Tag Archives: U.S. Supreme Court

Unlikely pair could usher ‘right to carry’ gun law case to U.S. Supreme Court

George Young holds a framed photo of his late daughter Tim Young in Hilo, Hawaii, U.S., July 30, 2018. Picture taken July 30, 2018. Courtesy Lynn Viale/Handout via REUTERS

By Daniel Trotta

(Reuters) – George Young is a Vietnam War veteran who sued the state of Hawaii three times on his own without a lawyer for the right to carry a handgun and lost each time.

Alan Beck is an independent lawyer who took on Young’s appeal for free.

Last month, the duo won a major victory for gun rights when an appeals court found Hawaii’s restrictive handgun law unconstitutional, a ruling that could lead to a landmark decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on the right to bear arms in public. And they did so without the help of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) gun lobby.

“I went around the state of Hawaii and contacted about 17 attorneys and all of them turned me down. They said I would only lose,” said Young, 68. “I want to see it through to the end, which is the U.S. Supreme Court.”

U.S gun-control advocates favor strict laws like Hawaii’s, blaming lax gun laws for excessive gun violence and deadly mass shootings in the United States. The NRA and other gun-rights advocates oppose laws that restrict the constitutional right to bear arms and want the high court to take up a new case, hoping it will expand gun rights outside the home.

The Supreme Court has not taken on a major gun-rights case since a pair of cases in 2008 and 2010 in which the court established that the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep a gun at home.

Hawaii allows only people who work in security or who can demonstrate to law enforcement officials that they have an “exceptional case” to carry weapons, concealed or openly.

After he left the Army, Young carried a firearm for 17 years as an airport security guard but lost that right after he retired. He failed to convince the County of Hawaii’s police chief he deserved a permit, so he sued, saying his constitutional right to bear arms was violated.

He filed suits in 2008, 2010 and 2012 to challenge the denials, losing each time.

Lacking the means to hire a lawyer for an appeal, Young would normally have had to depend on a star litigator financed by the NRA or a major law firm to take the case pro bono, or free of cost.

Instead Young paired up with Beck, a solo practitioner who learned of Young’s story and offered to represent him for free.

Beck said he has limited means of his own and that his father has offered to lend him money if needed to keep the case going.

“This covers my pro bono hours for my career. It’s worth it. Sometimes you have to do the right thing,” Beck said.

NO NRA HELP

Based in California but with family ties in Hawaii, Beck said he took Young’s case because he disagreed with the ruling by the U.S. District Court and said Young was denied the leeway that should be afforded to a non-lawyer representing himself.

“I didn’t think he got a fair shake,” Beck said. “We got to know each other very well. I know his family now. I consider him a good friend as well as a client.”

The NRA turned down a request to help with the case, Beck said, declining to elaborate. The NRA was still involved in assisting another lawsuit challenging carry laws when Young filed his suit, which is why the association did not get involved, spokeswoman Amy Hunter said.

On July 24, Young scored his first victory. In a 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel of the normally liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found Young has a Second Amendment right to carry a firearm in public. The NRA applauded the ruling.

Hawaii has until Sept. 14 to ask the case to be reheard by the same panel or “en banc” by a larger number of judges.

The state has defended its law by citing the 2008 and 2010 Supreme Court cases, District of Colombia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago. While those rulings were taken as a victory by gun-rights advocates, proponents of gun control say the court also established limits to the Second Amendment.

“Heller was not intended to extend the protections found in the Second Amendment to any area outside the home,” Hawaii said in a 2013 filing in the case.

‘CIRCUIT SPLIT’Some U.S. appeals courts have upheld state laws that greatly restrict gun carry rights while others have struck them down, creating what is known as “circuit split.” The Supreme Court often hears cases in order to resolve such splits, but it requires four out of nine Supreme Court justices to agree to hear a case.

“As a practical matter, there is indeed a circuit split,” said Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor.

