SCOTUS strikes down bump stock ban

 In 2017, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) banned rifles with bump stocks by classifying them as machine guns (which were already prohibited by Congress). This week the U.S. Supreme Court found the regulation misinterpreted the legislation and struck it down.  

Supreme Court’s Welcome Bump Stock Ruling | Wall Street Journal | Editorial Board:

June 14, 2024 - "Why should Congress ever take a vote if lawmakers can simply defer hard policy choices to the regulatory state? That is the subtext of the Supreme Court’s welcome 6-3 ruling Friday on 'bump stocks,' which are rifle accessories that facilitate rapid firing....

"The opinion in Garland v. Cargill, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, is a straightforward case of statutory interpretation. Federal law strictly regulates machine guns, but it defines them as weapons that 'automatically' fire multiple rounds 'by a single function of the trigger.' A bump stock doesn’t do that. As the majority explains, it’s 'a plastic casing that allows every other part of the rifle to slide back and forth.' This helps a user to quickly and repeatedly 'bump' the gun’s trigger forward against a stationary finger. The mechanics matter, Justice Thomas writes, because the statutory definition of a machine gun 'hinges on how many shots discharge when the shooter engages the trigger.' A semiautomatic rifle fires one shot per trigger pull, bump stock or no.

"Writing in dissent for the three liberals, Justice Sonia Sotomayor says that when the law refers to a 'single function of the trigger,' it really means 'a single action by the shooter to initiate a firing sequence.' She uses that logic to try to erase distinctions: 'Just as the shooter of an M16 need only pull the trigger and maintain backward pressure (on the trigger), a shooter of a bump-stock-equipped AR–15 need only pull the trigger and maintain forward pressure (on the gun).' This is unconvincing, and the obvious difference is the latter trigger operates once per shot. Her best argument is that the bureau of alcohol and firearms (ATF) has sometimes considered other gun tinkerings to be machine guns, including when a man attached a motorized fishing reel to a firearm, so its rotation would pull the trigger.

"But Justice Thomas says the ATF 'on more than 10 separate occasions' acknowledged that bump stocks did not qualify as machine guns. In 2018 the agency estimated that there could be up to 520,000 of them in circulation. The ATF does not get to turn something like half a million Americans into potential felons without any say-so from Congress....

"[T]he bump stock diktat wasn’t a Biden Administration regulation. The ATF moved during the Trump Administration after the Las Vegas mass shooter used a bump stock in 2017. The Trump White House approved it. In doing so, it let Congress off the hook, as Justice Samuel Alito points out in a concurrence. 'There is a simple remedy for the disparate treatment of bump stocks and machineguns,' he says. 'Congress can amend the law — and perhaps would have done so already if ATF had stuck with its earlier interpretation. Now that the situation is clear, Congress can act.'

"This is an especially important message in an era when regulators in both parties have decided they can rewrite laws regardless of the plain language of a statute. In this and other cases, the Supreme Court has been saying loud and clear that regulators can’t exceed their authority—and that Congress needs to get back in the business of debating and writing laws rather than ducking difficult votes in favor of the administrative state."

Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/garland-v-cargill-supreme-court-bump-stocks-atf-clarence-thomas-f34049c5

Supreme Court 6-3 CRUSHES ATF Bumpstock Ban Cargill v Garland 2a is BACK!!!Supreme Court 6-3 CRUSHES ATF Bumpstock Ban Cargill v Garland 2a is BACK!!! | Tom Grieve | June 14, 2024:

SCOTUS won't block NY Covid vaccine mandate

Vaccine mandate protesters in New York, August 2021. Photo: New York Times. 

Supreme Court rejects move to block New York vaccine mandate | Politico - Shannon Young:

December 13, 2021 - "The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a request to block New York’s vaccination mandate for health care workers because it doesn't have a religious exemption. The court announced its ruling Monday afternoon in a brief, unsigned order. Three of the court's six conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch — dissented, saying they would grant relief. Gov. Kathy Hochul lauded the court’s decision....

"More than a dozen medical professionals and We the Patriots USA, Inc. sued the Hochul administration over the mandate, which covers patient-facing staff in hospitals, nursing homes and other medical facilities. They asked the court last month to block the state from requiring those who were previously granted religious exemptions to get vaccinated or show proof of a medical exemption. A federal appeals court previously ruled that the mandate could move forward even though it did not allow for a religious exemption.

"Gorsuch wrote in his 14-page dissent that the health care workers who filed the suit and a companion case are not '"anti-vaxxers" who object to all vaccines,' but say they can’t receive a Covid-19 vaccine 'because their religion teaches them to oppose abortion in any form, and because each of the currently available vaccines has depended upon abortion-derived fetal cell lines in its production or testing'....

