In re Appeal of Z.L. From Denial of Firearms Purchaser Identification Card and Handgun Permits, 440 N.J. Super. 351 (App. Div. 2015). Z.L. applied for a firearms purchaser identification card and permits to purchase a handgun. Applications for such permits go first to the local police chief. After an investigation into Z.L.’s background was done, the police chief denied the application for the permits. He explained that the investigation had “revealed a past history of domestic violence. This in itself may indicate a public safety concern.” The history was that in 1998, Z.L.’s wife had called police and charged Z.L. with simple assault, though she did not follow through on her complaint so the charge was not sustained. Moreover, between 2003 and 2011, police responded five times to other domestic dispute complaints by Z.L.’s wife.
Z.L. appealed to the Law Division, but that court upheld the police chief’s decision, based on the history of domestic disputes. That court reached that conclusion based, in part, on the fact that Z.L. confirmed that history in his testimony to the Law Division, and despite Z.L.’s further testimony attempting to soft-pedal that history and to claim that his more recent relationship with his wife was “great.”
Today, the Appellate Division, speaking through Judge Kennedy, turned away Z.L.’s appeal and affirmed the decisions below. Judge Kennedy observed that the Gun Control Law, N.J.S.A. 2C:58-3(c), presumes that there is a right to possess firearms, except for certain good cause. One of the good cause exceptions is “where the issuance [of permits] would not be in the interest of the public health, safety or welfare,” a test that is “intended to address issues of individual unfitness, not otherwise categorized in the statute.”
The hearing in the Law Division was to be a plenary review of the police chief’s decision, and the police chief has the burden of proving that an applicant is not entitled to receive a permit. The Law Division’s findings of fact, however, are not to be overturned unless those findings “would work an injustice.” The panel did not find that to be so of the findings regarding the history of domestic disputes here. Judge Kennedy noted that the Law Division judge saw the witnesses and was able to assess their credibility. That judge’s evaluation could not be second-guessed on a “cold record.”
Z.L. raised two other arguments. First, he contended that the Law Division had wrongly put the burden of proof on him by requiring him to testify first at the hearing and to address the history of domestic disputes. Judge Kennedy found that the Law Division had “properly allocated the burden of proof,” and he rejected the argument that Z.L. had been “required” to testify first by stating that this notion was “belied by the record.” Second, Z.L. complained that the State was allowed to develop the history of domestic disputes on cross-examination of Z.L. that went beyond the scope of his direct testimony. Judge Kennedy found no error. This was an evidential ruling that was within the discretion of the Law Division judge to make, and evidence of the domestic disputes, even without a resulting criminal conviction, was probative.