George Young and his late daughter Tim Young in Hilo, Hawaii, U.S., in May 2006. Picture taken in May 2006. Courtesy George M. Young/Handout via REUTERS

George Young and his late daughter Tim Young in Hilo, Hawaii, U.S., in May 2006. Picture was taken in May 2006. Courtesy George M. Young/Handout via REUTERS

Young, who is part native Hawaiian and part descendant of Japanese plantation workers, became passionate about the issue while teaching his late daughter Tim, who died in a car accident in 2004 at age 21, about the Constitution.

“She was my pet. Of my three children she was the one to follow me everywhere,” Young said.

One day, as they discussed the Constitution, Young was startled when she told him he could not carry a handgun in Hawaii, so he began his quest.

“I made the promise that they cannot take your Second Amendment away,” Young said. “So to prove it to her, that’s when I started.”

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Dina Kyriakidou and Frances Kerry)

Supreme Court rules warrants required for cellphone location data

FILE PHOTO: The U.S. Supreme Court is seen in Washington, U.S., June 11, 2018. REUTERS/Erin Schaff/File Photo

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday imposed limits on the ability of police to obtain cellphone data pinpointing the past location of criminal suspects in a major victory for digital privacy advocates and a setback for law enforcement authorities.

In the 5-4 ruling, the court said police generally need a court-approved warrant to get access to the data, setting a higher legal hurdle than previously existed under federal law. The court said obtaining such data without a warrant from wireless carriers, as police routinely do, amounted to an unreasonable search and seizure under the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.

In the ruling written by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, the court decided in favor of Timothy Carpenter, who was convicted in several armed robberies at Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in Ohio and Michigan with the help of past cellphone location data that linked him to the crime scenes.

Roberts stressed that the ruling did not resolve other hot-button digital privacy fights, including whether police need warrants to access real-time cellphone location information to track criminal suspects. The ruling has no bearing on “traditional surveillance techniques” such as security cameras or on data collection for national security purposes, he added.

Roberts was joined by the court’s four liberal justices in the majority. The court’s other four conservatives dissented.

Although the ruling explicitly concerned only historical cellphone data, digital privacy advocates are hopeful it will set the tone for future cases on other emerging legal issues prompted by new technology.

“Today’s decision rightly recognizes the need to protect the highly sensitive location data from our cellphones, but it also provides a path forward for safeguarding other sensitive digital information in future cases – from our emails, smart home appliances and technology that is yet to be invented,” said Nate Wessler, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Carpenter.

“We decline to grant the state unrestricted access to a wireless carrier’s database of physical location information,” Roberts said.

Roberts said the ruling still allows police to avoid obtaining warrants for other types of business records. Police could also avoid obtaining warrants in emergency situations, Roberts added.

The high court endorsed the arguments made by Carpenter’s lawyers, who said that police needed “probable cause,” and therefore a warrant, to avoid a Fourth Amendment violation.

Conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in a dissenting opinion that the ruling could put “criminal investigations at serious risk in serious cases, often when law enforcement seeks to prevent the threat of violent crimes.”

Major Supreme Court rulings: https://tmsnrt.rs/2Mjahov

‘BIG BROTHER’

The case underscored the rising concerns among privacy advocates about the government’s ability to obtain an ever-growing amount of personal data. During arguments in the case in December, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who joined Roberts in the ruling, alluded to fears of “Big Brother,” the all-seeing leader in George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.”

Friday’s ruling was the third in recent years in which the court has resolved major cases on how criminal law applies to new technology, on each occasion ruling against law enforcement. In 2014, it required police in most instances to obtain a warrant to search a cellphone’s contents when its user is arrested. In 2012, it decided that a warrant is needed to place a GPS tracking device on a vehicle.

Police helped establish that Carpenter was near the scene of the robberies by securing from his cellphone carrier his past “cell site location information” that tracks which cellphone towers relay calls. His bid to suppress the evidence failed and he was convicted of six robbery counts.

Carpenter’s case will now return to lower courts. His conviction may not be overturned because of the other evidence linking him to the crimes.

