SCOTUS

[RTH10260]

Supreme Court leaves Illinois semiautomatic gun ban in place

Nina Totenberg
DECEMBER 14, 20232:04 PM ET

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday left in place an Illinois ban on AR-15 semiautomatic weapons.

Two lower courts have upheld the law, and Thursday's Supreme Court action marked the second time in six months that the justices have declined to intervene.

Illinois passed the ban on assault weapons after the 2022 Independence Day parade shooting that left seven people dead and 48 wounded. The gunmen in the July 4th shooting fired 83 rounds in under a minute using an AR-15. The ban prevents people from owning semiautomatic weapons, such as the one used in that shooting, as well as magazines that enable handguns and rifles to fire off many rounds without reloading.

Last year, the Supreme Court's conservative majority ruled that gun restrictions, in order to be constitutional, must be analogous to laws on the books at the nation's founding. As a result, an Illinois gun retailer and a gun rights advocacy group challenged the state's law, contending that the "ban is not consistent with the nation's history and tradition of firearms regulation and fails constitutional muster."

U.S. Appeals Court In Chicago Again Upholds Laws Banning Assault Weapons
NATIONAL
U.S. Appeals Court In Chicago Again Upholds Laws Banning Assault Weapons
An ideologically mixed panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law, however, writing that the Supreme Court's recent decision on the right to bear arms "extends only to weapons in common use for a lawful purpose," not to semiautomatic weapons that "are much more like machine guns and military-grade weaponry than they are like the many different types of firearms that are used for individual self-defense."

Gun groups countered that the State's ban on arms amounts to a prohibition of arms that "are chosen by millions of Americans for lawful purposes."

The court's action on Thursday, leaving the Illinois law in place, is not a decision on the merits of the case; as of now, there have been no conflicting decisions by lower appeals courts, and the justices may well have felt there was no need to intervene without such a conflict.



https://www.npr.org/2023/12/14/12180389 ... ic-gun-ban

[raison de arizona]

Today we learned that Clarence Thomas's salary complaints sparked fears that he would resign. Not long after, he was inundated with gifts from GOP megadonors (some of which I highlighted in this video).

He must resign or be impeached if SCOTUS is going to retain any credibility.

[RTH10260]

among several news items this link (my take is that ProPublica is the origin)

https://www.propublica.org/article/clar ... ars-scotus

[raison de arizona]

among several news items this link (my take is that ProPublica is the origin)

https://www.propublica.org/article/clar ... ars-scotus

Your take is correct.

[raison de arizona]

Whether you think Supreme Court justices are underpaid for what they do or not, the solution to their lack of ethics isn’t paying them more as @gtconway3d suggests.

It’s clear that Clarence Thomas would still be on the take no matter what his salary was/is. Separate issue. They knew the salary when they accepted the nomination for a lifetime appointment.

This is about a transactional exchange for power & influence over our lives. Expanding the court seems like a Herculean prospect but might be an easier task than true ethics reform with teeth. More justices — less power of one.

[pipistrelle]

[bob]

SCOTUS: Every Conservative Supreme Court Justice Sits Out Decision in Rare Move:

Every conservative justice on the Supreme Court bowed out of deciding a case stemming out of Texas.

In a rare move, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett all sat out deciding whether to hear MacTruong v. Abbott, a case arguing that the Texas Heartbeat Act (THA) is constitutional and that the state law violates federal law. The six justices were named as defendants in the case. They did not give a detailed justification as to why they chose not to weigh in, and are not required to do so.

* * *

Because there were not enough justices for a quorum—the court needs at least six and only Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson remained—the court affirmed the judgment of a lower court to dismiss the lawsuit.

So the reason is somewhat obvious: the sued justices recused themselves because they were being sued. QED. The Chief, however, was not sued; his recusal is unexplained. And the petition attempted to unsue Thomas and Alito, but they recused anyway.

Skimming the cert. petition, this was a left-wing analog of the fringe we normally follow here. Petitioner ("J.S.D., Ph.D., LL.M."), a New Jersey resident, sued Texan officials (and others) in Texas. Unsurprisingly denied for lack of standing.

