District of Columbia v. Heller

I will have more on this later, but for those of you who are interested in this case, here is a link to a page with the briefs. I am counsel of record for one of the amicus curiae. Nelson Lund, who taught me in law school, and who clerked for Sandra Day O'Conner, will be filing what I'm sure is an excellent brief on behalf of a number of law professors supporting respondent. This will be an interesting case and I'll have much more to say about it over the next month or so.

Note: This is the "DC gun case."

UPDATE: There was much hand-wringing a few weeks ago when the Solicitor General filed a brief arguing that while the Second Amendment protects an individual right, the Supreme Court should nevertheless send the DC Circuit case back to the District Court to review the challenged firearms restrictions under a more deferential standard--in legaleese, it rejected strict scrutiny. Well, a majority of the U.S. Congress was having none of that. 54 Senators (including one from Virginia--see if you can guess which? and Sen John McCain) and 250 Members of Congress, from both parties, filed a brief today rejecting that view and calling for the Supreme Court to affirm the DC Circuit and throw out the challenged DC gun laws outright. To the extent that it matters to the Court, this view represents the majority view of the American People as expressed through their elected representatives. Interestingly, the Vice President also signed this brief, representing a rebuke of his own Adminsitration's policy--although, he was signing as the President of the Senate. SCOTUSBLOG reports that this is a rare example of a sitting VP taking a position in Court contrary to that of the Administration whom he serves. In any case, it should be interesting to see if a Court which has given such credence of late to the views of other nations and foreign and International Law will take a position clearly opposite that of the majority of the members of Congress.