Arthur Moore v. State of Indiana. The case involves an appeal by Arthur Moore contending that a restriction on his ability to carry a handgun while under indictment violates his constitutional rights under both the Federal and Indiana Constitutions.

Excerpt from Arthur Moore v. State of Indiana:

Bruen’s first step requires us to assess whether the Second Amendment’s plain text covers Moore’s conduct. This analysis asks three questions: (1) Is Moore someone whom the Second Amendment protects? (2) Is the weapon Moore carried in common use today? (3) Does the plain text of the Second Amendment protect Moore’s specific conduct? See Bruen, 597 U.S. at 31–32. Moore claims this “threshold inquiry is easily satisfied here,” Appellant’s Br. at 9, and the State does not contend otherwise, see Appellee’s Br. at 18.8

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8 More specifically, the State agrees “carrying handguns in public for self-defense is conduct that is covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment” and “a citizen who is ‘under indictment’ falls within ‘the people’ to whom the Second Amendment right presumptively applies.” Id. There is ongoing discussion among jurists and scholars concerning whether the Second Amendment protects only the rights of “law-abiding” citizens. See, e.g., Jacob D. Charles, Defeasible Second Amendment Rights: Conceptualizing Gun Laws That Dispossess Prohibited Persons, 83 Law & Contemp. Probs. 53 (2020) (summarizing debate about whether certain groups subject to disarmament fall outside the Second Amendment entirely or instead have defeasible gun rights). 

The complete case may be found at Arthur Moore v. State of Indiana