State Of Illinois In The Circuit Court Of The Second: Fill & Download for Free

I think that the Court correctly identified the ulterior motive behind New York City reversing course on a law it had defended in its original form for five years, before changing it in the span of five months and filing the motion for mootness; that of course being that New York City does not want to be the third major city to lose a landmark SCOTUS case on the topic of gun laws. This would not only complete the trifecta in the eastern half of the country with DC and Chicago (with a Ninth Circuit case in Young v. Hawaii promising to make things very interesting for California), but would also make it a national binding precedent that the ability to transport a gun from place to place is a key element of the right to keep and bear arms protected by the Second Amendment, and thus that the protections of the Second Amendment do indeed extend beyond one’s own front door.The law in question, for those following along at home, is (or was) a New York City ordinance that prohibits firearms licensed for possession within the city from being transported out of the city. The only exception I am aware of was that those owning a rifle and possessing a valid hunting license could take the rifle out of the city on a temporary basis to hunt. You could not take an NYC-registered handgun to another residence of yours outside the city limits, or out of state, or even to a “gun-related venue” located outside the city. Even leaving the city permanently was apparently not an exception to the law; if you’d had enough and wanted out, you were expected to surrender your gun to the NYPD on the way out.The case in point concerns the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, an auxilliary of the NRA, who is representing several residents of New York City who wish to transport their lawfully-owned and licensed firearms. At least one wishes to make use of a shooting range on Long Island, geographically close to his home but across City lines. Another wishes to transport his NYC-registered firearm to a second home in upstate New York in the summer months. The ordinance prevents both activities, which these Petitioners are contending is a violation of a Second Amendment right to transport a lawfully-owned firearm between locations where it may be lawfully possessed, as a part of “keeping and bearing arms” protected in the Amendment.These restrictions were defended by the City in lower courts on several grounds; the City has a compelling need to control trafficking of firearms, the City has seven gun ranges within the city limits that licensed gun owners may utilize, and gun owners are not limited to one gun; those wishing to possess a gun at a second residence may simply buy that second gun and keep it at the second residence. These arguments were contested as insufficient by the challengers, however they were upheld by SDNY and by Second Circuit, prompting the petition to SCOTUS.Now, my read of the legal situation (and I’m not alone in this interpretation) is that NYC was not expecting this case to get past Second Circuit. The regional judicial atmosphere around the Eastern Seaboard is very liberal and very pro-government; if there is a way to reason logically towards a conclusion that favors gun control, that will be the decision from practically any court in New York, up to and including the Federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The Supreme Court, on the other hand, gets about 8,000 petitions per session, and hears only about 1% of those, and it has notably declined to hear any other 2A case, despite several opportunities, since its ruling in McDonald v. Chicago, which incorporated the protections of the 2A as a limitation on the power of state and local governments.So the odds, as recently as 2017 when oral arguments were heard at the Circuit level, were really good that the Supreme Court would duck the issue again, much as they did in 2016 with Peruta v. California which addressed the issue of public carry of firearms, specifically “may-issue” permitting policies, leaving Second Circuit’s affirmation of the NYC ordinance in place.However, the SCOTUS of 2019 is not the SCOTUS of 2016. The notable change is Kennedy’s retirement; as the court’s “swing vote”, and notably iffy on the topic of guns personally, SCOTUS was believed to be ducking the issue specifically because neither the conservative block of Thomas, Alito, Scalia (replaced by Gorsuch) and Roberts, nor the liberal bloc of Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan and Sotomayor, could be confident enough in Kennedy voting their way to force a decision from him by granting cert in a bloc vote. Kennedy was replaced by Brett Kavanaugh, believed by practically every analyst following him to be reliably conservative and pro-gun, if not quite as right-leaning as originally thought. Adding in Thomas, Gorsuch and Alito, who have all been vocal in condemning denial of 2A cases petitioned to SCOTUS since McDonald, you have your four Justices needed to grant cert. And you not only have the four you need to hear it, but Chief Justice Roberts voted with the conservative bloc on both Heller and McDonald even as he was most likely the missing conservative vote for certiorari in the past cases. Now that Kennedy’s vote is no longer an issue, Roberts is the swing vote, and his record so far is also pro-2A. With these five reliably pro-gun votes, which did not exist when the case was first brought in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in 