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Legal experts support justice
Brady, a gun seller, raised eyebrows with ruling on guns
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Published: October 11, 2009
RALEIGH - The N.C. Supreme Court justice who wrote a recent decision supporting some convicted felons' right to own a gun is a federally licensed gun dealer and maker, but legal experts say he did not violate any rules.
Justice Edward Thomas Brady has earned money from gun sales since 2007. Brady wrote the 5-2 decision in August that a 2004 state law barring convicted felons from having a gun, even in their own home or business, is unconstitutional.
Gun-control advocates say that Brady should have recused himself.
"I don't think gun dealers should be deciding the constitutionality of gun laws," said Dennis Henigan, a vice president at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in Washington.
A law professor also said it seemed improper.
Gene Nichol at UNC Chapel Hill said "it sure smells" when a "highly activist opinion is written by a gun dealer and manufacturer."
But other North Carolina legal experts say that there is no conflict, since the decision applied only to felons whose rights were previously restored, then taken away by the 2004 law.
Former chief justices Burley Mitchell, a Democrat, and Beverly Lake, a Republican, said that Brady did not have a financial interest or personal connection to the case, and that the narrow ruling means there won't be a rush of felons buying guns.
"I've got a driver's license, but I regularly ruled on cases involving automobiles and driver's rights," said Mitchell, chief justice from 1995 to 1999. "If a judge starts recusing over connections that remote, you'll have a judiciary that can dodge every difficult case."
Brady, who declined requests for interviews, was elected in 2002 as a Republican to an eight-year term. State judicial races now are nonpartisan.
In August, the high court ruled in the case of Barney Britt of Wake County that the General Assembly went too far when it toughened restrictions on felons owning guns as part of a broad anti-domestic-violence bill.
Britt was convicted of felony drug possession in 1979. He completed his sentence in 1982, and his right to own a gun was restored five years later. Before 2004, Britt could keep any firearm at his home or business, and have rifles and shotguns -- but not handguns -- elsewhere. The 2004 law made it illegal for a convicted felon to own any firearm in any location.
According to his Web biography, Brady has been a member of the National Rifle Association since 1966 and an avid "participant in shooting sports." The decorated Vietnam veteran has held his gun dealer and manufacturing licenses since at least 2007, according to federal records. He's not required to specify how much he's made in the business, only that the amount is greater than $5,000.
The director of legal ethics at Duke University Law School said that the decision would be a bigger issue if it had broadly allowed felons to buy guns.
"You could say, ‘Look, he's creating a market for himself,'" said Kathryn Webb Bradley. "But I think that's a stretch in terms of what's going to happen. This isn't an opinion that directly rules in favor of gun dealers."
Brady did not violate any rules, she said, though his experience as a gun dealer might give him a certain perspective.
"It's possible that colored his sense of the issue," she said, "but that wouldn't violate the code of judicial conduct any more than a judge opposed to gun ownership ruling on it."
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