Supreme Court Takes Major NRA Second Amendment Case from New York

[RepublicOfFranklin]

Another loss and another nail pulled out of the jury box. There’s a lot of nails missing at this point, they need to do something if they expect people to maintain faith that orderly suits will retain their rights.


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[danb]

Again... This is not a loss

NYC conceded and changed the law. That's a win.

There are over a half dozen cases now up for review on friday, and chances are high that one or more of those will be granted.

 

[erwos]

It would have been nice if this case had gone our way in a decision (vs just de facto), but it does unblock a whole bunch of other cases to proceed. I'd rather play for some higher stakes, like maybe getting an AWB overturned.

 

[Fedora]

There are over a half dozen cases now up for review on friday, and chances are high that one or more of those will be granted.

But the question is, how do they realistically gather five votes now that Roberts has shown himself?

 

[kcbrown]

Again... This is not a loss

NYC conceded and changed the law. That's a win.

There are over a half dozen cases now up for review on friday, and chances are high that one or more of those will be granted.

I disagree. If the Court were going to declare this moot from the start, it would have done so early on. It didn't. That means that at the time, there was belief that Roberts would see the case through to a decision on the merits. But Roberts didn't do that. Instead, Roberts went for the mootness route long after the point where it made sense for the Court to declare the case moot. For Roberts to do that means that he changed his position, and that means his support of the 2nd Amendment must be weak at best, and this means he is now as undependable as Kennedy with respect to support for the 2nd Amendment.

And that means that any pro-2A justice with any brains at all will ensure that the 2A cases that were held will be denied cert so as to prevent the possibility of either a very weak decision or a decision against the 2nd Amendment.

As such, my prediction has to be that the Court will deny cert to all 2A cases until such time as Trump manages to nominate another pro-2A to the bench. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I don't see how logic applied to the chain of events and the resulting situation would yield any other reasonable expectation.

 

[Bob A]

While it's obvious that NYC's gambit of changing the offending law was a short-term piece of fancy footwork, made in bad faith, I think the Court had to go along; they argue the law, not the between-the-lines intentions of the city. The law was changed, the case is moot.

One can hope that even Roberts would resent the Court being played so obviously. I'd like to think that the Court will ultimately slap down the lower courts because of their ignoring Heller in so many of the intervening cases. Still, I fond it difficult to trust Roberts in any 5/4 cases where he might be vulnerable due to closet skeletons; it's unpleasant to think that the Court acts as a political animal, but it often has, throughout its history.

I hope for a Trump victory in November; I think that's the best hope for the survival of the nation as a bastion of liberty. Another Originalist on the Court would be a strong push for the re-energising of the COTUS, which has been dying the death of a thousand cuts for a generation or more. Once RBG is gone, under Trump II Thomas might see fit to retire, in anticipation of a conservative Justice being nominated to take over his seat. That would provide a decent majority for a decade or so. If it weren't for this damned virus, brought to us by the Oriental wing of the DNC*, a second Trump victory would be assured.


*(Or is the DNC the Occidental wing of the CCP? Hard to say. Makes little difference in terms of outcome, of course.)

 

[whistlersmother]

I don't see this as a win at all. It is now a blueprint to gun confiscation, which gets mooted when the case gets to SCOTUS in x years - and then a few words of change buys another trip through the courts. Meanwhile the state is busy grabbing guns.

I will not be surprised to see either denial of cert of all the others or the state changing the law slightly and arguing mootness.

 

[Bob A]

I disagree. If the Court were going to declare this moot from the start, it would have done so early on. It didn't. That means that at the time, there was belief that Roberts would see the case through to a decision on the merits. But Roberts didn't do that. Instead, Roberts went for the mootness route long after the point where it made sense for the Court to declare the case moot. For Roberts to do that means that he changed his position, and that means his support of the 2nd Amendment must be weak at best, and this means he is now as undependable as Kennedy with respect to support for the 2nd Amendment.

And that means that any pro-2A justice with any brains at all will ensure that the 2A cases that were held will be denied cert so as to prevent the possibility of either a very weak decision or a decision against the 2nd Amendment.

