McDonald v. Chicago: Come Monday

Monday is the last day for opinions, and the consensus seems to be that the opinion for McDonald v. Chicago will be written by Justice Alito.

From a 2nd Amendment perspective, this is a good thing.  It may also be glad tidings for the 14th.

Jim March thinks that having Justice Alito author the opinion signals the Court’s willingness to revive the Privileges or Immunities clause.  I’d lost hope for that mechanism when I first parsed the oral arguments.  Justice Scalia’s naked rancor for the approach seemed to have doomed it in favor of Due Process.

However, Mr. March points out a couple of utterances from Justice Alito that I’d missed, including his invocation of Justice Harlan (the 1st), himself a champion of total incorporation.  Alito has also been in agreement with Justice Thomas in the majority of cases, and Thomas has been an ardent defender of an originalist reading of the 14th Amendment.

I’m still not sure that the Court is ready to ignite a small revolution in jurisprudence, but I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong.

3 thoughts on “McDonald v. Chicago: Come Monday”

Comments are closed.