The U.S. Justice Department had argued that probable cause should not be required to obtain customer records under a 1986 federal law called the Stored Communications Act. Instead, it argued for a lower standard – that prosecutors show only that there are “reasonable grounds” for the records and that they are “relevant and material” to an investigation.

Roberts wrote that the government’s argument “fails to contend with the seismic shifts in digital technology that made possible the tracking of not only Carpenter’s location but also everyone else’s.”

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment after the ruling.

The decision was issued during a time of rising concern over surveillance practices of law enforcement and intelligence agencies and whether companies like wireless carriers care about customer privacy rights. The big four wireless carriers – Verizon Communications Inc, AT&T Inc, T-Mobile US Inc and Sprint Corp – receive tens of thousands of these requests yearly from law enforcement.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

Supreme Court rejects anti-abortion activists’ undercover video cases

FILE PHOTO: Anti-abortion activist David Daleiden speaks at a news conference outside court in Houston, Texas, U.S., February 4, 2016. REUTERS/Ruthy Munoz/File Photo

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a bid by anti-abortion activists to win the release of videos they surreptitiously recorded at meetings of abortion providers.

The justices declined to take up appeals by the abortion opponents and left in place a lower court’s ruling blocking the release of videos that had the aim of exposing alleged illegal sales of aborted fetal tissue for profit. The trial judge in the case concluded there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the abortion providers captured in the videos.

The activists, including anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress founder David Daleiden, recorded the videos in 2014 and 2015 at annual meetings of the National Abortion Federation, a nonprofit organization representing abortion providers including affiliates of Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood has said the videos were heavily edited to leave a false impression of wrongdoing.

The National Abortion Federation in 2015 sued Daleiden, the California-based Center for Medical Progress and former center board member Troy Newman to stop the release of videos.

The federation said the videos were illegally recorded at private meetings protected by confidentiality agreements and that the anti-abortion activists had infiltrated the meetings by posing as executives of a company that bought fetal tissue.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco blocked the release of the videos in 2016, ruling that enforcing the confidentiality agreements would not violate free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Orrick discounted the claim by the abortion opponents that they were acting as “citizen journalists” in an undercover investigation.

Such confidentiality agreements help ensure privacy and safety for abortion providers given the increase in threats and violence they faced since the defendants’ release of other videos in July 2015, Orrick said.

The judge noted that in November 2015 a man fatally shot three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado. The man told police he was upset with Planned Parenthood for performing abortions and “the selling of body parts,” according to court documents.

Orrick later found Daleiden, the Center for Medical Progress and two of his attorneys in contempt of court after they published some of the blocked material on the internet.

The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last year upheld the injunction against the videos’ publication, prompting Daleiden and Newman to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Daleiden and an associate, Sandra Merritt, last year were charged in California with filming Planned Parenthood workers without their consent.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

U.S. top court will not revive verdict against Palestinian Authority, PLO

FILE PHOTO: Police officers stand in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC, U.S., January 19, 2018. REUTERS/Eric Thayer/File Photo

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization gained a legal victory at the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday as the justices refused to consider reinstating a $655.5 million jury award won against them by 11 American families over militant attacks in Israel.

The court declined to hear the families’ appeal of a lower court’s 2016 ruling throwing out the jury award secured in a lawsuit brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act, a law that lets American victims of international terrorism seek damages in U.S. courts.

The families had looked to hold the Palestinian Authority and PLO liable for six shootings and bombings between 2002 and 2004 in the Jerusalem area that killed 33 people, including several Americans, and wounded more than 450.

“It’s outrageous that the murderous Palestinian Authority is allowed to kill innocent civilians and not have to pay any cost. This is a horrible travesty of justice for the families and we will not let it stand,” said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of the Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, which represents the American families.

Gassan Baloul, a lawyer for the Palestinian defendants, said he was “gratified” that the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. The ruling by the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court that the high court left in place “respects the constitutional limits on the jurisdiction of U.S. courts,” Baloul added.

