The message, the Houston Area Women’s Center said, was clear: Abusers were sending “a message of intimidation without even firing their weapons,” and leaving their victims to “live in fear of their power.”
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in March that the restraining order section is unconstitutional, citing the high court’s 2022 ruling. The case that’s reached the high court involves Zackey Rahimi, who was facing a domestic violence restraining order after being accused of assaulting an ex-girlfriend. He was then involved in a series of shootings around Arlington, Texas, and when officers swooped in to get him at his home they found a rifle and a pistol.Rahimi challenged the indictment.
The shelter was part of a wave of interest groups urging the justices to reverse the lower court. They ranged from the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to Democratic members of Congress. “They are an especially dangerous group of people. They have a proven track record of being dangerous and unlike say felony convictions, which could be for a nonviolent offense, domestic abuse by definition is a violent activity, so prohibiting people with a known propensity to violence is probably a good idea,” Mr. Winkler added.