"Gorsuch also noted New York made changes to its mandate for health workers. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo promised limited religious exemptions in August, but the policy took effect in September without such an exemption under Hochul’s new administration.

"'Six weeks ago, this Court refused relief in a case involving Maine’s healthcare workers. Today, the Court repeats the mistake by turning away New York’s doctors and nurses,' he wrote. 'We do all this even though the state’s executive decree clearly interferes with the free exercise of religion — and does so seemingly based on nothing more than fear and anger at those who harbor unpopular religious beliefs.'"

Read more: https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2021/12/13/supreme-court-rejects-move-to-block-new-york-vaccine-mandate-1399691

Koch legacy alive and thriving: The Guardian

The Kochtopus: sprawling network keeps David Koch's legacy thriving | US news | The Guardian - Ed Pilkington:

August 23, 2019 - "In September 2010, David and Charles Koch, the fabulously rich brothers who turned an oil and manufacturing empire inherited from their father into a cash cow for rightwing causes that would change American politics, sent out a letter to conservative power brokers inviting them to ... an event that was to become known as 'Freedom Partners': a twice-yearly gathering, convened in utmost secrecy, of some of the most wealthy and powerful rightwing players in the country. To attract their guests they included a brochure from a previous Koch gathering in Aspen, where the elite attendees had sat around in mountainous splendor discussing, among other issues: 'Is America on the Road to Serfdom?'

"The most intriguing part of the brochure was a roll-call of names of those lured to previous 'Freedom Partner' gatherings. It included the current vice-president, Mike Pence; the Wisconsin politician Paul Ryan, who would go on to become speaker of the House of Representatives; super-donors such as the hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, and most intriguingly of all two conservative justices of the US supreme court, Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia. That the brothers could bring under one roof top politicians, billionaire donors and senior judges to plot the future of America on a free-market, anti-government course illustrated the scale of their ambitions and the influence they wielded....

"Many date the rise of the Kochs to 2010, the year in which the highly contentious landmark supreme court ruling Citizens United (approved by both Scalia and Thomas) opened the floodgates to corporate money in elections. The Kochs leveraged their affiliated organizations to raise well over $100m in the 2012 presidential election alone....

"Koch’s ... self-interested desire to drive government out of the US economy by undermining regulations and slashing corporate taxes started to firm up in 1980, when he stood as the Libertarian party’s vice-presidential candidate.... In 1977 he supported Charles in founding and funding the libertarian Cato Institute. But it was not until 2004 that the true embodiment of the brothers’ desire to reshape the country was born: Americans for Prosperity.... Through AFP, the Kochs spawned a nationwide web of impassioned conservative volunteers, empowered by the new voter technology they supported through the political data firm i360. Among the key targets of their campaigning: the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare... But it also took on climate crisis regulations, public education and taxes and championed the nascent 2010 Tea Party movement.

"In the past couple of years, David Koch, and his arguably even more ideologically driven brother Charles, have perhaps been less prevalent on the right as their political pulling power has appeared to wane a little. That might be in part due to David’s deteriorating health.... It is also in large part due to the advent of Trump. There has been much discussion in recent months about the very public spat between the president and the Koch brothers, with the Kochs calling Trump’s trade tariffs 'detrimental' and Trump lashing back that the billionaires were 'a total joke'.... [T]he truth about Trump, though, is that he has adopted many of the rightwing postures the Kochs have long espoused....

"In David Koch’s passing on Friday America has lost a lion of conservatism whose backing for ultra-rightwing causes was cherished by fellow billionaires, corporations, polluters – even some supreme court justices. But members of that elite club of 'Freedom Partners' should find solace in the thought that – though David Koch will no longer be there to greet them at their secretive retreats – his influence is still very present, right there in the White House."
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/23/david-koch-death-kochtopus-legacy-right-wing
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8th Amendment forfeiture case goes to SCOTUS

Supreme Court could limit the travesty of civil asset forfeiture - Tiana Low, Washington Examiner:

November 28, 2018 - "At long last, the Supreme Court may take action to limit civil forfeiture, if the questioning by various justices in today's case — including Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch — is any indication. Although one can only learn so much from the questions justices ask, today's oral arguments strongly indicate that justices will apply the Excessive Fines Clause of the Bill of Rights to cities and states, ending some of the worst abuses of civil asset forfeiture....

"The state of Indiana required Tyson Timbs, a man convicted on minor drug charges, to forfeit his car, a 2012 Land Rover, which he had purchased for $42,000 from the proceeds of a life insurance policy. Indiana law dictates that the maximum fine for the crime, selling heroin to undercover officers, is $10,000, just a quarter of the value of the car.

