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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Courts - The SCOTUS has granted cert in a number of cases, including an Indiana federal case

Includng three from the 7th Circuit, one on the right to bear arms and its application to ordinances prohibiting possession of handguns in the home, and one on ex post facto implications of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act’s enactment. The third is on the deadline for filing certain EEOC charges.

Check the comprehensive list from the SCOTUSlaw Blog here.

[I'll be adding more to this entry during the day.]

"Supreme Court returns to firearms fray" reports Joan Biskupic in USA Today. From the story:

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court announced Wednesday it will return to the controversy over individual gun rights by hearing an appeal from a group of firearms owners in Chicago.

They are challenging a lower appeals court ruling that said the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to guns only in the face of federal regulation, not against state and municipal restrictions.

Included among 10 new disputes the justices added to their calendar Wednesday for the upcoming 2009-10 term, which begins next Monday, the guns case brings the court back to a sensational topic that pits uniquely American notions of frontier liberty against contemporary worries over urban violence. * * *

The new dispute began in Chicago, which has a handgun ban similar to a Washington, D.C., ordinance that the Supreme Court struck down in June 2008 as a violation of the Second Amendment. In the 2008 case, District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court for the first time declared an individual right to firearms for self-defense and rejected a prevailing lower court view that the Second Amendment applied only to state "militia," such as National Guard units.

But the 5-4 decision left open a crucial question that could have more practical consequences for gun owners and for the states that would regulate them: Does the Second Amendment apply to the states and localities as it does to federal jurisdiction of Washington, D.C.?

Because the Supreme Court has so rarely taken up Second Amendment cases, the amendment's coverage in the states has never been fully determined — unlike the breadth of many of the other of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights.

Thirty-four states [ILB - including Indiana] had asked the Supreme Court to take up the gun advocates' appeals and a separate one filed by the National Rifle Association against Chicago. (The justices did not act on that petition Wednesday.) Led by Texas state lawyers, 33 of the 34 states said in a joint filing, "Without this court's review (of the Chicago cases), millions of Americans may be deprived of their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms." California separately urged the court to take the Chicago disputes. * * *

Chicago adopted its handgun ban in 1982, city officials told the high court, because of a rise in firearms-related deaths and because officials believed handguns were playing "a major role in the commission of homicide, aggravated assaults and armed robbery."

The legal dispute specifically tests whether the Second Amendment — written more than two centuries ago to cover only the federal government — may be extended to the states, as the First Amendment and many other protections of the Bill of Rights have been through 20th Century court rulings.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, which covers Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, said the Second Amendment does not apply to the states. The appeals court stressed that the historical view of the Supreme Court was the amendment restricted the powers of the federal government. * * *

The case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, is likely to be scheduled for January. A decision would come before the end of the term in late June 2010.

Here are other ILB entries on this case.

"Court to decide if sex offenders who didn't register in past can get enhanced penalties now" reports the AP in a brief story. The case is Carr v. United States. From the story:

The Supreme Court will decide whether sex offenders who didn't register with state officials before harsher punishments went into effect can still be sentenced to extra time in prison. * * *

[T]he 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago said that when the law was passed, Congress did not say it did not apply retroactively. Other courts have said that the law — SORNA — cannot be applied retroactively.

The WSJ Law Blog has posted this entry on the Supreme Court's decision to hear the Chicago gun case, headed "Gaga Over Gun Control: High Court to Hear Second Case."

[More] Thomas v. Carr, the sex offender case, is out of the ND Indiana. See this ILB entry from Dec. 22, 2008, headed "7th Circuit decides two Indiana cases today, in one opinion ."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 30, 2009 11:01 AM
Posted to Courts in general