On July 25, 2024, Carissa Larkin was shot and killed by her former fiancé in the parking lot of her Clark County apartment complex. She was holding her 4-year-old son at the time. Just months earlier, Larkin had obtained a protection order against her abuser, fearing for her life. However, the Clark County Superior Court refused to order her former partner to surrender his firearms, citing a lack of authority due to the controversial Flannery decision.
Larkin's tragic death underscores a critical issue in Washington State: the widespread confusion in interpreting state laws governing weapons surrender orders for perpetrators of domestic violence. This ambiguity has led many courts, particularly those in Southwest and Southeast Washington counties, to refuse to issue weapons surrender orders altogether. The result is a dangerous "justice by geography,” where a victim's safety could depend on where they happen to live within the state.
The legal landscape
The roots of this issue trace back to the 2022 Flannery decision, where the Washington Court of Appeals ruled that orders requiring perpetrators of domestic violence to turn over their guns in certain cases violated the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth and Fifth Amendments. This decision, coupled with varying interpretations of subsequent legislative attempts to address it, has created a patchwork of rulings across the state.
While a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Rahimi affirmed that domestic abusers can be prohibited from possessing firearms without violating Second Amendment rights, it did not address the Fourth and Fifth Amendment concerns that are prevalent in Washington State cases.
Mary Welch, Advocacy Counsel with the Northwest Justice Project (NJP), explains, "Perpetrators have argued that an order to surrender weapons is an unlawful search in violation of the 4th Amendment. But the 4th Amendments is not violated because there is no search by a government entity when a court orders a party to go to their own home and look for firearms or other dangerous weapons.”
As to the 5th Amendment, a person must show a realistic threat of self-incrimination with an order to surrender firearms to have a viable 5th Amendment challenge, Welch says.
Pushing past confusion
The Washington State Legislature attempted to address these concerns with the "Flannery Fix" in July 2023. However, the “Fix” did not bring agreement among the state’s courts.
This ongoing confusion has potentially dire consequences. In addition to Larkin's case, another woman, Amber Rodriguez, was killed in Benton County in April 2024 after a court declined to issue a weapons surrender order as part of her protection order.
NJP is working tirelessly to address this issue. "Our primary strategy involves appealing cases to force higher courts to weigh in," Welch says. "That is the only way we will get clarity on what the lower courts should be ordering with regard to the surrender of weapons."
NJP advocates continue to seek protection orders and argue for weapons surrender, forcing courts to put their reasons for denial on record. However, Welch emphasizes that a definitive solution requires action from the state's highest court: "Justice by geography will continue until the Washington Supreme Court weighs in on an appeals case, so that all courts are bound by the same decision."
The Stakes
The importance of the issue is clear: research shows that the presence of a firearm in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 11 times. Nearly one million women alive today in the United States have reported being shot or shot at by intimate partners, and over 4.5 million have been threatened with a gun by an intimate partner.
As cases like Carissa Larkin's and Amber Rodriguez's tragically demonstrate, the stakes in this legal debate are literally life and death. Until the Washington Supreme Court provides clear guidance, domestic violence victims in the state will continue to face heightened risks, their safety too often dependent on the county in which they reside.
The Northwest Justice Project and other advocates continue their fight, counting on future rulings to prioritize victim safety and bring consistency to the application of weapons surrender laws across Washington. In the meantime, they urge awareness of the issue and support for domestic violence victims navigating this complex and dangerous legal landscape.