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Posted 28 Mar 2014 in Case Notes
The Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms.Handgun We know that now—after decades of uncertainty—because the Supreme Court said so in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). But how far does the Second Amendment extend? Does it prevent a City from regulating the storage of handguns in homes or the sale of ammunition that expands upon impact, referrred to as hollow-point bullets? In a case decided this week, Jackson v. City and County of San Francisco, No. 12-17803 (Mar. 25, 2014), the Ninth Circuit ruled that those bringing a Second-Amendment challenge to the City and County of San Francisco's handgun and ammunition regulations were not likely to succeed on the merits. What exactly was at issue and how did the court reach its conclusions?

Posted 28 Mar 2014 in Tips and Tactics
Legal documents routinely identify the parties and others by full name in the early passages and then create a short name for use in the rest of the document.Typewriter Make the most of this practice by thinking things through at the beginning of a case.  Whatever short name is selected should be one that works for the entire case and any appeal. Changing the name even once adds an opportunity for confusion that cannot benefit the client. Some factors in selecting the short name:
  • The name needs to be short, the shorter the better if other requirements are met.  If there are word limits for briefing in the trial court or, more likely, on appeal, use

Posted 24 Mar 2014 in Uncategorized

This morning, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Frederick County v. Santos, No. 13-706, a case involving whether local officials may arrest persons for immigration violations that we discussed here. See additional coverage from The Frederick News-Post here. (Photo courtesy of Flickr by Mark Fischer, creative-commons license, no changes made)....

Posted 24 Mar 2014 in Monday Morning Review
Here are last week's published decisions involving local governments:No-Loitering Third Circuit Seventh Circuit Ninth Circuit

Posted 17 Mar 2014 in Monday Morning Review
Here are last week's published decisions involving local governments:Alexandria-court First Circuit Second Circuit

Posted 12 Mar 2014 in Case Notes
That is the question presented in SCOTUSblog's Petition of the Day.Supreme Court3 The Fourth Circuit ruled in Santos v. Frederick County Bd. of Comm'rs, 725 F.3d 451 (4th Cir. 2013), that
absent express direction or authorization by federal statute or federal officials, state and local law enforcement officers may not detain or arrest an individual solely based on known or suspected civil violations of federal immigration law.
Frederick County's cert petition argues that this creates a circuit split that the Court should resolve:

Posted 10 Mar 2014 in Case Notes
Congress grants a railroad a right-of-way across public land. RailroadROW The federal government then grants the land to a private landowner, who takes the parcel subject to the railroad right-of-way. The railroad later abandons the right-of-way. Does the right-of-way interest revert to the federal government? Or does the parcel owner gain full and unburdened rights to the property? This morning,  in Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States, No. 12-1173, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the federal government does not retain an interest in the abandoned right-of-way.  As Chief Justice Roberts explained,

Posted 10 Mar 2014 in Monday Morning Review
Here are last week's published decisions involving local governments:SCT pillars Second Circuit Third Circuit

Posted 07 Mar 2014 in Case Notes
The Ninth Circuit has denied the sua sponte call for en banc review in Pacific Shore Properties, LLC v. City of Newport Beach, No. 11-55460, a case that we have written about previously here. NinthCircuitJudge O'Scannlain, joined by Judges Tallman, Callahan, Bea, and Ikuta, filed a dissental, that is, a dissent from the denial of en banc review. It appears to be telegraphing that the Supreme Court should consider the case:

The panel’s opinion in these consolidated cases invents an entirely unprecedented theory of actionable government discrimination: sinister intent in the enactment of facially neutral legislation can generate civil liability without evidence of discriminatory effect. Such unwarranted expansion

Posted 07 Mar 2014 in Tips and Tactics

Don’t ever trust a spellchecker despite how valuable it can be. Many correctly spelled words are not the ones you intended.  If possible, delete common words from the dictionary that are unlikely to be correct in context, such as pubic (public), untied (United). Some spellcheckers will automatically “fix” words the spellchecker identifies as wrong.  One example is tortious (correctly spelled but not in the dictionary) which is automatically changed to “tortuous” by some versions of the Word spellchecker.  Another example is “sua...