SPRINGFIELD — A state appeals panel has ruled the director of the state police should not have been held in contempt for initially refusing to issue a firearms permit, then issuing only a restricted permit.

A 4th District Appellate Court this week officially ruled the department did not violate a judge’s order when his agency gave a man a restricted permit due to his long-ago domestic violence conviction.

The case, Terry L. Willis v. Macon County State’s Attorney, is the latest in a line of rulings that tries to tease out the interaction between state and federal gun laws as well as a recent, split Illinois Supreme Court decision on the topic.

It was originally released in October as an unpublished order, but the justices published it this week at the request of the attorney general.

The case began in April 2014 when Willis had his state Firearm Owner Identification card revoked after applying for a new concealed carry permit. Willis had been convicted of battery against his wife in 1978, and prosecutors argued that because of that conviction, he was prohibited by federal law from owning a gun.

Sixth Judicial Circuit Judge Albert G. Webber in July 2014 ruled that because Willis hadn’t been convicted of the crime in decades, the Illinois State Police should issue him a license.

The state police department filed to intervene in the case in August 2014, arguing the order should be vacated because, under Section 10(c)(4) of the FOID Act, gun rights cannot be restored to someone who is not allowed to own a gun under federal law. And Section 922(g)(9) of the federal Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits people from owning guns if they’ve been convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence and haven’t had their civil rights restored.

A month later, Willis filed to have former state police director Hiram Grau held in contempt for not issuing him a permit. In October 2014, the trial judge allowed the state police motion to intervene, but denied its motion to vacate his previous ruling. He also denied Willis’ first request to hold the director in contempt.

But in November of that year, Willis filed another motion to hold the director in contempt, saying the department had issued him a permit but declared it invalid. The state police responded that it gave him a card and attached a letter saying that he should get clarity from federal authorities on his right to a permit.

Willis argued that when the police revoked his owner’s permit, he had to transfer his weapons to another person. When he tried to get the weapons back after being issued a new card and informing the state police of the transfer, he was denied.

More evidence was presented in January and February of 2015, including that of Jessica Trame, the state police firearm services bureau chief. She told the court her bureau oversees firearm transfer inquiries, concealed carry licenses and determines FOID card eligibility. It is required to report people to a national background check system if they are prohibited by state or federal law from owning firearms.

The bureau gets guidance and training from federal authorities, and if it fails to follow guidelines, it could be sanctioned and lose access to the background check database, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS.

Trame also testified that the state police implemented specific policy changes to research misdemeanor domestic violence convictions after a 2009 FBI audit found the department noncompliant in that area of its job.

She also said the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had told her bureau that neither the state police director nor Illinois courts could remove the federal gun restriction on people who’ve been convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors.

After testimony from Willis about his conviction — which he said stemmed from an accident while he was trying to defend himself and infant daughter from his wife’s attacks with a frying pan — Webber ruled in his favor.

He ruled that, per the 2013 Illinois Supreme Court decision in People v. Coram, the federal restriction for domestic violence should be removed from Willis’ record; the current director of the state police, Leo Schmitz, should be held in contempt until Willis got a valid permit and fined for each day forward that Willis went without a valid permit.

The state police were also ordered to pay Willis nearly $6,000 in attorney fees.

In a nine-page opinion authored by Justice John W. Turner, the panel ruled Schmitz should not have been held in contempt because the state police did not violate Webber’s original July 2014 order to provide Willis a permit.

That order “did not expressly require the [s]tate [p]olice to alter its database or issue petitioner a FOID card without federal prohibitors,” Turner wrote. “Moreover, the record does not show the circuit court expressly amended its original order to include the issuance of a FOID card without restrictions when it denied the [s]tate [p]olice’s motion to vacate and petitioner’s motion for rule to show cause.”

Additionally, even if those actions were implied by the order, Willis didn’t present evidence to show someone could be held in contempt for violating implied terms of a court order, Turner wrote.

The panel, which also consisted of Justices Thomas M. Harris Jr. and Thomas R. Appleton, also wrote that the high court decision in Coram did not control this case. Although the lead opinion in that ruling says state judges were given “broad powers” by Congress to restore gun rights and grant relief from federal prohibitions, the opinion centered on state gun laws before they were updated in 2013.

That opinion did touch on the new changes to the law in 2013, the ones that apply to Willis’s case, but “those comments were dicta and a majority of the court did not agree with that dicta,” Turner wrote, citing a two-judge concurrence and a two-judge dissent in the case.

“This court has held that, under the 2013 amendments to the FOID Act, a circuit court is prohibited from granting a petitioner relief under [S]ection 10 of the FOID Act when he or she is prohibited from possessing a firearm under federal law,” the court concluded. “The other four appellate court districts have reached the same conclusion. Thus, under the 2013 amendments to the FOID Act, a circuit court cannot remove a federal prohibitor.”

Brett E. Legner, an assistant attorney general, represented the state in the case. A spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office could not be reached for comment on the case.

John L. Davis, an associate at Moore, Susler, McNutt & Wrigley LLC in Decatur said Willis still has a gun permit.

“But it’s worthless, it’s a worthless piece of plastic,” he said. “His remedy — and we’re probably going to try this — is an executive pardon. But that’s the only thing he’s got left.”

Davis said his client entered into a negotiated plea for the crime in 1978. His punishment was a $25 fine.

“If he had any idea whatsoever that it was going to restrict his future rights, well, he would never have done it,” Davis said.

The case is People v. Terry L. Willis, 2016 IL App (4th) 150480.