"Justice Clarence Thomas summed up the awful practice of civil asset forfeiture best when he cited a book entitled Policing for Profit....

"SCOTUS's impending ruling is frankly overdue. As Gorsuch noted in his questioning today, 'Most of the incorporation cases took place in like the 1940s. And here we are in 2018 still litigating incorporation of the Bill of Rights.'

"If the court finally forces the states' hands, it will end the worst excesses of civil asset forfeiture. Over 100 years ago, SCOTUS ruled that excessive fines are those 'so grossly excessive as to amount to a deprivation of property without due process of law'....

"After Indiana's solicitor general tried to argue that the Excessive Fines Clause doesn't apply to the states, 'Gorsuch then told the Indiana SG that he was going to lose, and if he kept arguing the merits, he’d lose even worse,' according to Slate's Mark Joseph Stern."

Read more: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-supreme-court-could-limit-the-travesty-of-civil-asset-forfeiture
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Warrant needed for cell location info, SCOTUS rules

Carpenter v. United States Decision Strengthens Digital Privacy | WIRED - Louise Matsakis:

June 22, 2018 - "In a highly anticipated decision released [June 22], the US Supreme Court ... decided in Carpenter v. United States that the government generally needs a warrant in order to access cell site location information [CSLI], which is automatically generated whenever a mobile phone connects to a cell tower and is stored by wireless carriers for years....

"'We decline to grant the state unrestricted access to a wireless carrier’s database of physical location information,' Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. 'In light of the deeply revealing nature of CSLI, its depth, breadth, and comprehensive reach, and the inescapable and automatic nature of its collection, the fact that such information is gathered by a third party does not make it any less deserving of Fourth Amendment protection.'

"Roberts was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented....

"At issue was an antiquated legal principle called the third-party doctrine, which ... comes from United States v. Miller, a 1976 case in which the court ruled that law enforcement doesn't need a warrant in order to access bank records because 'the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the obtaining of information revealed to a third party.' Three years later, in 1979, the court ruled ... that the third-party doctrine also extends to call records collected by phone companies.

"But on Friday, the Supreme Court said that cell site location information is a 'qualitatively different category” of information. CSLI allows law enforcement to paint a nearly complete picture of Americans' movements. Last year, AT&T and Verizon jointly received nearly 125,000 requests from law enforcement for CSLI data, according to their transparency reports. Law enforcement officials will now only be able to make such requests after obtaining a warrant, which will require them to demonstrate probable cause....

"The court declined to decide on whether law enforcement seeking a smaller window of records — fewer than seven days ... constitutes a Fourth Amendment search. The opinion also allows for exceptions for emergencies, like 'bomb threats, active shootings, and child abductions.'

"Carpenter v. United States began in December of 2010, when a series of robberies hit Michigan and neighboring Ohio.... Timothy Carpenter, who was later convicted of committing several of the robberies and sentenced to 116 years in prison ... argued that obtaining the records constituted a Fourth Amendment search, and therefore the police should have needed a warrant. His motion was denied, and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals later upheld the case. The Supreme Court agreed to hear it last year....

"Fourteen of the largest US tech companies — including Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft — filed a brief in support of updating the Fourth Amendment for the digital era. It was technically not filed in support of either party, but largely backed Carpenter's position. The cohort even included Verizon, which cooperated with the National Security Agency as part of its broad bulk surveillance programs for years."

Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/carpenter-v-united-states-supreme-court-digital-privacy/
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SCOTUS OK's arbitration opt-out from NLRA

Neil Gorsuch and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Clash Over Federal Labor Law and the 'Specter' of Lochner v. New York - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Damon Root:

May 21, 2018 - "'Should employees and employers be allowed to agree that any disputes between them will resolve through one-on-one arbitration? Or should employees always be permitted to bring their claims in class or collective actions, no matter what they agreed with their employers?'

"That's how Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch summarized the dispute at the heart of today's 5-4 ruling in Epic Systems Corporation v. Lewis. Writing for a sharply divided Court, Gorsuch held that employees and employers have the legal right to make employment contracts that include one-on-one arbitration ... joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito....

"Under the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925 (FAA), arbitration agreements made between employers and employees 'shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable' by the courts. Under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA), employees have the right to form and join labor unions and 'to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.' In other words, if a labor contract that includes an individual arbitration agreement is valid under the FAA, does it become invalid when the NLRA is factored in?

"Justice Gorsuch thought not. 'In the Federal Arbitration Act, Congress has instructed federal courts to enforce arbitration agreements according to their terms — including terms providing for individualized proceedings,' he wrote. 'Nor can we agree with the employees' suggestion that the [NLRB] offers a conflicting command. It is this Court's duty to interpret Congress's statutes as a harmonious whole rather than at war with one another.'

