People v. Aguilar

People v. Aguilar
Seal of the Supreme Court of Illinois
Court	Supreme Court of Illinois
Full case name	People of the State of Illinois v. Alberto Aguilar
Decided	September 12, 2013
Citation	2013 IL 112116; 2 N.E.3d 321; 2013 Ill. LEXIS 853; 2013 WL 5080118 (Ill. 2013)
Case history
Prior actions	People v. Aguilar, 408 Ill. App. 3d 136, 944 N.E.2d 814, 2011 Ill. App. LEXIS 103 (Ill. App. Ct. 2011)
Court membership
Judges sitting	CJ. Thomas L. Kilbride; JJ. Charles E. Freeman, Robert R. Thomas, Rita B. Garman, Lloyd A. Karmeier, Anne M. Burke, Mary Jane Theis
Case opinions
Reversed in part and affirmed in part. On its face, Aggravated Unlawful Use of a Weapon, 720 ILCS 5/24-1.6(a)(1), (a)(3)(A) (2008), violated the right to keep and bear arms, as guaranteed by the Second Amendment, because it amounted to a wholesale statutory ban on the exercise of a personal right that was specifically named in and guaranteed by the United States Constitution, as construed by the United States Supreme Court; Defendant's conviction for Unlawful Possession of a Firearm, 720 ILCS 5/24-3.1(a)(1) (2008), was proper because the possession of handguns by minors was conduct that fell outside the scope of the Second Amendment's protection.
Decision by	J. Thomas

People v. Aguilar, 2 N.E.3d 321 (Ill. 2013), was an Illinois Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Aggravated Unlawful Use of a Weapon (AUUF) statute violated the right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment. The Court stated that this was because the statute amounted to a wholesale statutory ban on the exercise of a personal right that was specifically named in and guaranteed by the United States Constitution, as construed by the United States Supreme Court. A conviction for Unlawful Possession of a Firearm (UPF) was proper because the possession of handguns by minors was conduct that fell outside the scope of the Second Amendment's protection.

In 2008, Alberto Aguilar, then 17, was arrested and charged with AUUF and UPF. After being convicted and sentenced to probation by the trial court, he appealed, arguing that both statutes were unconstitutional infringements of his Second Amendment rights. The Illinois Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction, and he appealed that ruling to the Illinois Supreme Court. While Aguilar's appeal was pending, the Federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that the AUUF statute was unconstitutional.

When the matter was decided by the Illinois Supreme Court, they agreed with the Seventh Circuit and declared the AUUF law unconstitutional, but upheld the constitutionality of the UPF law.