2013, the 2019 SCOTUS is significantly less likely to be in NYC’s corner on this issue.As such, NYC’s lawyers must have caused a minor run on the nearest Brooks Brothers to replace their suit slacks when it was announced that SCOTUS would indeed hear NYSRPA v. NYC in the 2019 session. Second Circuit might play along with NYC, but a SCOTUS with Thomas, Gorsuch, Alito, Kavanaugh and Roberts making up a 5-member conservative bloc is considerably less likely to hold that NYC’s ordinance is in keeping with the Constitution in any way. By so doing, they’d not only rule that transportation of firearms for lawful purposes cannot be restricted by local or state jurisdictions, they would also hold that the Second Amendment does indeed apply outside the home to activities performed using firearms in other areas including in public, and they would likely define the appropriate standard of judicial scrutiny to apply to 2A cases, which if (as gun owners want) they settle on strict scrutiny, requiring that restriction to the 2A must be narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest, would undoubtedly hamper gun control efforts nationwide.Being the government, NYC had a convenient “out”; it’s their law they’re defending. If they change the law, in this case weakening it to allow the exact activities at issue in the case, the case becomes moot; there’s nothing SCOTUS would have to compel NYC to do in an order, and as such there would be nothing for the Court to consider. Therefore, NYC petitioned the Court to drop the case as there is no longer an adversarial contention on the question between the parties.Had the Court agreed, the case would be dropped, and Second Circuit’s decision upholding laws of this type would remain the law of the land in New York, with other relevant lower court decisions remaining in place where they may exist. This has been a key strategy of gun control advocates in the Roberts Court era; don’t push a bad hand. The State of Illinois (as tightly controlled politically by Chicago as New York State is by New York City) did not push the issue of Moore v. Madigan, in which Seventh Circuit held that may-issue licensing was unconstitutional. DC’s DA similarly dropped the issue after Wrenn v. D.C. went against them in the DC Circuit on the same subject matter. Both jurisdictions instead passed shall-issue carry permitting laws, thus removing the challenger’s standing to pursue the case further as they got what they wanted, while keeping may-issue policies in place on the rest of the East Coast and in California and Hawaii on the West Coast.Now, gun owners are no fools. If you can repeal a law that quickly, you can put it back just as easily. The court case, however, has been 6 years in the making on its way to SCOTUS. Had the Court ruled the issue moot, it would likely take another 6 years to get another case through Second Circuit with similar subject matter. And if it worked once, why not do it again? Just repeal the law a second time, that case is moot, rinse and repeat until you have a more favorable Court makeup (Thomas, the oldest conservative, has to retire sometime, and it’s pretty hard to be more conservative than he has been, so even a less conservative replacement would tilt the scales toward gun control). Lastly, the law change made life marginally easier for City residents who own guns, but a corresponding State law carved out an exception giving New York City sole authority to control the transportation of firearms through the City’s jurisdiction, even though all other cities and counties are pre-empted by state law. As such, NYSRPA, other co-plaintiffs and dozens of amici curiae filed briefs opposing the motion of mootness on the grounds that the motivation was by no means altruistic, but designed specifically to remove the petitioners’ standing while changing very little.And SCOTUS agreed, at least to the extent that they denied the petition of summary mootness. However, SCOTUS will address the issue of mootness at oral argument; both parties will have to argue their points for why the Court should or should not listen to their subsequent arguments on the merits of the case.Personally, I think this case needs to be heard. The question of whether, and to what degree, the Second Amendment extends outside one’s own home to other “traditionally lawful purposes” is a question SCOTUS has already avoided for too long, with the predictable result that Circuit courts have leaned the States’ way on these issues, with only two notable exceptions (Moore and Wrenn, both of which the Court declared legally moot when denying cert in Peruta). You can argue there isn’t a Circuit Court split based on any technicality you wish; the reality is that residents of coastal states who desire to own a firearm for lawful purposes have a significantly harder time doing so legally than residents of inland and Gulf states, even residents of major cities elsewhere in the country, for the sole reason that the governments of those coastal states would rather they not have a gun at all. These coastal states and the Circuits of the US judicial system have been willing to stretch the term “restriction”, which is differentiable at law from “infringement”, as far as it will possibly go as long as SCOTUS remains silent on the matter. The applicable law regarding an enumerated Constitutional right differs greatly depending on where you happen to live in the United States, and that is simply not something we would tolerate happening to any other enumerated Constitutional right.