"Writing in dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, offered a very different view. 'Enacted later in time, the NLRA should qualify as "an implied repeal" of the FAA, to the extent of any genuine conflict'....

"Ginsburg then accused Gorsuch of seeking to resurrect the Supreme Court's pre-New Deal 'Lochner-era contractual "liberty" decisions.' Lochner refers to Lochner v. New York, the 1905 Supreme Court ruling which invalidated a state economic regulation on the grounds that it served no legitimate public health or safety purpose.....

"In his majority opinion, Gorsuch responded directly to this critique. According to Ginsburg's dissent, he observed, 'today's decision ushers us back to the Lochner era when this Court regularly overrode legislative judgments.' Yet as Gorsuch retorted, 'instead of overriding Congress's policy judgments, today's decision seeks to honor them. This much the dissent surely knows.'"

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/05/21/neil-gorsuch-and-ruth-bader-ginsburg-cla
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SCOTUS declines CA concealed-carry case

Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch Blast SCOTUS for Refusing to Hear Major Second Amendment Case - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Damon Root:

June 26, 2017 - "Today the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a major case out of California that asked whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms includes the right to carry firearms in public. By refusing to get involved, the Court left in place a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that denied constitutional recognition to the right to carry.

"Writing in dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, blasted the Court for its failure to act and for its 'distressing trend' of treating 'the Second Amendment as a disfavored right'....

"Thomas offered a sharply worded case for why the Court should have taken up the question. Federal circuits, he pointed out, have reached different conclusions and are therefore irrevocably split on this pressing constitutional matter. 'This Court has already suggested that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry firearms in public in some fashion' ... Thomas observed....

"Today's case, known as Peruta v. California, centered on a state law that says that conceal-carry permits will only be issued to those persons who have demonstrated to the satisfaction of their local county sheriff that they have a 'good cause' for carrying a concealed firearm in public.... In the words of one San Diego official, 'one's personal safety is not considered good cause' in and of itself.

"What this means in practice, as one earlier court ruling observed, is that 'in California the only way that the typical responsible, law-abiding citizen can carry a weapon in public for the lawful purpose of self-defense is with a concealed-carry permit. And, in San Diego County, that option has been taken off the table.'"

Read more: http://reason.com/blog/2017/06/26/clarence-thomas-neil-gorsuch-second-amen
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Thomas wants SCOTUS to review forfeiture laws

Clarence Thomas Is Skeptical of Civil Asset Forfeiture | Cato @ Liberty - Adam Bates:

March 7, 2017 - "Justice Clarence Thomas yesterday signalled that the abusive practice of civil asset forfeiture is ripe for expanded constitutional scrutiny.

"The case is Lisa Olivia Leonard v. Texas.  James Leonard (the petitioner’s son) was stopped by police for a traffic infraction in 2013 'along a known drug corridor.'  Police searched Mr. Leonard’s vehicle and discovered a safe containing $201,100 and the bill of sale for a home. Arguing that the money was either proceeds from a drug sale or going to be used in such a sale, the state initiated forfeiture proceedings and took the money.  The safe actually belonged to James’ mother Lisa, who brought suit to protect her property from the government seizure.

"The Supreme Court denied certiorari for procedural reasons, but Justice Thomas had some harsh words for civil forfeiture anyway, and suggested that it’s time for the Supreme Court to take another look at the practice:

Civil proceedings often lack certain procedural protections that accompany criminal proceedings.... Partially as a result of this distinct legal regime, civil forfeiture has in recent decades become widespread and highly profitable....

This system - where police can seize property with limited judicial oversight and retain it for their own use - has led to egregious and well-chronicled abuses…

"The opinion goes on to explain that while the court has historically upheld the constitutionality of civil forfeiture, the modern practice of forfeiture has strayed far from its narrow historical use and purpose:

Historical forfeiture laws were narrower in most respects than modern ones.... Proceeding in rem in those cases was often justified by necessity, because the party responsible for the crime was frequently ... beyond the personal jurisdiction of the United States courts [and] typically covered only the instrumentalities of the crime (such as the vessel used to transport the goods)....

"In his opinion, Justice Thomas refers to the Institute for Justice’s Policing for Profit survey of forfeiture laws around the country, and also to Sarah Stillman’s expose Taken, documenting several instances of forfeiture abuse. Both of those sources are worth reading for a better idea of just how bad the incentives of civil forfeiture are and the abuses that have resulted.

"It’s heartening to have a Supreme Court Justice so squarely acknowledge and raise questions about a predatory government practice that has proceeded unchecked for so long."

Read more: https://www.cato.org/blog/clarence-thomas-signals-skepticism-civil-asset-forfeiture
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