And this from the 5th:

In his filings in this court, MacTruong refers to the defendants, including the five named Supreme Court Justices, as murderers, misogynists, racists, and criminals; he asserts that the five named Supreme Court Justices, in particular, are traitors, cheaters, and mass sex abusers who have committed perjury and treason and who “deserve the death penalty or at least to be disbenched”; and he labels the district court as misogynist and criminal and asserts that the court has an “anti-American attitude.” We will not allow liberal pleading rules and pro se practice to be a vehicle for presenting documents that are abusive. Accordingly, MacTruong is WARNED that future filings containing abusive, disparaging, or contemptuous language will result in the imposition of sanctions.

[RTH10260]

Gun control

US Supreme Court Takes a Pass on Latest Challenge to Illinois Assault Weapons Ban

Amanda Vinicky |
January 8, 2024 5:42 pm

Illinois’ ban on AR-15s and similar guns faces constitutional questions and legal challenges, but an attempt to get the law tossed on more unconventional grounds that called into question the credibility of the state’s Supreme Court failed.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied to take up a petition filed by state Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur, that sought to overturn a ruling on a related case he’d brought before the Illinois Supreme Court.

The state court in August upheld Illinois’ year-old law banning semi-automatic guns.

Caulkins’ petition to get that ruling tossed did not center on Second Amendment rights.

Rather, he brought a due process challenge.

Caulkins asked the nation’s high court to find that the Illinois Supreme Court should have been disqualified from weighing in because state justices’ political campaigns had been heavily funded by backers of the gun law, including Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who signed the statute and therefore was a defendant in the original case.



https://news.wttw.com/2024/01/08/us-sup ... eapons-ban

[Rolodex]

There's a case about government regulations before the Court today. Elie Mystal is live tweeting and it's brutal. He's really good at tweetsplaining.

[bob]

There's a case about government regulations before the Court today.

The is about the Chevron deference rule.

For 40 years now, the rule basically has been that the courts defer to federal agencies tasked with regulating, reasoning the agencies are subject-matter experts, and the courts are not.

Corporations (especially big ones in big industries) hate this rule, as it gives "those unelected beancounters" a fair amount of power. If Chevron is overruled, anytime an agency does something to offend the precious sensibilities of Big Oil, etc., the aggrieved will run to court, to argue the agency got it wrong. Which will have the effect of delaying compliance. It'll be lawfare to protect business as usual, and the beneficiaries of these agencies' regulations tend to be the public, who like clean water, safe cars, etc.

As the thread indicates, oral arguments suggest there's a majority to kill Chevron outright, with perhaps the Chief trying again to futilely split the baby and just narrow/weaken Chevron's scope.

"Fun" fact: Gorsuch's mom was the head of the EPA when it wrote the regulation that was challenged in the original Chevron decision.

[raison de arizona]

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson spells out the legal chaos that will arise when the right-wing Roberts Court overturns the 1984 Chevron doctrine, which for 40 years has allowed federal agencies to make reasonable interpretations of undefined terms in federal statutes.

[AndyinPA]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ontroversy

Survivors of alleged childhood abuse inside the People of Praise, a secretive Christian sect that counts Amy Coney Barrett as a member, are voicing concerns that the supreme court justice’s father, who was recently promoted to a new role, may seek to block information about the group’s historic handling of sexual abuse becoming public.

Barrett, a conservative justice who was appointed by former US president Donald Trump, has never publicly disclosed her participation in the covenant Christian community, which some former members have compared to a cult.

Her father, Michael Coney, a Louisiana-based lawyer who worked for Shell and has been a longtime member of the PoP, was this month appointed to serve as the group’s new legal counsel. Coney is also taking the helm of a “consultation team” that, internal correspondence seen by the Guardian shows, has been dealing with “issues of concern” to the group’s 1,100 members, including “misuse of authority” inside the PoP, “lack of accountable leadership”, and “mistrust of the board”.

Coney’s appointment is part of a broader shake-up inside the PoP, whose leadership has been consumed by a contentious debate over the legitimacy of the 2021 election of its current leader, Charlie Fraga. Known as the “overall coordinator”, Fraga has said the bitter fight has emerged as an “urgent threat to the unity of the community”.

