SCOTUS Olé

[bignflnut]

The Supreme Court said on Monday that it will not issue a ruling in a closely watched case over a New York gun regulation that barred transport of handguns outside the city, including to second homes and firing ranges.

In an unsigned opinion, the court said that the roll-back of the rule by city and state officials after the court agreed to hear the case effectively ended the dispute without the justices needing to intervene.

The case was the first Second Amendment case to reach the top court in nearly a decade. The justices have not waded into the highly charged debate over gun rights since expanding the reach of the Second Amendment in a pair of cases in 2008 and 2010.

Conservatives were hoping the court, which has a new 5-4 conservative majority, would use the New York case to limit regulations on firearms further. But the outcome of the case was telegraphed in December during oral arguments, when the court spent little time addressing the underlying constitutional questions raised by the New York regulation.

Three of the court’s Republican-appointees, Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, said they would not have dismissed the case. Alito, in an opinion joined by Gorsuch and in part by Thomas, wrote that by declining to rule in the case the court allowed itself to be “manipulated.”

If Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas would have allowed the case, we can assume to know who of the 5 are not willing to "go there" (Either Roberts or Kav would have given the 4 necessary for cert).



Feeble and anemic NY slapping gun owners' Rights around, with the help of SCOTUS (hat or anvil).

[bignflnut]

Although he doesn’t say so explicitly, Alito seems to suggest that his colleagues in the majority crumbled under this pressure, writing, “Regrettably, the Court now dismisses the case as moot. If the Court were right on the law, I would of course approve that disposition.”

The “friend of the court” brief Alito refers to did set off a firestorm of controversy, and was dubbed an “enemy of the court” filing by the Wall Street Journal editorial board. In response to this submission, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and Republican lawmakers last August sent the Supreme Court a strange letter reassuring the justices that they ought not be intimidated by the rude submissions of Democratic politicians, yet including a similarly menacing message. In the letter, McConnell and his colleagues expressed fear that Americans will be unable to trust the court if the justices don’t go forward and decide the case, despite pressure from Democrats, lest they seem to be responding to politicians’ concerns.

[bignflnut]

This morning, the Supreme Court released its orders from last week’s conference. There was some hope that based on Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence and the Alito/Thomas/Gorsuch dissent in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York, and the adding of all 10 Second Amendment cases that had been “held” pending NYSR&PA, we might see a cert grant this morning.

On the other hand, if we saw a bunch of “cert denied” decisions come out of the conference (which is the fate of over 99% of all cert petitions), as I previously wrote, that would likely signal that Roberts has likely gone into full coward mode, and we’re back to an Anthony Kennedy-era standoff on gun rights cases.

This morning’s orders were thus anticlimactic. No cert grants on Second Amendment cases, but no denials either. The pending 2A cases are thus likely relisted for a future conference (which is also a very common practice).

But but but, if it was Hillary...(sigh)