Facts
Cedrick Alderman, a Seattle resident and former felon, questioned the Body Armor Act's constitutionality and challenged the Commerce Clause's applicability to the statute. In 1999, police arrested Cedrick Alderman for robbery. Six years later, in 2005, police stopped Alderman, suspecting his involvement in illegal cocaine distribution. Alderman proved his innocence in connection with the drugs, but police charged him with violating the Body Armor Act. The Body Armor Act of 2002 pronounced that any guilty violent felon wearing body armor was breaking the law. When police stopped Alderman, they discovered he was wearing a bulletproof vest and therefore violating the statute. (http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/10/scotus.appeals.rejected/index.html) While possessing the vest was legal under Washington state law, wearing the vest given his criminal record was illegal under the Body Armor Act. A California company manufactured the vest in 1996, later selling it to a distributor in Washington state where Alderman eventually purchased it. The court never questioned this information nor did it accuse Alderman of buying the vest out-of-state or transporting it over state lines. …show more content…
In Gibbons v. Ogden courts ruled that if a state business operates across other state borders, federal law reigns supreme and states may not regulate these transactions. In United States v. Alderman, Alderman argued that he complied with Washington state law regarding the purchase and possession of body armor. However, even though Alderman abided by state law, his transaction involved interstate commerce. Because the entire body armor industry ships its products to distributors in many states, the purchase of any body armor by any person constitutes interstate commerce. For this reason, Congress has the right to regulate any transaction involving the sale of body armor and may override state law as it conflicts with congressional