A Texas man accused of stalking and harassing his ex-girlfriend could regain his right to keep and bear arms after the Texas Supreme Court ordered a lower court to take a second look at the case.
Jonathan Noyes has been subject to a protective order issued in 2021 that bars him from talking to, harassing or coming near his ex or her parents, as well as prohibiting him from owning a gun for the rest of his life. Noyes contends that condition violates his Second Amendment rights, and in a decision handed down last week, the Texas Supreme Court appeared willing to agree with his argument.
“The Texas Constitution probably confers an absolute right to keep and bear arms, with the limited exception that the Legislature can regulate the wearing of arms to prevent crime,” Justice James Sullivan wrote in a 47-page concurring opinion. “So the protective order here, with its blanket ban on firearm possession at any time in Voges’s life, is hard to square with our Arms Clause.”
Noyes maintains that there is no evidence he had engaged in gun violence or threatened Voges with a gun, though he did plead guilty to harassment in a deal that saw charges of stalking dismissed.
The Third Court of Appeals ruled back in 2023 that Noyes had not submitted a Second Amendment claim in a timely fashion, but also contended that the under the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure a judge can issue a lifetime ban on gun ownership even if there is no evidence of threats or violent acts involving a firearm.
In Friday’s ruling, the Lone Star State’s high court ruled that Noyes’s Second Amendment claim should have been considered, and ordered the Third Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Rahimi.
In that case, SCOTUS ruled that a domestic violence restraining order that prohibits lawful gun possession is constitutional so long as a court has found someone “represents a credible threat to the physical safety” of another, and that the prohibition on gun ownership lasts only as long as the domestic violence restraining order remains in effect.
It’s possible that the appellate court will stand by its previous decision, despite the Texas Supreme Court’s hints that Noyes has a valid argument to make. SCOUS didn’t say that the “credible threat” needed to involve a firearm, and they held that the ban on gun possession can remain in place for the life of the protective order.
In this case, a judge says the order will remain in effect so long as Noyes and his ex-girlfriend are alive. I’m not an attorney, but to me, that seems like the biggest issue.
According to the court record, Noyes allegedly told his then-girlfriend that if she ever broke up with him she would ‘end up in a dumpster,” and is accused of sending “more than a thousand threatening and harassing messages.” Police also discovered that Noyes had put a tracking device on his ex’s vehicle, all of which could reasonably lead a judge to believe that Noyes posed a credible threat to his ex-girlfriend, at least at the time.
Is there any evidence, though, that Noyes has attempted to contact his ex in the five years since that protective order was issued? If not, then why shouldn’t Noyes be able to have that protective order lifted at some point, or at the least the portion of the order that prevents him from lawfully owning a firearm? Can he really be considered a credible threat to his ex for the rest of his life?
I’m not excusing away or minimizing what Noyes is accused of doing. I’ve been the victim of a stalker myself and I don’t wish that hell on anyone. A lifetime prohibition on the exercise of a fundamental right based solely on the existence of a protective order doesn’t sit right with me. Yes, technically it’s an adjudication, which is why I could see the Third Court of Appeals standing by its previous decision, but a) it’s not going to stop someone intent on doing harm from illegally acquiring a gun or using a knife, car, or some other implement to carry out a violent attack and b) it runs a real risk of trampling on the civil rights of someone who is no longer a credible threat to anyone.
It will be interesting to see what the Texas appellate court decides to do here, but either way my guess is that this case is going to end up back before the Texas Supreme Court before all is said and done.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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