During the term, the Supreme Court has multiple conferences. The Friday conference is when they decide which cases will be granted cert, which will be denied, and other issues relating to cases, outside of opinions.
On the following Monday, they publish their order list. This is a list of all the cases they have an action on. Some of those a denial of cert, others are denials of moving forward as somebody that can’t pay filing costs, others are invitations to the federal government to speak up on the case.
The only people in the conferences are the 9 justices. There are no law clerks, no bus boys, no secretaries. It is just the nine of them.
When evaluating a motion for a writ of certiorari, it only takes 4 justices to grant the writ.
A case that is granted cert can be quickly handled by vacating the inferior court’s decision and remanding the case back to the inferior court. This is normally accompanied by instructions to “do it over, right, in light of a recent opinion”.
I would have loved to see the Court GVR Snope with “in light of Heller and Bruen“. Not that it would have done anything when dealing with the Fourth Circuit, but it still would have been an interesting method of dealing with these rogue inferior courts.
If they are not GVRing a case, but simply granting cert, they will schedule oral arguments and set deadlines for all briefs to be filed. They never state a dissent or make a statement when a case is granted cert.
If they deny cert, most times it is a simple list of cases with a short sentence at the end, “the motion for certiorari is denied.
The Snope case is ripe to be heard by the Court. It has been kicking around since 2013. It was one of the cases that was seeking cert while Bruen was seeking cert. It could have been the case to move Second Amendment jurisprudence forward.
The Court did the right thing in taking Bruen. Snope, known as Bianchi at the time, was a simple repeat of Heller. Bruen advanced our cause significantly.
The holding was that the Second Amendment extends outside the home. That is huge. It is much bigger than saying, “It is a gun ban case, we decided it in Heller, you can’t ban guns in common use for legal purposes.”
The Supreme Court only hears 70 or so cases a year. That is across all parts of the legal landscape. First Amendment, Fourth and Fifth amendments, environment and a host of other subjects.
The question becomes twofold, how many Second Amendment cases will the court hear in a term, and what are the best cases to take?
The Supreme Court heard Rahimi in the 2024 term (current term) as well as VanDerStok.
Was Snope the right vehicle for the next major Second Amendment opinion?
Maybe not. If the Court could hear every Second Amendment case presented to them, then yes. This was a slam dunk case for The People.
It would not have advanced Second Amendment jurisprudence in any significant way. It would be a redo of Heller.
Justice Thomas would have written, either as the author of the opinion or in a concurrence, that the plain text is plain, there is no evaluation to do. But it would still just be another Heller.
We have other cases coming forward. My feelings were that an opinion in Snope would have addressed these other cases, but maybe we need to have the court look at sensitive places?
When the Bruen opinion issued, I remember focusing in on “sensitive places”. It was obvious to me that many of the rogue states would laser focus on making as much of their state “sensitive places” as possible. The goal isn’t to make every place illegal for you to carry, it is to make it so legally dangerous that you don’t bother.
Every time something comes up on Craigslist that I want which is in MA, I evaluate it in terms of drive time and danger. Because I have to leave my firearm behind when I travel into Mass. It is painful.
There are two east-west roads near me. One is faster to certain towns in NH. But, it dips into Mass for part of that trip. I refuse to use that route, even if it adds 15 to 30 minutes to trip time.
Now imagine thousands of little “legal guns prohibited” areas in a state. What happens if you’re driving to pick up a rabbit hutch, and you drive past a school. With the way some states work, that could be a felony.
So the Court could be looking for a sensitive places case. Or, one that I would like to see, a reciprocity case? How cool would it be if the court found that whatever requirements my state requires is all it takes for me to be able to carry any state?
I’m disappointed. I never expect anything of Roberts. I was hoping for better from Amy.
This is a war. It is better to not lose this battle and continue to make headway in the Supreme Court.
Boy am I disappointed.
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