March to the Supreme Court

Knuckle Dragger

Knuckle Dragger

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This may shape up to be an important Supreme Court term for the Second Amendment. Despite having about a dozen carefully crafted civil litigation cases in the federal pipeline, several criminal cases have made it to the front of the queue and petitioned the court for certiorari. Despite being 'criminal' cases, several of these raise really good 2nd amendment and related questions. It's always dangerous to predict what courts are going to do, but the general consensus among those of us active in the national gun-rights community is that SCOTUS will take at least one of these cases and have something to say about right-to-carry by the end of June 2012.

We've started an informational 'Supreme Court Watch' section on the Comm2A website and have provided some basic information on the four cases vying for certiorari. You can review the 'Question(s) Presented' for each case as well as link to the petitions. We'll trying to add more information next week as schedules permit.

The four cases are: (NES Links)

This will be a very exciting term.
 
Knuckle Dragger said:
Masciandaro filed his reply brief today. All filings are available on Supreme Court Watch
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IV. Constitutional Rights Limit the Sweep of the Property Clause............... 10
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Crap... This has not been the case traditionally. The court has held that the .gov has significant leeway to control property it is the sole authority over. The right tact here would have been to state that the NPS site he was in had no special status or deserved no special treatment and that an outright ban was impermissible as a result. That is all they needed to say. But no... Of course they needed to overreach.

Despite the lack of case law addressing the interplay between constitutional rights and the Property Clause
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Which is why you should have stuck to this particular park was in effect public and therefore not deserving of "special place" protection. And there is case law on this topic in the 1A space. Gura himself had a 1A case denied (the dancing nancies at the jefferson memorial) and he didn't appeal.
 
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terraformer said:
Crap... This has not been the case traditionally. The court has held that the .gov has significant leeway to control property it is the sole authority over. The right tact here would have been to state that the NPS site he was in had no special status or deserved no special treatment and that an outright ban was impermissible as a result. That is all they needed to say. But no... Of course they needed to overreach.



Which is why you should have stuck to this particular park was in effect public and therefore not deserving of "special place" protection. And there is case law on this topic in the 1A space. Gura himself had a 1A case denied (the dancing nancies at the jefferson memorial) and he didn't appeal.
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I'm glad you guys are watching all this sheet. It makes my head hurt. I guess I need to go make another contribution to COMM2A.
 
Crap, that's 4 weeks. Three from today and the fourth to make it into the following weeks orders which is on the 28th. That's assuming at least 4 agree to take the case.
 
Masciandaro [STRIKE]and Lowry were both[/STRIKE] was denied cert today. That along will the 10th circuit delay in Gray Peterson's case pretty much ends any chance of seeing a RTC case in SCOTUS this term.

Powell is still alive, but won't address RTC.
 
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Knuckle Dragger said:
Masciandaro and Lowry were both denied cert today. That along will the 10th circuit delay in Gray Peterson's case pretty much ends any chance of seeing a RTC case in SCOTUS this term.

Powell is still alive, but won't address RTC.
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[sarcasm=11]Thank goodness, justice is served and everyone has their day in court...[thinking][/sarcasm]
 
Knuckle Dragger said:
Masciandaro and Lowry were both denied cert today. That along will the 10th circuit delay in Gray Peterson's case pretty much ends any chance of seeing a RTC case in SCOTUS this term.

Powell is still alive, but won't address RTC.
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I would certainly love them to move faster myself, but then I remember it was only 68 years between Miller and Heller, and then just two until McDonald and I don't feel quite so bad.
 
My biggest problem behind masciandaro is not just the delay it causes but that it validates what has happened thus far in the districts and it validates the conviction of masciandaro for what is essentially failing to renew his carry license. The feds only prosecuted him because the state said they can't be bothered with that stupidity as he is clearly not the kind of guy they want to prosecute. But apparently the feds had plenty of time and resources and were happy to despite the law having changed before he even made it into court.
 
cekim said:
[sarcasm=11]Thank goodness, justice is served and everyone has their day in court...[thinking][/sarcasm]
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I wouldn't fret too much about this. Masciandaro and Williams aren't really set backs or defeats for us. While both defendants had very good cases and suffered individual wrongs, in terms of establishing RTC they were opportunistic at best. The number of good RTC civil cases making their way through the circuits is almost too high to count. I continue to be supremely confident that one or more of these will be on the SCOTUS docket next term and Alan Gura will once again have the opportunity to press this case for all of us.

And this is more than okay. It sometimes takes decades or even generations to have some civil rights properly acknowledged, respected, and part of every day law. One only has to look at how long it took to put Jim Crow down for good. RTC continues to be on the right trajectory and I'm as confident as ever that all of the right steps are being taken.
 
OfficerObie59 said:
I would certainly love them to move faster myself, but then I remember it was only 68 years between Miller and Heller, and then just two until McDonald and I don't feel quite so bad.
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Yup and it took 'only' 58 years before Brown v. Board of Education overturned Plessy v. Ferguson. By comparison RTC is moving a warp speed.
 
Knuckle Dragger said:
It sometimes takes decades or even generations to have some civil rights properly acknowledged, respected, and part of every day law. One only has to look at how long it took to put Jim Crow down for good. RTC continues to be on the right trajectory and I'm as confident as ever that all of the right steps are being taken.
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Understood, but just because it is the norm does not make it acceptable. By my count, these rights have been trampled for more than 100 years. The issues here relating to the relationship between government and the people are much bigger than 2A, so I'd like to get those out of the way and start working seriously on demoting the government back to its rightful place in all regards.
 
Knuckle Dragger said:
And this is more than okay. It sometimes takes decades or even generations to have some civil rights properly acknowledged, respected, and part of every day law. One only has to look at how long it took to put Jim Crow down for good. RTC continues to be on the right trajectory and I'm as confident as ever that all of the right steps are being taken.
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One could make a credible argument that discretionary firearms licensing is one of the last remaining Jim Crow laws.

Chein was denied today also. I doubt they'll take Lowery or Powell either. My theory for the denial of Williams and Masciandaro is that the justices don't want to open the door to the criminal defense bar. At this point, I'd be surprised to see a 2A criminal appeal granted cert.
 

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