SCOTUS is only 9 people, so it is not going to be a representative sample - it is too small.It is also not intended to represent ethnicity.Supreme Court justices usually ....1. Went to well known law school2. Often were on the Law Review publication3. Clerked for a Federal Appeals court judge, State Supreme Court or U.S. Supreme Court Judge4. Became a judge on either Federal Circuit court or State Supreme Court.Possible future Asians who might be nominatedHere are three people + one who are likely to make the short list...Goodwin LiuStanford, BS in Biology, Rhodes Scholar, Yale Law, clerked for Justice Ginsburg, Professor at UC Berkeley, on board of Trustees of Stanford University, now on California Supreme Court>> Also a political activist while at Stanford, his nomination to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was controversial, and was effectively filibustered.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denny_ChinStuyvesant High School, Princeton undergrad, Fordham Law, on Law Review, Davis Polk Wardwell. U.S. Attorneys' office. Confirmed by Senate 98-0 to Second Circuit Court of Appeals.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_E._ChangUniv. of Michigan Bachelors in Aerospace Engineering, Northwestern Law, clerked for Appeals court judge, Sidley Austin, U.S. Attorneys office, Unanimous confirmation by Senate to U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois.Somewhat young,but having Harvard Law, work with DOJ Legislative work, Worked for Wilson Sonsini in Silicon Valley, and being appointed by Arnold Schwarzenegger and then Barack Obama...confirmed by the Senate 90-0 for the U.S. District Court of Northern California.Lucy H. KohHere is a big list of current judges. Now this will not include people who are current working on the U.S. Attorneys side, or Solicitor General's office, private practice, etc.List of Asian American jurists

The answer to your question can be found in the two US Supreme Court decisions directly on point. District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago.The Heller decision conducted an in-depth examination of the Second Amendment. The decision held several things, most notably that the right to keep and bear arms for lawful self-defense was an individual right. The decision held that Open Carry perfectly captures the meaning of what it referred to as the “operative clause” of the Second Amendment, which is “the Right of The People to keep an bear arms…”The Heller decision also held that the right was not to carry any weapon, in any manner, for any purpose, and said that the 19th-century prohibitions on concealed carry are Constitutional under the Second Amendment. To which it added that the Heller decision was not to cast doubt on what it referred to as presumptively lawful “longstanding” prohibitions on the possession of firearms by convicted felons, the mentally ill, in sensitive public places (such as schools and government buildings) or commercial regulations on the sale of arms.All nine justices agreed in the Heller decision that concealed carry is not a Second Amendment right. The dissenting justices accepted that there is an individual right to use firearms for the purpose of self-defense but disagreed that the Second Amendment was a guarantee of that right. The four dissenting justices would have upheld the ban on possessing handguns but would have read a self-defense exception for carrying loaded long guns in self-defense into the DC ordinance at issue in Heller.Having defined the right, the court then applied its definition of the right to the District of Columbia ordinances, which applied only to the home and to private land (residential and commercial). The Heller decision affirmed the decision of the court of appeals in striking down the DC ordinances, in full.The McDonald decision applied both the Second Amendment in full and the Second Amendment right as defined in the Heller decision to all state and local governments via the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, which means that the Second Amendment right as it was understood in 1868 is the right which applies to the States.The City of Chicago ordinance, with certain exceptions, was a citywide ban on the possession of handguns by the residents of Chicago. Under the ban, a person who was not otherwise prohibited from possessing a handgun or who was not a resident of the City of Chicago could have carried a loaded handgun in Mr. McDonald’s residence (with his permission) and on Mr. McDonald’s private residential property. It was a citywide ban on handgun possession for Mr. McDonald and nearly everyone else who resided in the City of