SayUncle notes a victory in the First Circuit which thew out a gun charge for someone who had been involuntary committed under state procedures that did not offer proper due process. This looks like a circuit court ruling, which is a bigger deal. This is now law in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico, and Rhode Island. Interestingly, it looks like the attorneys for the defendant (it’s a criminal case) were from the Federal Defender Office.
At the same time, there’s been a setback in the Ninth Circuit, where the Supreme Court has denied cert on an appeal of a ruling upholding a California Law which banned domestic violence misdemeanants from having firearms for ten years. For the record, I hate it when reporters, who ought to know better, characterize this as some kind of approval by the Supreme Court as to the law being challenged in the cert petition. Denial of cert means very little. For all anyone knows, the Court is looking for a better case through which to take up that issue. Certainly, if I were looking at it, I wouldn’t like the added complication of the prohibition being only temporary under California law. There could be a lot of reasons for cert being denied.
Also, ANJRPC/SAF recently lost a motion in district court challenging New Jersey’s carry statute. The judge ruled there was no right outside the home, but ANJRPC/SAF are appealing.
Why should the Supreme Court get involved? There is not yet a split on the Circuit Courts. Until there is a split, it’s not really a Supreme Court level controversy.
I think that we’ve gotten spoiled by the normal Leftist method of getting a SC decision on everything. Now that the conservative wing seems to be in charge, they are not taking up every single “let’s redefine everything†case that shows up.
To an extent, I disagree, Sean.
The Supreme Court (afaik) doesn’t have to wait until there is a circuit split to grant cert.
The justices can surely see when there is injustice being done; to allow it to stand until there’s a circuit split would be, to me, well … unjust. They can simply disregard the questions they don’t want to deal with, and answer the ones they do, instructing lower courts as needed.
Of course, what I describe is the textbook example of an activist court …
Note that SAF has a cleaner case Schrader(?) v Holder (the plaintiff was denied twice via NICS for purchase due to an old, indeterminate sentencing “violent” misdemeanor crime as opposed to being caught with guns in violation) on appeal in the DC Circuit right now on the same “misdemeanor denial” issue.
So we’ll have a split soon enough, with a couple cases for the Justices to choose from.