President Donald Trump’s administration had sided with the Palestinian Authority and PLO in the dispute, urging the justices not to take up the case because the specific claims could not be brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

“The United States condemns acts of terror in the strongest terms and the Department of Justice is committed to prosecuting those who commit terrorist attacks against innocent human beings to the fullest extent that the law allows,” U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said.

“We will continue to support wherever possible all lawful actions to fight terrorism and provide redress to the victims of terrorist attacks and their families,” Kupec added.

The attacks at the center of the lawsuit have been attributed to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Hamas. Lead plaintiff Mark Sokolow, his wife and their two daughters were injured in a 2002 suicide bombing in Jerusalem.

JURISDICTION QUESTION

The 2nd Circuit ordered that the civil lawsuit, which began in January 2004, be dismissed. The appeals court said the attacks occurred “entirely outside” U.S. territory, and found no evidence that Americans were targeted. As a result, American courts do not have jurisdiction to hear the claims, it said.

The families said late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004, and his agents routinely arranged for payments to attackers and to families of militants who died. The Palestinian Authority and PLO have said they condemned the attacks and blamed them on rogue individuals within the organizations acting on their own.

In 2015, after a six-week trial, a federal jury in Manhattan awarded the families $218.5 million, which was tripled automatically to $655.5 million under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the appeals court decision “eviscerates the Anti-Terrorism Act” by severely limiting what cases can be heard in U.S. courts. They argued that Congress wrote the law specifically to apply to attacks that took place outside the United States in which U.S. citizens were injured or killed, whether or not Americans were specifically targeted.

In a separate case on a similar theme, the Supreme Court in February blocked a group of Americans injured in a 1997 suicide bombing in Jerusalem from seizing ancient Persian artifacts from a Chicago museum to satisfy a $71.5 million court judgment against Iran, which they had accused of complicity in the attack.

The Supreme Court in another case is weighing whether Jordan-based Arab Bank Plc can be sued over legal claims that it helped finance militant attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories. A ruling is due by the end of June.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Editing by Will Dunham)

Supreme Court mulls California law on anti-abortion facilities

A view of the U.S. Supreme Court building is seen in Washington, DC, U.S., October 13, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday tackles a dispute over whether a California law requiring Christian-based facilities that counsel pregnant women against abortion to post signs disclosing the availability of state-subsidized abortions and birth control violates their right to free speech.

The nine justices are set to hear an hour of arguments in an appeal by a group of non-profit facilities called crisis pregnancy centers of a lower court ruling upholding the Democratic-backed 2015 law.

The case represents a crossroads of two contentious issues: abortion and the breadth of the right to freedom of speech under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. The Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, and the wider issue of abortion rights is not at issue in the case.

Crisis pregnancy centers say they offer legitimate health services but that it is their mission to steer women with unplanned pregnancies away from abortion. They accuse California of forcing them to advertise for abortion even though they oppose it.

California says some crisis pregnancy centers mislead women by presenting themselves as full-service reproductive healthcare facilities and the law helps ensure these clients are made aware of abortion services available elsewhere.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law in 2016 after it was challenged by some of these facilities, finding the statute did not discriminate based on viewpoint.

California’s Reproductive FACT Act, passed by a Democratic-led legislature and signed by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, requires centers licensed as family planning facilities to post or distribute notices that the state has programs offering free or low-cost birth control and abortion services. The law requires unlicensed facilities with no medical provider on staff to disclose that fact.

Abortion rights advocates say the roughly 2,700 U.S. anti-abortion pregnancy centers, including around 200 in California, far outnumber facilities providing abortions.

The California challengers are the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, an umbrella group for crisis pregnancy centers, and two such facilities in San Diego County. The plaintiffs had told the lower courts that they would not comply with the law.

A win for them could make it harder for Democratic-governed states to impose rules on crisis pregnancy centers, but also could help abortion rights advocates challenge laws in Republican-governed states that impose certain requirements on abortion clinics.

