The Supreme Court has chosen to hear McDonald v. Chicago next session. Neither NRA v. Chicago or Maloney v. Rice have been consolidated with it. As it stands, we’re left with Gura’s case, which is the strongest and, potentially, the most wide-reaching.
According to Gura, opening briefs are due November 16, and we can expect oral arguments in February. A decision will be reached by June.
The scuttlebutt is that we’ll win. This will be an interesting test for Justice Sotomayor, as she chose in Maloney to refuse incorporation based on precedent. The only problem with the Supreme Court doing so is that the precedents against incorporation are incomptetent, morally loathsome and generally indefensible. It will take a huge intellectual stretch for the Court to deny incorporation based on precedent.
As a Supreme Court Justice, Sotomayor no longer has the option of waffling. She’ll have to take a stand one way or the other, and what she decides here will tell us more about her character and judicial philosophy than the Congressional hearings did.
