Supreme Court refuses to hear Maryland man's challenge to gun seizure over unpaid child support conviction

The U.S. Supreme Court declined without comment Monday to hear the appeal of Robert L. Fooks, a Wicomico County, Maryland man whose firearms were confiscated because he was convicted of failing to pay child support.

Read that again. Not armed robbery. Not assault. Not drug trafficking. Failure to pay child support.

The decision lets stand a divided Maryland Supreme Court ruling from last summer that upheld the state's authority to permanently strip gun rights from anyone sentenced to two or more years in prison, regardless of whether the underlying offense was violent or dangerous. Fooks was sentenced to four years for "constructive criminal contempt" in 2017. His guns were seized by Fruitland Police in 2021 during an investigation of 13 gun thefts.

The case that should have troubled the Court

Fooks argued in his petition that the seizure was unconstitutional on straightforward grounds: his offense was not violent, no court ever found him to be a credible threat to public safety, he is not a dangerous person, and the ban on his Second Amendment rights is permanent.

That petition landed at the Supreme Court almost immediately after the Maryland ruling. The justices first considered it in October and then took the unusual step of asking the state of Maryland to respond, after the state initially declined to do so. Maryland's response was filed in January, as Maryland Matters reports.

And then, silence. The Court rejected the case without comment Monday.

Maryland's logic, and its slippery slope

The Maryland Supreme Court majority, led by Chief Judge Matthew Fader, rested its reasoning on a simple premise: the state's law is functionally equivalent to a felon-in-possession prohibition, and the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly called such prohibitions "presumptively constitutional."

Fader wrote:

"Based on our conclusion that § 5-133(b)(2) [the challenged law] is the equivalent of a prohibition on the possession of firearms by felons, and the United States Supreme Court's repeated references to such prohibitions as presumptively constitutional, we conclude that it satisfies Second Amendment scrutiny and is facially constitutional."

But here's the problem. Fooks was not convicted of a felony. He was convicted of a common law offense that happened to carry a sentence exceeding two years. Fader acknowledged there was "not any magic afforded to the use of the word 'felony'" in the historical tradition of such laws. Instead, he argued the principle was broader: a "general intent to prohibit the possession of firearms by individuals who have committed offenses the respective legislative body has deemed serious enough to be eligible for a significant term of imprisonment."

That framework hands the legislature a blank check. Whatever offense lawmakers decide deserves a long enough sentence automatically triggers permanent disarmament. The constitutional right evaporates not based on what you did, but on how severely your state chose to punish it.

The dissent saw what the majority wouldn't

Justice Jonathan Biran wrote a 65-page dissent, 22 pages of which traced the history of British and American gun laws. His conclusion was blunt: the majority could not point to a single historical analogue that stripped firearms from someone who posed no threat to public safety.

"The logical conclusion of the Majority's historical analysis is that the General Assembly may make infractions such as jaywalking or exceeding the posted speed limit the basis for permanent firearms disqualification by increasing the maximum penalty for those offenses to imprisonment for more than one year."

Biran argued the state had "disarmed a citizen who violated a legal norm of society but was not viewed as a threat to public safety." That distinction matters. The entire constitutional architecture around the Second Amendment, particularly after the string of recent Supreme Court rulings strengthening gun rights, hinges on whether historical tradition supports the specific disarmament at issue. A contempt conviction for unpaid child support is a far cry from the violent offenses that historically justified stripping someone of arms.

The stolen gun wrinkle

Maryland Justice Shirley Watts wrote a concurring opinion noting "a strong likelihood" that the guns Fooks possessed had been stolen from relatives. She argued that "possession of a stolen firearm was not among the rights intended to be protected."

Fooks steadfastly denied the theft allegation, maintaining the situation was a family dispute over removing firearms from an elderly relative for safety reasons, and that he had put himself "in a situation that is kind of a little awkward" by pawning their guns.

The state, in its response, pushed back hard on Fooks's framing, accusing him of trying to "trivialize" his conviction. Maryland argued the contempt finding was "reserved for 'the most extreme cases'" and was "attributable to" a "willful" and "egregious refusal to comply with a court order concerning one of society's most basic obligations, betraying a disrespect for the law and the legitimacy of the courts that enforce it." The state maintained the law applies only to those who fall outside the category of "law-abiding citizens."

What the Court's silence means

A denial of certiorari is not a ruling on the merits. The Supreme Court's refusal to hear Fooks's case does not mean the justices agree with Maryland's reasoning. It means, for now, the Maryland ruling stands.

But the implications are real. Under the logic the Maryland Supreme Court endorsed, any state legislature can permanently disarm its citizens for any offense it decides to punish with more than two years of imprisonment. The constitutional inquiry collapses into a sentencing question. The Second Amendment becomes contingent not on whether you are dangerous, but on whether your state's criminal code is aggressive enough.

Conservatives have long warned that the incremental erosion of gun rights works exactly this way. Not through dramatic bans that provoke immediate legal challenge, but through quiet expansions of who counts as a prohibited person. Maryland has demonstrated the blueprint:

• Attach a lengthy sentence to a non-violent offense
• Classify anyone sentenced above the threshold as equivalent to a felon
• Invoke the "presumptively constitutional" language around felon disarmament
• Wait for the Supreme Court to look the other way

Every step is defensible in isolation. Together, they form a mechanism for stripping rights from people who never threatened anyone.

A man who didn't pay child support lost his constitutional rights permanently. The highest court in the country couldn't be bothered to say why that's acceptable.