California said its law does not force crisis pregnancy centers to refer women for abortions, nor does it prevent them from voicing their views on abortion. The state told the justices in legal papers that some centers use incomplete or false medical advice to try to prevent women from having an abortion. Some resemble medical clinics, down to lab coats worn by staff, to try to confuse women into thinking they are at a center offering all options, the state added.

The facilities deny using deceptive tactics.

A ruling is due by the end of June.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

U.S. top court rejects challenge to California gun waiting period

Firearms are shown for sale at the AO Sword gun store in El Cajon, California, January 5, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a blow to gun rights activists, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday turned away a challenge to California’s 10-day waiting period for firearms purchases that is intended to guard against impulsive violence and suicides.

The court’s action underscored its continued reluctance to step into the national debate over gun control roiled by a series of mass shootings including one at a Florida school last week. One of the court’s most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, dissented from the decision to reject the case and accused his colleagues of showing contempt toward constitutional protections for gun rights.

The gun rights groups and individual gun owners who challenged the law had argued that it violated their right to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. The challengers did not seek to invalidate California’s waiting period for everyone, just for people who already owned guns and passed a background check.

In his dissent, Thomas scolded his colleagues. “If a lower court treated another right so cavalierly, I have little doubt this court would intervene,” Thomas wrote. “But as evidenced by our continued inaction in this area, the Second Amendment is a disfavored right in this court.”

The Supreme Court has not taken up a major firearms case since issuing important gun rulings in 2008 and 2010.

The United States has among the most lenient gun control laws in the world. With the U.S. Congress deeply divided over gun control, it has fallen to states and localities to impose firearms restrictions. Democratic-governed California has some of the broadest firearms measures of any state.

A series of mass shootings including one in which a gunman killed 17 people at a Parkland, Florida high school on Feb. 14 have added to the long-simmering U.S. debate over gun control and the availability of firearms.

In another gun case, the high court on Tuesday also declined to take up a National Rifle Association challenge to California’s refusal to lower its fees on firearms sales and instead use a surplus generated by the fees to fund efforts to track down illegal weapons.

Thomas said he suspected that the Supreme Court would readily hear cases involving potentially unconstitutional waiting periods if they involved abortion, racist publications or police traffic stops.

“The right to keep and bear arms is apparently this court’s constitutional orphan. And the lower courts seem to have gotten the message,” Thomas added.

Lead plaintiff Jeff Silvester, the Calguns Foundation and its executive director Brandon Combs, and the Second Amendment Foundation in 2011 challenged the 10-day waiting period between the purchase of a firearm and its actual delivery to the buyer, saying it violated the Second Amendment for individuals who already lawfully own a firearm or are licensed to carry one.

The waiting period gives a gun buyer inclined to use it for an impulsive purpose a “cooling off” period before obtaining it, which has been shown in studies to reduce handgun suicides and homicides, the state said in a legal filing. The waiting period also gives officials time to run background checks and ensure that weapons being sold are not stolen or being purchased for someone prohibited from gun ownership, the state said.

The states of California, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Illinois, Minnesota, Florida, Iowa, Maryland and New Jersey as well as Washington, D.C., have waiting periods that vary in duration and type of firearm, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence gun control advocacy group.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld California’s law in 2016, reversing a federal trial court that had ruled it unconstitutional.

Last year, the Supreme Court left in place a California law that bars permits to carry a concealed gun in public places unless the applicant can show “good cause” for having it.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

FEMA allows churches to apply retroactively for disaster aid

Interstate highway 45 is submerged from the effects of Hurricane Harvey seen during widespread flooding in Houston, Texas, U.S. August 27, 2017.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency said on Tuesday that churches may apply for aid relating to disasters declared after Aug. 23, 2017, following pressure from President Donald Trump and a lawsuit by Texas churches.

The federal disaster relief agency was sued in September by three Texas churches severely damaged in Hurricane Harvey, over what they called its policy of refusing to provide disaster relief to houses of worship because of their religious status.

Trump had said in a tweet that Texas churches should be able to receive money from FEMA for helping victims of Hurricane Harvey. It was not clear whether the three churches provided aid to victims.

