An Austin appeals court must reconsider whether a man accused of stalking and threatening his ex-girlfriend can be banned from owning a gun for life, the Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday.
Justices signaled support for Jonathan Noyes’ argument that, according to the 2024 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a North Texas domestic violence case U.S. v. Rahimi, lower courts improperly prohibited him from owning a gun for the rest of his ex-girlfriend’s Samantha Voges’ life.
But justices stopped short of issuing a decision that lets him own a gun. The court left the ultimate decision up to the Austin-based Third Court of Appeals, which previously upheld the gun ban against the alleged stalker.
“The Texas Constitution probably confers an absolute right to keep and bear arms, with the limited exception that the Legislature can regulate the wearing of arms to prevent crime,” Justice James Sullivan wrote in a 47-page concurring opinion. “So the protective order here, with its blanket ban on firearm possession at any time in Voges’s life, is hard to square with our Arms Clause.”
The appeals court’s ruling could eventually be appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. Noyes will still be forbidden from owning a gun while the case is ongoing.
KERA News has reached out to attorneys for both Noyes and Voges and will update this story with any response.
Noyes and Voges met in 2019 and immediately started dating, according to court records. Voges said Noyes was paranoid throughout their relationship that she was cheating on him. She said he told her if he cheated on him, "he would ruin my life, and they would find me in a dumpster,” according to court filings.
The two broke up in 2021 after a fight where Noyes accused Voges of cheating. Voges said Noyes then sent her more than a thousand threatening and harassing messages, used different phone numbers to reach her and contacted her and her parents even after she changed her own number multiple times.
Police also found that Noyes had put a tracking device on Voges’ vehicle. Noyes was arrested and charged with stalking and harassment. His stalking charge was dismissed, and he was sentenced to county jail for harassment, according to court records, but had jail time credit.
A Comal County judge did not find that Noyes posed a credible threat to Voges’ or others’ physical safety, nor that he engaged in family violence or used or threatened to use a weapon. But the court found that there were “reasonable grounds” that Noyes had been stalking Voges.
The judge issued a protective order in 2021 banning Noyes from talking to, harassing or coming near Voges and her parents, and from owning a gun for both of their lifetimes.
Noyes argued the order violated his rights under the Second Amendment and the Texas Constitution because there was no evidence he had engaged in gun violence or threatened Voges with a gun. The Third Court of Appeals disagreed in 2023, saying that argument should have been brought up earlier, and evidence of gun threats or gun violence isn’t necessary to restrict a person’s Second Amendment rights under part of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.
Months after the appeals court’s ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rahimi, which involved a man accused of shooting a gun into the air while dragging his girlfriend into his car. The U.S. Supreme Court decided the courts can only disarm a person if they pose a credible threat to a person’s physical safety, and that gun ban must be temporary.
The Texas Supreme Court now says that Noyes did bring his constitutional arguments up early enough, and because the Third Court of Appeals made its decision before the Rahimi ruling, the appeals court must reconsider the gun ban imposed on Noyes.
Sullivan’s concurring opinion, which three other justices joined, argues the relevant part of the criminal procedure code violates both the U.S. and Texas constitutions. He relied heavily on historical analysis of Texas and medieval English laws around guns, similar to how U.S. Supreme Court justices relied on that history in Rahimi and other gun law rulings, a controversial approach.
“Rights, like rifles, must be handled with care,” Sullivan wrote.
But the court also acknowledged the extent of Noyes’ alleged harassment.
“The record makes clear that Jonathan Noyes grievously wronged Samantha Voges,” Sullivan wrote. “Nobody deserves such abuse.”
Toluwani Osibamowo is KERA’s law and justice reporter. Got a tip? Email Toluwani at tosibamowo@kera.org.
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