As such, my prediction has to be that the Court will deny cert to all 2A cases until such time as Trump manages to nominate another pro-2A to the bench. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I don't see how logic applied to the chain of events and the resulting situation would yield any other reasonable expectation.

Makes sense to me.

 

[whistlersmother]

I disagree. If the Court were going to declare this moot from the start, it would have done so early on. It didn't. That means that at the time, there was belief that Roberts would see the case through to a decision on the merits. But Roberts didn't do that. Instead, Roberts went for the mootness route long after the point where it made sense for the Court to declare the case moot. For Roberts to do that means that he changed his position, and that means his support of the 2nd Amendment must be weak at best, and this means he is now as undependable as Kennedy with respect to support for the 2nd Amendment.

And that means that any pro-2A justice with any brains at all will ensure that the 2A cases that were held will be denied cert so as to prevent the possibility of either a very weak decision or a decision against the 2nd Amendment.

As such, my prediction has to be that the Court will deny cert to all 2A cases until such time as Trump manages to nominate another pro-2A to the bench. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I don't see how logic applied to the chain of events and the resulting situation would yield any other reasonable expectation.

^This.

 

[danb]

It would have been nice if this case had gone our way in a decision (vs just de facto), but it does unblock a whole bunch of other cases to proceed. I'd rather play for some higher stakes, like maybe getting an AWB overturned.

^This. The Supreme Court called NYC bluff, and NYC folded.

We were never going to win much with case- this NYC regulation/law was an extreme outlier and appellate courts easily likely limit the ruling to the facts of this case, to merely authorize transport. Which would not get us very much long term.

Now its time to raise the stakes and put the pressure on.

 

[fidelity]

Fvcking sucks.

Looks like Kavanaugh decided to be Roberts lite. Not surprised by this. He has been trying burnish his image and somehow find a path to take the Chief Justice position in the future (which will require him to rehabilitate his image to the liberal media). Linda Greenhouse must be pleased. She'll continue to try to sway them.

Maybe they'll take another 2A case or two. And maybe they'll give a favorable ruling to support the right. But I think Kavanaugh clearly played the middle. Voted one way and gave lip service the other way. Very disappointing. Wish Trump had chosen Hardiman after Gorsuch.

 

[Pope414]

They have officially relisted all of the held 2A cases for conference on Fri

Rogers , Cheeseman and im sorry I forgot the name of the other case identical to Rogers could get combined basically doing a "Michael Corleone" and settle all 2A business in one swoop

 

[danb]

I disagree. If the Court were going to declare this moot from the start, it would have done so early on. It didn't. That means that at the time, there was belief that Roberts would see the case through to a decision on the merits. But Roberts didn't do that. Instead, Roberts went for the mootness route long after the point where it made sense for the Court to declare the case moot. For Roberts to do that means that he changed his position, and that means his support of the 2nd Amendment must be weak at best, and this means he is now as undependable as Kennedy with respect to support for the 2nd Amendment.

And that means that any pro-2A justice with any brains at all will ensure that the 2A cases that were held will be denied cert so as to prevent the possibility of either a very weak decision or a decision against the 2nd Amendment.

As such, my prediction has to be that the Court will deny cert to all 2A cases until such time as Trump manages to nominate another pro-2A to the bench. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I don't see how logic applied to the chain of events and the resulting situation would yield any other reasonable expectation.

No. No. No. There were 6 votes for mootness!! Kavanaugh agreed with mootness and also the 2A aspect of the dissent.

The only reason to vote against mootness is to stop future litigants from playing games. The majority was convinced that this was a one-off. Its a terrible case to write new mootness law.

If they issued an opinion on this, it would forever be a mess and have an asterisk - lots of people would think the opinion is questionable because it should have been mooted. Worse than Miller.

We will all be thankful that they mooted this and took another case.