The churches that sued are the Rockport First Assembly of God in Rockport, which lost its roof and steeple and suffered other structural damage, and the Harvest Family Church in Cypress and Hi-Way Tabernacle in Cleveland, which were both flooded.

In a complaint filed in federal court in Houston, the churches said they would like to apply for aid but it would be “futile” because FEMA’s public assistance program “categorically” excluded their claims, violating their constitutional right to freely exercise their religion.

They said FEMA’s ban on providing relief where at least half a building’s space is used for religious purposes, a policy also enforced after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012, contradicted a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision making it easier for religious groups to get public aid.

(Reporting by Chris Sanders; Editing by Leslie Adler)

U.S. Supreme Court declines church’s challenge to Nebraska funeral picketing law

Trump adds five conservatives to list of possible Supreme Court picks

By Chris Kenning

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left in place a Nebraska law that prohibits picketing near funerals after it was challenged by a Kansas church known for anti-gay protests.

Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church had filed suit against the 2006 Nebraska measure prohibiting protests within 500 feet of a cemetery or church before and after a funeral.

The Supreme Court said it would not take up the church’s challenge to the state law.

Westboro members are known for protesting at military funerals, including soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, which they believe are result of God’s wrath over the United States’ tolerance of gay, lesbian and transgender people and adultery.

“We’re going to keep going,” Westboro lawyer Margie Phelps said in an interview with Reuters on Monday. “We’ve got to warn the nation.”

The church has protested at hundreds of funerals over the last decade, Phelps said. That has continued after the 2014 death of Fred Phelps, the pastor who led the vitriolic “God Hates Fags” anti-gay campaign across the United States.

Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson could not immediately be reached for comment.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in August that the state law appropriately balanced free-speech rights and the privacy right of mourners to grieve without intrusions.

The Nebraska law had been challenged by Phelps’ sister Shirley Phelps-Roper, a Westboro member involved in picketing the October 2011 funeral of Caleb Nelson, a 26-year-old Navy SEAL from Omaha.

Protesters held signs with messages that said “no peace for the wicked” and “thank God for dead soldiers.”

The 8th Circuit upheld a similar ordinance in 2012 from the city of Manchester, Missouri, involving a 300-foot buffer. Phelps said many states have similar laws.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that the church’s picketing at a private funeral and even hurtful protest messages were protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

 

 

(Reporting by Chris Kenning, Editing by Ben Klayman and Dan Grebler)

 

Top court spurns National Rifle Association challenge to Maryland assault weapons ban

U.S. Supreme Court is seen in Washington, U.S., November 27, 2017. The Court, which has avoided major gun cases for seven years, on Monday declined to hear a challenge backed by the National Rifle Association to Maryland's 2013 state ban on assault weapons enacted after a Connecticut school massacre.

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court, which has avoided major gun cases for seven years, on Monday declined to hear a challenge backed by the National Rifle Association to Maryland’s 2013 state ban on assault weapons enacted after a Connecticut school massacre.

The court turned away an appeal by several Maryland residents, firearms dealers and the state NRA association, who argued that the ban violated their right to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

The justices sidestepped the roiling national debate over the availability of military-style guns to the public.

The case focused on weapons that have become a recurring feature in U.S. mass shootings including the Nov. 5 attack at a Texas church that killed 26 people, the Oct. 1 attack at a Las Vegas concert that killed 58 people, and the 2012 massacre of 20 schoolchildren and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which prompted Maryland’s law.

Assault weapons are popular among gun enthusiasts.

The challengers, who had sued Maryland’s governor and other officials in 2013, appealed a February ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia that upheld the state’s law. The 4th Circuit, ruling 10-4, said it had no power to extend constitutional protections to “weapons of war.”

Maryland’s ban outlaws “assault long guns,” mostly semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15 and AK-47, as well as large-capacity magazines, which prevent the need for frequent reloading.

Backed by the influential NRA gun lobby, the plaintiffs said in a court filing that semi-automatic rifles are in common use and that law-abiding citizens should not be deprived of them.