For survivors of alleged childhood sexual and physical abuse inside the PoP, Coney’s elevation is deeply troubling. PoP Survivors – as the group is known – has for years called for the PoP to be investigated and held accountable for its handling of historic claims of abuse. The Guardian reported last year that the FBI had interviewed several individuals who have alleged they were abused by members of the PoP, but it is not clear whether the FBI opened a formal investigation.

[RTH10260]

[raison de arizona]

Naughty naughty. Hopefully the IRS finds it in his heart to...put those two behind bars! Lock 'em up, right?
https://x.com/RBReich/status/1754986775573905816?s=20

Billionaire GOP megadonor Harlan Crow allegedly reduced his tax bill by claiming nearly $8 million in losses from operating his yacht for "business purposes."

But this was the same 162-foot yacht he used for personal trips with Clarence Thomas.

You can't make this stuff up.

[Slim Cognito]

Well, when it comes to providing luxury trips, for Thomas, he ain’t wrong.

[raison de arizona]

Goldman: The biggest thing for me that I am just shocked about is that Justice Thomas sat there for oral argument. Chief justice Roberts has said they can police themselves but it is clear based on Thomas' own actions that he cannot and they cannot

[raison de arizona]

What's good for the goose...

CO Sec. of State Jena Griswold (D) hits SCOTUS suggestion that Trump should stay on the ballot because one state shouldn’t determine a federal election:

“Every single state that's tried to restrict the vote for electoral gain … should be susceptible to this line of argument.”

[raison de arizona]

Justice Alito takes aim at Obergefell again, warning that the decision means "Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct" are being "labeled as bigots and treated as such" by the state and "society." https://supremecourt.gov/orders/courtor ... r_7647.pdf

[Rolodex]

But state and society aren't religious organizations and therefore not subject to, say, sharia law or biblical interpretations.

Although, Alabama's Supreme court certainly thinks they are a religious organization, with their finding of frozen embryos being "extrauterine children" and their destruction as Wrongful Death of a Minor.

I'll bet Alito can't wait to affirm AL SC ruling...if hopefully someone can appeal this decision somehow.

[Resume18]

"Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct" are being "labeled as bigots and treated as such" by the state and "society."

That's what they are. See, if your religion prohibits homosexual relations, don't have them; on the other hand, if you wish to prohibit others from said relations, go suck eggs, and if you wish to restrict their rights, you are a bigot.

[RTH10260]

Supreme Court turns away House GOP lawmakers’ appeal over mask rule violations

by Zach Schonfeld and Mychael Schnell -
02/20/24 9:45 AM ET

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to revive a lawsuit from three House Republicans after their pay was docked for not complying with a pandemic-era mask requirement on the chamber floor.

In a brief order without any noted dissents, the court let stand a lower ruling that tossed the constitutional challenge filed by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.).

The three conservative lawmakers were fined $500 in May 2021 after flouting the House floor mask mandate that was put in place amid the COVID-19 pandemic, kicking off a years-long attempt by the trio of lawmakers to get the penalties lifted.

House rules fined lawmakers $500 for their first infraction with the mask mandate and $2,500 for subsequent breaches to be withdrawn from their yearly pay. Greene racked up more than $100,000 in fines, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which the Georgia Republican referenced in a statement on Tuesday.



https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4478 ... iolations/

[RTH10260]

[Slim Cognito]

I love, Love, LOVE John Oliver but sometimes I have a hard time watching his show. Not because it isn't funny, (it's hilarious) but because the topic is so horrifying.

[raison de arizona]

Dark times.

Barrett publicly supported an organization that called for the criminalization of IVF, and I distinctly recall conservative law professors screaming at me for pointing this out in 2020—because it was true, and they didn't want people to know it. https://theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oc ... tilization

Flashback: During her confirmation hearing in 2020, Amy Coney Barrett refused to rule out criminalizing IVF.

[raison de arizona]

"You got a friend in me."

"Former President Trump's effort to run the clock has a partner in the Supreme Court at this point."