Chicago.Justice Stevens’ dissent in McDonald acknowledged that the right to keep and bear arms defined in the Heller decision extended beyond the home but treated the McDonald decision as if the question was limited to the home.The lower Federal courts are split on the scope of the Second Amendment, both inside and outside of the home. The First circuit court of appeals recently held that the right to bear arms in public lies on the periphery of the Second Amendment right in upholding Massachusetts may-issue handgun carry licensing law (the license allows for both Open Carry and concealed carry of handguns).The Second circuit court of appeals decided a case before which challenged New York’s concealed carry licensing law, in which the plaintiffs argued that states can ban Open Carry in favor of concealed carry. The court of appeals disagreed and said that Heller's citations indicated that Open Carry is the right and that concealed carry can be banned. Nevertheless, the court of appeals assumed, without deciding, that concealed carry falls within the scope of the Second Amendment and upheld New York’s may-issue concealed carry law.The Third circuit court of appeals pointed to the Second Circuit's decision and said “me too” in upholding New Jersey’s may-issue handgun licensing law.The Fourth circuit court of appeals did something unique. It simply did not decide the scope of the Second Amendment or assume it applied anywhere. Instead, it upheld Maryland’s may-issue handgun licensing law because the three-judge panel claimed that they were bound by a prior decision which was, ironically, a concealed carry case, in a motor vehicle, in public.The circuit court of appeals for the District of Columbia held that Heller’s citation to Chandler shields the right to Open Carry but despite the longstanding prohibitions on concealed carry, the court held that the Second Amendment extends to concealed carry and therefore it was bound by its prior precedents to rule for the plaintiffs.Since the District of Columbia requires a permit to carry a handgun in public, openly or concealed, but won’t provide applications for handgun Open Carry licenses (which the plaintiffs did not want anyway), they got their concealed carry permits.The Seventh circuit court of appeals struck down the State of Illinois bans on carrying loaded and unloaded firearms openly and concealed (handguns and long guns) but gave Illinois seven months to write a new law, noting that Illinois could require that firearms be carried openly, as per the Heller decision.An en banc panel of the Ninth circuit court of appeals held that there is no right to concealed carry, as per the Heller decision, but withheld judgment on Open Carry because the NRA/CRPA/SAF/CalGuns.nuts plaintiffs did not seek to openly carry a firearm. Indeed, they had argued that states can ban Open Carry in favor of concealed carry and since California had banned Open Carry they were somehow entitled to concealed carry permits.On July 24, 2018, a divided three-judge panel of the 9th circuit court of appeals held that the Second Amendment confers the right to Open Carry in public. The defendants have filed a petition for the appeal to be reheard before a limited en banc panel of eleven judges. That petition is still pending.And so the answer to the first part of your question as to whether or not SCOTUS has decided whether we have the right to carry firearms in public is, “That depends on which Federal circuit court of appeals you are in.”The answer to the second part of your question (concealed carry) is yes, SCOTUS has held in at least three cases, including Heller and McDonald that concealed carry is not a right, which is entirely consistent with the 19th-century prohibitions on concealed carry which were upheld by the 19th-century courts.If you want SCOTUS to hold that concealed carry is a right under the Second Amendment then that would require five justices on the US Supreme Court to reverse its holdings in Heller, McDonald, and Robertson v. Baldwin. In addition to reversing prior precedents, both old and new, it would require five justices to apply a non-originalist doctrine (i.e., the Constitution is a living document the meaning of which depends on judges).I don’t see Justices Thomas or Alito doing that. I am doubtful that Justice Gorsuch would do that. Justice Kavanaugh is still an unknown. Chief Justice Roberts is anybody’s guess. As to the four justices on the left, they no doubt would love to uphold a highly restrictive may-issue concealed carry law, if they have the five votes necessary to do so.So far, neither side has had five votes, or even the four votes required to grant a cert petition.