“The sands are always shifting with the Supreme Court,” Democratic Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said. “I hope that this means they have reached a conclusion that they are not going to fiddle with assault weapons bans across the country.”

The Supreme Court last year left in place assault weapon bans in New York and Connecticut.

“It’s inexplicable to me that people would allow the use of assault weapons when they see the carnage that has been inflicted on innocent victims around the country,” Frosh added.

The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

FLORIDA CASE

The Supreme Court on Monday also declined to hear a second gun-related case in which a Florida man convicted of openly carrying a firearm on the street sought to challenge that state’s ban on such activity.

Defendant Dale Lee Norman, who had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, was convicted of openly carrying a handgun in 2012 near his home in Fort Pierce, Florida. In March of this year, the Florida Supreme Court rejected Norman’s challenge to the so-called open-carry ban, saying it did not violate his right to bear arms.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued important rulings in gun cases in 2008 and 2010 but has not taken up a major firearms case since. It has repeatedly refused to second guess lower court decisions upholding state and local restrictions on assault weapons, which filled a void after a federal ban on these firearms expired in 2004.

In a landmark 2008 ruling, the Supreme Court for the first time found that the Second Amendment protected an individual’s right to gun ownership under federal law, specifically to keep a handgun at home for self-defense. In 2010, the court found that right extended to state and local laws as well.

Since then, gun rights advocates have been probing how far those rights extend, including the types of guns and where they can be carried.

The 4th Circuit, in upholding Maryland’s law, noted the disproportionate use of semi-automatic assault rifles in mass shootings and said these weapons are like the military’s M-16 machine guns, which the Supreme Court in its 2008 ruling agreed may be banned. There was also little evidence that such guns are well-suited for self-defense, the 4th Circuit added.

The National Rifle Association criticized the 4th Circuit for finding that “the Second Amendment provides absolutely zero protection to the most popular long guns in the country and standard-capacity ammunition magazines that number in the tens of millions.”

 

 

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

 

U.S. top court to hear dispute over California pregnancy center law

An activist holds a rosary while ralling against abortion outside City Hall in Los Angeles, California September 29, 2015. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether a California law requiring private facilities that counsel pregnant women against abortion to post signs telling clients how to get state-funded abortions and contraceptives violates free speech rights.

The justices will hear an appeal brought by Christian-based non-profit facilities sometimes called “crisis pregnancy centers” of a lower court ruling that upheld the Democratic-backed 2015 California law. The challengers argue that the law, by forcing them to post the information, violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of free speech.

California argued that the Reproductive FACT Act, passed by a Democratic-led legislature and signed by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, is justified by its responsibility to regulate the healthcare industry and is needed to ensure that women know the state has programs providing abortions and birth control.

The law requires licensed healthcare facilities to post a notice saying that the state has programs for “immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services … prenatal care, and abortion for eligible women.” For non-licensed medical facilities, an additional notice is required stating that the center “has no licensed medical provider who provides or directly supervises the provision of services.”

The facilities had asked the high court to hear their appeal of a ruling last year by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the law.

In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a challenge to similar law in New York City, although that case differed from the California dispute because the lower court had struck down several provisions, including one that required centers to disclose whether they provide abortions and other reproductive care.

The “crisis pregnancy centers” counsel women not to have abortions. These facilities, according to critics, often are located near hospitals and abortion clinics, offer ultrasounds and are staffed by people wearing medical garb. Some are medically licensed facilities, others are not.

Challengers included the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, an umbrella group for anti-abortion pregnancy crisis centers that said its members include 73 centers in California that are medically licensed and 38 that are not.

The other plaintiffs are two centers in San Diego County: Pregnancy Care Center and Fallbrook Pregnancy Resource Center. The court did not act on three other cases brought by other centers making similar claims.

The Supreme Court found that women have a constitutional right to an abortion in the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade. The court most recently backed abortion rights in 2016 when it struck down a Texas law that imposed strict regulations on clinics that provided abortions.

 

 

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)