From “slaynews.com”
A Missouri court just ruled that Mark McCloskey is still guilty of the gun charges that the state’s Republican governor issued an official pardon for.
McCloskey is the attorney who was infamously caught on camera – alongside his wife – brandishing a firearm amid a Black Lives Matter protest that took place outside of his home during the summer of 2020.
The McCloskeys were forced to exercise their Second Amendment rights to defend themselves and their property after the BLM mob had gathered outside their home.
Despite the couple legally owning the firearms and not firing any shots, Democrat prosecutors charged the McCloskeys with gun crimes.
As a result, their firearms were confiscated bu authorities.
The local outlet KMOV St. Louis reports:
The Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, has ruled a St. Louis attorney who brandished firearms at protesters in 2020 is not entitled to have the weapons returned despite a gubernatorial pardon.
What makes this story particularly interesting is the court’s reason for ruling against McCloskey.
The court essentially said that, although McCloskey has been pardoned, he is still guilty and, therefore, not allowed to get his weapons back.
Following the media attention to the images of the McCloskeys’ brandishing of weapons, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner, a Democrat, brought various charges against the couple.
The charges included weapons and evidence tampering allegations.
On a side note, nine of the leftist protesters were issued trespassing citations for the incident.
However, they never faced any penalty because prosecutors claimed that they acted peacefully.
Gardner ended up being removed from the McCloskeys’ case.
Nevertheless, the charges that she had brought against them remained.
The two were charged with unlawful use of a weapon, which is a felony.
The felony, however, ended up being downgraded to a misdemeanor assault charge.
The catch is that the McCloskeys had to plead guilty to the misdemeanors. They did so.
Then, in August 2021, Missouri’s Republican Gov. Mike Parson pardoned them.
The McCloskeys next brought a lawsuit to recover the firearms that had been taken from them following the incident.
At the trial court level, the McCloskeys lost this lawsuit.
The court essentially ruled that, even though Parson pardoned the McCloskeys, they were still guilty because they pled guilty to the misdemeanors and thus not entitled to get their guns back.
Dissatisfied with this outcome, the McCloskeys decided to appeal this decision to Missouri’s Eastern District Court of Appeals.
A three-judge panel issued their decision this past week, on Tuesday, December 26, 2023.
In this decision, the appellate court judges agreed with the decision of the trial court.
The judges wrote:
“While we agree that the pardon restored all of his rights forfeited by the conviction and removed any legal disqualification, disadvantage, or impediment, Missouri law is unequivocal that a gubernatorial pardon obliterates the fact of the conviction, not the fact of guilt.
“Thus, McCloskey’s guilty plea, for which he obtained the benefit of the State dismissing a felony charge punishable by jail time, survived the pardon and importantly, with respect to the issue at hand in this replevin action, triggered the guns’ forfeiture.
“Therefore, since McCloskey’s guilt remains, it follows that he is not entitled to the return of the weapons.”
The question that many are now asking is, if the pardon “restored all of his rights forfeited by the conviction,” then why are the McCloskeys not entitled to get their guns back?
The answer is not obvious.