HARTFORD, Conn. (Legal Newsline) - The Connecticut Supreme Court ordered the state to issue a pistol permit to a man who was denied because of a drug conviction in New York, ruling that state law doesn’t include prohibitions on firearms permits over out-of-state misdemeanors.
Anthony Leo appealed to the Connecticut Board of Firearms Permit Examiners after the Stratford Police Department denied his permit because of a conviction for ketamine possession in New York 10 years before. The police department argued conviction for possession of a controlled substance was an automatic disqualifier under state law.
At an administrative hearing in 2018, a board member told a Stratford police detective that automatic disqualification only applied if Leo had violated the specific law named in the state statute. Upon hearing this, the detective said he wasn’t aware of that, and the police department changed its stance to argue it didn’t matter because Leo had been convicted of an equivalent law in New York.
After questioning Leo, the board decided he was suitable for receiving a permit and reversed the police department’s decision and ordered the license to be issued. The Stratford police appealed to a trial court, which rejected the board’s interpretation of the law and backed the police. The trial judge said the board had abused its discretion by ordering Leo to receive a permit, saying it had failed to consider the legislative intent and “the danger posed by providing pistol permits to persons known to abuse controlled substances.”
The board then appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court. In an April 26 decision by Justice Andrew J. McDonald, the court reversed, saying that while the firearms licensing board may consider an out-of-state conviction in its overall assessment of an applicant’s suitability, it isn’t an automatic bar under state law. Other Connecticut laws state explicitly that licenses can be barred over out-of-state convictions, the court ruled, so there is no reason to think legislators wouldn’t have made it explicit in this case if that was their intent.
We cannot say with certainty why the legislature chose not to include an equivalency provision in that statute, but what we can say with certainty is that the policy decision to incorporate such an equivalency provision rests with that branch of government, not this one,” the court ruled.
One reason might be that Connecticut residents arrested for misdemeanor drug possession can participate in drug-treatment programs that erase their record before conviction, the court said, meaning an actual conviction might represent years of recidivism and failed attempts to quit an addiction. Legislators might not have been willing to make that same assumption about out-of-state convictions.
The court also reaffirmed the power of the firearms board to decide whether an applicant is suitable. At Leo’s hearing, examiners questioned him extensively about his 2006 conviction and he said it was a “club drug” he used more than a decade before as a young man.
We therefore disagree with the police department’s contention that the board abused its discretion in finding that the defendant was suitable to obtain a pistol permit in Connecticut,” the court concluded.
Leo was represented by attorney C. Christian Young.