Supreme Court remands US v Stewart to the lower court...
Of Arms & the Law
notes that the Supreme Court has remanded US v Stewart back to the 9th
Circuit for reconsideration in light of Gonzalez v Raich. This is
not an unexpected action (in fact, Heartless Libertarian predicted it).
The Supreme Court is basically saying, "Hey, we think you might want to
think about this again after you take a close look at this other case
we just decided."
I think, but am not sure, that the case goes back to the same panel
that issued the ruling. If that panel so chooses, they can render
a very similar decision, and try to differentiate their case from
Gonzalez v Raich. If they do, the case will likely be appealed
back to the Supreme Court, which may or may not choose to agree with
the differentiation. More likely, however, the panel will take
the remand order as a strong hint from the Supreme Court to reverse
their prior ruling.
The Heartless Libertarian noted in his prediction that a remand would
offer the opportunity for Stewart and the panel to recast their
argument as a purely 2nd Amendment one. It may offer that
opportunity, but I doubt it would be successful. The 9th Circuit
has ample precedent to rule unfavorably on 2nd Amendment issues.
While I'm not sure if that precedent is binding on the panel in
Stewart, it's certainly something that they will be reluctant to
challenge. A commerce-clause challenge was an end-run around
anti-2nd-amendment precedents; that's why it was successful. A
pure 2nd Amendment challenge is unlikely to succeed in the 9th Circuit.
But we may be about to find out for real.
This entry was published Sat Sep 24 10:43:35 CDT 2005 by TriggerFinger
and last updated 2005-09-24 10:43:35.0.
[Tweet]
