Staying away from guns and Gitmo
Posted Mon, May 5th, 2014 12:00 pm by Lyle Denniston
Two areas of the law where the Supreme Court made major pronouncements, and then all but dropped the subject, continued on Monday to remain off the Courts decision docket. One wasthe intensifying controversy over Second Amendment rights; the other was the lingering controversy over the fate of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Without comment, the Court denied review of new cases, keeping intact a lengthening list of refusals.
Since the Courts 2008 decision declaring a personal right to have a gun under the Second Amendment, and its 2010 decision expanding that right nationwide, the Justices have steadfastly refused to say anything more about how far that right extends. And since its 2008 decision giving Guantanamo Bay detainees a right to go to court to protesttheir prolonged imprisonment, it has routinely denied pleasto spell out how that ruling should be applied.
The pattern continued on Monday, as the Justices without explanation and with no dissenting votes recorded chose not to take on the Second Amendment case of Drake v. Jerejian, or the Guantanamo case of Al Warafi v. Obama.
Only two explanations seem plausible: either the Court is content to let lower courts work out the details of gun rights and detention authority, or the Justices are hesitating to take on a new case because they are not sure how the votes will be cast on final decisions.
Probably the biggest question overhanging the Second Amendment is whether the right to have a gun for personal self-defense exists outside the home. Some courts have said yes, some have said no, and some have not been sure either way. That was the issue raised in the Drake case, seeking to test a New Jersey law that requires an individual who wants to carry a handgun in public to get a permit to do so; to obtain such a permit, one has to convince officials that the person has a justifiable need for that privilege.
There is a clear split among federal appeals courts on the outside-the-home issue. In the Drake case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found no Second Amendment violation with the handgun permit law.
Probably the biggest question overhanging Guantanamo Bay prisoners that is, those being held there who are not being prosecuted for any crimes is whether and how long they can be kept there if they did not actively engage in armed conflict against the U.S. or its allies before they were captured. Justice Stephen G. Breyer signaled in a recent opinion that this is an open question.
And that appeared to be the situation in the new Al Warafi case. He and his lawyers have insisted that he went to Afghanistan to act as a medical worker, in clinics and hospitals, and his stint with Taliban forces was only as a medical aide. His detention was upheld by lower courts, however, because he was found to have been a part of the Taliban terrorist network regardless whether he had engaged in armed hostilities himself.
Those denials came among a series of orders the Court issued before beginning a two-week recess. Here, in summary, were some of the other actions:
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Staying away from guns and Gitmo