 

[esqappellate]

Since folks are going out on a limb, I will too. I tend to agree that the case was moot. It is telling that Kavanaugh agreed. But in so doing, Kavanaugh indicated a need to grant cert in 2A case and cited his dissent in Heller II as setting for the proper standard of review (text, history and tradition), precisely the standard articulated by Alito in dissent (as Kavanangh noted). Both he and the 3 dissenters intimated that the lower courts, state and federal, were misconstruing Heller and McDonald. There are plainly 4 votes to grant cert and I think they will grant cert. The only question is which case they will pick. They have a big selection right now. The conventional wisdom is that they will pick Rogers, as there is a square conflict in the circuits with the decision in Wrenn and resolution of such conflicts is exactly what the Court is supposed to do. But I see Pena (the California microstamping case) as a candidate as well, given the total absurdity of the 9th circuit's ruling and the outrageous nature of the requirement. Of course, there is no need for the Court to pick one case. They could grant cert in two cases. Pena would be the obvious choice for an "in common use" decision and Rogers would be the best case for an "outside the home" ruling (the Third Circuit's decision in Drake, which was controlling in Rogers, is a real outlier in its reasoning). A decision in Pena would dispose of Wilson and Worman (the AWB) and a decision in Rogers would take care of all the carry cases. They need not address Mance (the federal ban on interstate sale of handguns), except a GVR to instruct the court of appeals to apply the proper test on the remand. The rest of the cases can continue to be held while the Court is considering these cases. The most delicious part of this dream scenario is that the NYC's gambit would fail, big time, and the Court can put an institutional thumb in the eye of Senator Whitehouse and his misbegotten crowd all at the same time. Of course, I could be dead wrong and they could deny cert in all these cases and put Heller and McDonald into purgatory for the foreseeable future. But I just don't see that happening, given Kavanaugh's opinion and that of the dissent. FWIW, I think that the Chief is solid. Further affivant sayth not.

 

[whistlersmother]

No. No. No. There were 6 votes for mootness!! Kavanaugh agreed with mootness and also the 2A aspect of the dissent.

The only reason to vote against mootness is to stop future litigants from playing games. The majority was convinced that this was a one-off. Its a terrible case to write new mootness law.

If they issued an opinion on this, it would forever be a mess and have an asterisk - lots of people would think the opinion is questionable because it should have been mooted. Worse than Miller.

We will all be thankful that they mooted this and took another case.

But they didn't vote against mootness and thus haven't stopped any future games. They've only encouraged and blueprinted future games.

Yes, a terrible wide-sweeping 2A case, but very important to stop game playing. The court has only itself to blame when every cert is ruled moot here on out.

Kavanaugh and Roberts have just f*k SCOTUS for the next umpteen years.

 

[Pope414]

Esq. do you think this sets up Rogers, Gould & Cheeseman to be condensed? I have a feeling that could be the fall back.

 

[esqappellate]

But they didn't vote against mootness and thus haven't stopped any future games. They've only encouraged and blueprinted future games.

Yes, a terrible wide-sweeping 2A case, but very important to stop game playing. The court has only itself to blame when every cert is ruled moot here on out.

Kavanaugh and Roberts have just f*k SCOTUS for the next umpteen years.

I don't agree. There is lots of case law where gov. defendants have mooted cases in this way. This case, while egregious, won't change that, either way. NYC had to eat its law and everyone knows it. But there is no way that NJ will repeal its may issue law to moot Rogers. Likewise California in Pena or the federal government in Mance. These states are true believers. Sooner or later, they will run out of room to run.

 

[esqappellate]

Esq. do you think this sets up Rogers, Gould & Cheeseman to be condensed? I have a feeling that could be the fall back.

I tend to doubt that they will consolidate these cases, especially since Gould is from a different circuit with a different law. They will pick a lead case and they tend to do that with the counsel they trust the most, viz., Clement, who is counsel for Rogers (and who argued NYC). Petitioner in Pena is represented by Gura. Another solid choice of counsel.

 

[HarryLogan]

Sorry if I missed something, but when will we know the decisions of the below?

Mance v Barr
Pena v Horan
Rogers v Grewal
Gould v Lipson
Ciolek v New Jersey
Cheeseman v Polillo
Worman v Healey
Malpasso v Pallozzi
Culp v Raoul
Wilson v Cook County

 

[Bob A]

There is lots of case law where gov. defendants have mooted cases in this way. This case, while egregious, won't change that, either way. NYC had to eat its law and everyone knows it.

It also offers the tasty opportunity to bitch-slap NY if they have the brass to change the law once again, in an attempt to rescind the rights they so generously restored.