When losing is winning. SCOTUS denies cert

We are a society of instant gratification. You go to Amazon, click two buttons, and the next day that thing arrives at your door.

Your kid sends you a written message from a different continent, three times a day. You snap a picture of your cat, develop it, do some touch up, decide you can do better, reshoot the photo, edit, and share it with your 42 followers.

When I was doing photography, I stared developing my own film and processing my prints. That way, I could see what I shot within a day of shooting.

The courts are not instant gratification. Not even close.

On January 17, 2023, 6 months after the Supreme Court issued the Bruen decision, Dane Harrel filed a complaint in the Southern District of Illinois. In it, he challenged Illinois Compiled Statute 5/24-1.9(b)&(c); 5/24-1(a)(15)&(a)(16). Translation, “Large Capacity Magazine ban”. It really isn’t relevant to this discussion everything the bill does.

For a case to have standing, there must be an active dispute and there must be a remedy the court can grant.

A dispute must also be within the authority of the court. If you get a ticket for speeding and you “fight it in court”, you will not be fighting in federal district court. Speeding is a state level crime.

If you claim that you were stopped and given a ticket because you are purple, and the pink cop was a discriminating racist who hates one—eyed, one—horned, flying, purple people eaters, that is a challenge that would be made in federal court. It would be a challenge against the cop violating your civil rights.

In the same way, a dispute cannot be arbitrary, you and your wife disagree on whom the greatest composer is. You can’t go to court to have the court determine who the greatest is.

Next, the court must have some way of “making you whole.”.

Years ago, my estranged wife stole a weekend with my kids from me. She did this on a Friday before a long weekend. This was in violation of our legal agreements.

I could not do anything in court because there is no way for the court to give me that time back. There was no way to make me whole.

Harrel and the rest of the plaintiffs have a dispute, they believe that their civil rights, under the Second Amendment, are being violated. They seek relief the courts can give.

A judge is then assigned, in this case, Judge McGlynn.

Now that a judge is assigned, the plaintiffs request that the defendants be notified with a summons. Those summons go out on the 20th. So we are 3 days into the case.

On the 25th, the plaintiffs requested a preliminary injunction.

The sequence of requests is Temporary Injunction(TRO), Preliminary Injunction, and finally an Injunction.

2 days later, on the 27th, the state notifies the court of the lawyer they will be using. Their very first action is to request more time.

This should be easy for the state. The state knew about Bruen when they passed the law. They are required to make sure that the laws they are passing are constitutional. This means that they should have their arguments already done.

In their request for an extension of time, they argue that they are already doing what the court has requested them to do. But this has increased the workload for the state so much that they cannot submit their response until March first, 21 extra days.

That would mean that almost two months would have passed before the state would be required to file their first actual response.

Judge McGlynn said, “No because time is of the essence”. Then told Harrel to get his response in by February 3rd. The state then replied on February 5th.

The court granted the extension.

But it is not to be. Another defendant claims they were never served, yet the court issued a summons for James Gomric on January 20th, along with the other defendants.

So the case is pushed back another week.

It is astonishing how these mistakes always favor the state.

The preliminary injunction was argued in front of Judge McGlynn and on April 28th, he granted the preliminary injunction.

At this point, The People have their victory. The case will proceed to actual arguments through submissions of various documents. The judge will issue their ruling and the case will be over.

But not so fast. The state lost. This means they run to the Seventh Circuit court crying about their boo-boo.

The state filed an appeal the same day.

The courts are busy, they prefer to consolidate cases whenever reasonable. By May 12th, this case was consolidated. It appears that there was a stay issued at some point by the Seventh Circuit court. This stay meant that the infringement was back in place.

We are still in phase two of moving a case to completion. The preliminary injunction phase.

Because an appeal is in play and the circuit court has decided to hear the appeal, all the inferior courts are paused. There is no progress made.

On June 29th, 2023, the case was heard before a three judge panel.

This means we are six months from when the case was first filed. The People are still under the boot heel of the state.

The judges were Easterbrook, anti-people/guns, Wood, anti-people/guns, and Brennan who at least is pro-law.

Once the case is heard, the circuit courts have as long as they want to issue their opinion.

Take for example Bianchi, that case was first appealed to the Fourth Circuit court on March 9th, 2021. On September 17th, 2021, the Fourth Circuit issued an opinion saying “we already did this case, no”. Slamming The People again.

Bianchi filed for certiorari on Dec. 20, 2021. June 30th, 2022 the case was granted certiorari, the case was vacated and remanded back to the Fourth Circuit.

This means that the Supreme Court told the Fourth Circuit, “You got it wrong. Look at Bruen and do it right this time.”

Moving in high gear, the Fourth Circuit merits panel heard oral arguments on Dec. 6th, 2022.

As of July 5th, 2024, there is still no opinion out of the Fourth Circuit court. It has been argued twice. Once before a merits panel, once before the entire en banc court.

Back to Illinois, the case went into the black hole of judicial review and sat there.

In November 2023, the Fourth Circuit merits panel issued their opinion. AR-15s aren’t arms. Harrel and the rest of the good guys asked for an en banc rehearing of the case, that was denied.

At this point, the case is back in Judge McGlynn’s court, he starts moving towards a final decision.

Harrel and the rest filed a motion for a grant of certiorari with the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court denied certiorari, July 2, 2024. This means that this case has been in motion for a year and a half, and we are still in phase two of the process.

At this point, Judge McGlynn has been moving things forward. He has not let the state slow things down. He is moving as fast as the court system allows him.

We lost our chance to be heard in the Supreme Court. But, did we lose?

If certiorari had been granted, the case would have been docketed for oral arguments sometime in the fall of 2024 or spring of 2025. I would guess 2025. While the case is at the Supreme Court, no progress will happen. Everything is on hold.

That means we are 6 to 12 months from the Supreme Court issuing an opinion.

That opinion will, at most, tell the Seventh Circuit court to remove the stay. The state will then file new motions to be heard. The case will be stayed again, in the interest of ????. No idea, but they would have found something.

The merits panel does whatever it wants to do. The loser appeals to the full en banc panel. This entire process will take a year, or more.

There is a high probability, that whoever loses the appeal again tries to get the Supreme Court to hear their case.

Regardless, if the Supreme Court were to hear the cases and vacate and remand, it will be at least an extra two years before the district court can finish the case and issue their final judgement.

Once the district court issues their final judgement, the case moves back up the chain.

The Supreme Court did us a favor in not granting cert.

They kept the case from dragging out an extra two plus years, and it allowed Thomas to issue a statement slapping the Seventh Circuit court for misbehaving.

Nothing Thomas wrote is binding on the Seventh, but it is surely difficult to ignore what a Supreme Court justice says in these statements.