U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Uses Bizarre Defense in Response to DOJ Lawsuit Over Gun Laws

On Friday afternoon I wrote about U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Albert Bryan’s plan to update the territory/s gun laws and make them 2A compliant in the hopes of ending the Department of Justice’s lawsuit. Bryan’s plan falls woefully short of that goal in multiple ways, but he’s at least willing to acknowledge there’s a problem even if he doesn’t have the right answer. 

U.S. Virgin Island Attorney General Gordon Rhea, on the other hand, insists that the USVI is in full compliance with the Second Amendment… and that’s the federal government that’s truly violating the right to keep and bear arms. 

In the USVI’s official response to the DOJ’s complaint, Rhea boldly goes where few attorneys have gone before by arguing that ” the United States of America comes to this court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief with unclean hands.”

Plaintiff invokes 34.U.S.C. §12601 whichauthorizes suit to enjoin any governmental authority, or any agent thereof, or any person acting on behalf of a governmental authority, from engaging in a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers or by officials or employees of any governmental agency with responsibility for the administration of juvenile justice or the incarceration of juveniles that deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. Plaintiff does so while at the same time employing hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers concertedly engaging in patterns and practices of conduct depriving persons of rights, privileges and immunities secured and protected by the 1st, 2nd, 4th , 5th and14th amendments to the Constitution of the United States in connection with President Trump’s immigrant intimidation and mass deportation scheme.

For example, the United States of America asks this Court to enjoin Defendants from alleged practices impacting 2nd amendment rights of its residents while high-ranking officers ofUnited States law enforcement agencies have made public statements indicating that the killing of Mr. Alex Pretti while exercising his 1st Amendment right to protest was justified because he had the audacity to legally carry a firearm on a public street–a right guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment. Similarly, the United States of America has over the past 12 months demonstrated a pattern and practice of routinely unlawfully detaining (and even deporting) both United States Citizens and immigrants without probable cause in violation of their 4th Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and their 5th and 14th Amendment rights to Due Process. The United States of America cannot come to the Court with unclean hands and seek to enjoin others while engaging in such blatant, violative, and abusive patterns and practices itself.

I’ve been covering Second Amendment lawsuits for over 20 years, and this is the most brazenly political response to a complaint that I’ve ever seen. The only thing that even comes close is the amicus brief submitted by Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and four of his anit-gun colleagues in NYSPRA v. City of New York. The case was a precursor to Bruen that SCOTUS ultimately concluded was moot because the state of New York and New York City changed the challenged law after the plaintiffs filed a cert petition with the Supreme Court. 

Whitehouse and his cohorts railed against the NRA and the gun lobby’s “dark money,” and outright threatened the conservative majority with court packing if they didn’t decline the case or sided in NYSRPA’s favor. That was some serious political theater too, but Whitehouse,et al were essentially just an interested third party. Rhea, though, is the guy who’s actually going to be defending the USVI in court, and legally speaking, I think the Latin term for his effort is “cacare in lectum.”

Rhea’s argument makes no sense. Even if you believe that the Trump administration is violating the Constitution with its immigration enforcement efforts, that doesn’t mean that the DOJ can’t bring a suit against a political subdivision for violating the Constitution. The “unclean hands” doctrine is typically used in contract, intellectual property, and family law, not constitutional cases. 

Interestingly, two University of Chicago law professors published a paper last October arguing that rhe unclean-handsdoctrine applies to the executive branch, and they note that Justice Sonya Sotomayor has invoked the unclean hands doctrine in two cases involving immigration enforcement (writing in dissent in both cases, it should be noted). 

I don’t know if this is where Rhea got his big idea, but if I were defending the USVI’s gun control laws I don’t think I’d go with an argument that’s already been rejected by the Supreme Court on multiple occasions. 

While the unclean hands doctrine is Rhea’s affirmative defense, the Attorney General also just outright denied that any of the conduct alleged by the Department of Justice is no longer taking place. 

The Virgin Islands has responded to the federal government’s lawsuit against its gun permit laws by saying:

1) It denies “continued imposition of a ‘good moral character’ requirement, and further [denies] continued discretionary license denials.”
2) “The Commissioner no longer… pic.twitter.com/CSEel97fUh

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) February 6, 2026

Discovery is going to be fun. If the Virgin Islands Police Department is no longer using a “good moral character requirement,” when was that change made? When did the VIPD move to a “shall issue” permitting system and why, given that the legislature hasn’t made that change. 

When did the VIPD quit requiring the “installation of a safe as a condition of the issuance of a firearms permit,” and when did stop conducting the home inspections that were mandatory, according to the DOJ complaint? Are these recent developments? Say, since December, which is when the DOJ’s lawsuit was filed? I don’t think Rhea’s going to be able to get the complaint dismissed by invoking the unclean hands doctrine, and sooner or later he’s going to have to answer those very questions… along with answering for the territory’s infringement on a fundamental right. 

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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