Hunter v. Cortland Housing Authority, 2A win

If you want to see a case take years and years, it goes something like this:

The plaintiffs file a suit and request a Temporary Restraining Order to enjoin the defendants while the court hears briefings and arguments for a Preliminary Injunction.

If the losing party wishes, they can appeal to the circuit court. This will be placed on the emergency docket. The emergency docket is sometimes called the “Shadow Docket”, if the court leans right because it sounds bad.

There is a three—judge administrative panel which examines these petitions on the emergency docket. They can grant a stay or grant an injunction lasting until the case is resolved at the circuit level. They can also decline to do anything, remanding the case back to the lower court.

If the administrative panel decides to accept the case, they will either grant a stay pending the outcome or leave the case in the same stance as the district court put it. They will then place the case on the schedule for a merits panel to hear the case.

Once the case is docketed for a merits panel, the parties start submitting briefs plus copies of everything filed in the lower court. Amicus briefings will also be filed.

Depending on the urgency the administrative panel placed on resolving the case, the case could be heard in a few months or much later. This is determined by putting the case on the fast track or the normal track.

Once it is in a track, a merits panel will be assigned to the case. They will set a schedule. This will state when they want briefings filed, responses filed, responses to responses filed, and when they want to hear arguments. If one of the parties wants, they can request extensions to the deadlines.

After the panel hears the arguments, they will deliberate. When they have come to an agreement, one of the judges on the winning side will write the court’s opinion. The other judge will write their dissenting opinion. This can take multiple months.

The Fourth Circuit had a situation where they heard the case and the two judges had written the opinion of the court, but the third judge was not willing to provide the dissenting opinion. Per custom, the final opinion was not issued until the dissenting opinion was ready.

This lasted so long that even the Ninth Circuit had heard a 2A case and given their opinion. As had the Seventh, Second, and First circuits had as well.

Once they were ready to release the opinion, the Fourth Circuit pulled the case from the merits panel and re-heard the case en banc.

So the case is now a year from when it was first filed.

After the en banc panel has issued their opinion, the loser can seek certiorari from the Supreme Court. They will not grant it because the case is too young. The case has been going for a year or more at this point, but it is still at the very first stage of the case.

Back at the district court level, the judge could put everything on hold pending the outcome of the appeal process. Or they might move forward with the case.

The next step in a court case is the request for a preliminary injunction. The TRO is designed to stop something while the court has time to evaluate the request for a preliminary injunction.

The purpose of a preliminary injunction is to put something on hold until the court has reached its final judgement.

The case has now spent many, many months in appeals, it is now back in the district court. The court issues its order regarding the preliminary injunction.

And the entire process starts all over again. The losers can appeal, the case then wallows in the quagmire that is the appeals process before the case starts its way through the district court again.

At the point where the case starts to move forward, the state is going to argue that the plaintiffs do not have standing, that the case should be dismissed for reasons. Depending on the state of the law that is being defended, the state might be attempting to delay the case or to move it more rapidly.

A strange thing happens when a law is enjoined, the state moves rapidly and the courts move rapidly to reach a stay or to have the injunction overturned. The same state, with the same players, can’t move at faster than a sloths’ pace when their law is there infringing on The People.

There are multiple paths forward for the court and parties. One is summary judgement. In a summary judgement, the court is asked to decide based on the base filings. This should be how most Second Amendment cases are decided.

Judge, the state is infringing on my right to bear arms. The court: State! Stop infringing! Done.

Both parties can request a summary judgement.

Another path forward is for the case to go to trial. In Second Amendment cases, these are most often bench trials. A bench trial is when the judge acts in place of a jury to make determinations of facts.

Most of the cases we are following are having full trials. The parties involved know that they are developing a facts base to support their appeal.

The bottom line is that these cases take a long time and far too much money.

That is why this case is an outstanding win for us.

They Gave Up!

That’s right. The case was kicked to a magistrate judge for mediation. On September 30th, the Mediator reported that the parties had reached an agreement and the case was settled.

This is a full win. There are still some restrictions on displaying firearms. It is still forbidden for guests to have firearms on CHA property. But this is a win.