Billy Walker v. United States

CLAY, J. (pp. 730-36), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

ROGERS, Circuit Judge.

Federal law generally bars both state-convicted and federally-convicted felons from possessing firearms, unless (among other conditions) their civil rights have been “restored.” The Supreme Court has held that whether a felon’s civil rights have been restored must be determined under the law of the convicting jurisdiction. Beecham v. United States, 511 U.S. 368, 114 S.Ct. 1669, 128 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994). In rejecting the argument that a state’s restoration of the civil rights of a federal felon was…