Supreme Court Takes New Gun Case

Article here: Supreme Court Agrees to Weigh Local Gun Laws

Associated Press

WASHINGTON--The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether strict local and state gun-control laws violate the Second Amendment, ensuring another high-profile battle over the rights of gun owners.

The court said it will review a lower court ruling that upheld a handgun ban in Chicago. Gun-rights supporters challenged gun laws in Chicago and some suburbs immediately following the high court's decision in June 2008 that struck down a handgun ban in the District of Columbia, a federal enclave.

The new case tests whether last year's ruling applies as well to local and state laws.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld ordinances barring the ownership of handguns in most cases in Chicago and suburban Oak Park, Ill. Judge Frank Easterbrook, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, said that "the Constitution establishes a federal republic where local differences are to be cherished as elements of liberty rather than extirpated in order to produce a single, nationally applicable rule.''

"Federalism is an older and more deeply rooted tradition than is a right to carry any particular kind of weapon,'' Judge Easterbrook wrote.

Evaluating arguments over the extension of the Second Amendment is a job "for the justices rather than a court of appeals,'' he said.

The high court took his suggestion Wednesday.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, then an appeals court judge, was part of a three-judge panel in New York that reached a similar conclusion in January.

Judges on both courts--Republican nominees in Chicago and Democratic nominees in New York--said only the Supreme Court could decide whether to extend last year's ruling throughout the country.

Many, but not all, of the constitutional protections in the Bill of Rights have been applied to cities and states.
The New York ruling also has been challenged, but the court didn't act on it Wednesday. Justice Sotomayor would have to sit out any case involving decisions she was part of on the appeals court. Although the issue is the same in the Chicago case, there is no ethical bar to her participation in its consideration by the Supreme Court.

Several Republican senators cited the Sotomayor gun ruling, as well as her reticence on the topic at her confirmation hearing, in explaining their decision to oppose her confirmation to the high court.

The case, McDonald v. Chicago, 08-1521, will be argued next year.

The court also agreed to hear cases on:

Miranda Rights
The court will decide how far police can go in questioning suspects who say they understand their Miranda rights but don't immediately invoke them.
When arrested for murder, Van Chester Thompkins didn't ask for a lawyer or say he didn't want to talk to police after being read his Miranda rights. He confessed and was convicted. On appeal, however, he said his Miranda rights were violated.
The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeal in Cincinnati threw out his conviction, saying that since Mr. Thompkins didn't waive or assert his Miranda rights, the questioning should have stopped.
The case is Berghuis v. Thompkins, 08-1470.

Sex-Offender Registries
The 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.
The high court agreed to hear an appeal from Thomas Carr, who pleaded guilty to sexual abuse in Alabama. When released from prison in 2004, he moved to Indiana but didn't register with that state's sexual-offender database. He was arrested in 2007 for not registering and sentenced under a law that passed in 2006.
Courts have been divided on whether the law can be applied retroactively.
The case is Carr v. United States, 08-1301.

Somalia Human-Rights Suit
The court will consider throwing out a human-rights lawsuit against a former prime minister of Somalia who is accused of overseeing killings and other atrocities.
The court said it would review an appeals-court ruling allowing Somalis to sue Mohamed Ali Samantar of Fairfax, Va., who was defense minister and prime minister of Somalia in the 1980s and early 1990s under dictator Siad Barre.
The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Samantar was responsible for killings, rapes and torture, including waterboarding, of his own people while in power, particularly against disfavored clans. The lawsuit was filed in 2004 at federal court in Alexandria under the Torture Victim Protection Act.

Anti-Terrorism Law
The court will consider whether portions of a law that makes it a crime to provide "material support or resources" to designated terrorist groups are unconstitutional.
The justices said Wednesday they will hear the Obama administration's appeal of an appeals court ruling that declared parts of the law unconstitutionally vague.
The law, frequently used by federal prosecutors since Sept. 11, bars financial and other aid to any group designated a terrorist organization. The individuals and groups that challenged the law argued that it prohibits aid to lawful, nonviolent activities of designated organizations.

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