Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the firefighters and against New Haven. (Also see video)

Sonia Sotomayor, Barack Obama’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, was one of the judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit who sided with New Haven. In other words, she ruled against the firefighters denied promotions because of skin color.

A developing meme is that the Supreme Court reversed Sotomayor. Will it make a difference during confirmation hearings? I’m not hopeful Sotomayor-reversed will generate much steam. I doubt Republicans have the heart to grill Sotomayor the way they should. They’re not of stout heart.

For a little light reading, download the 93-page opinion. (PDF)

More later.

Update: The court’s web page is getting swamped, but I managed to download a Word version of the 186-page opinion. Download it here.

Firefighter Frank Ricci and others (one hispanic and more than a dozen whites) who scored high on the test sued the city, citing equal protection violations. After a district court judge dismissed the case, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court affirmed the dismissal. Conservative judges on the court sought to have it re-heard. Judge Jose Cabranes defined the issue this way:

“May a municipal employer disregard the results of a qualifying examination, which was carefully constructed to ensure race-neutrality, on the ground that the results of that examination yielded too many qualified applicants of one race and not enough of another?”

The appeals court declined to hear the case by a vote of 7 to 6. Download the 72-page opinion (PDF).

Ricci petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, and last week, the court agreed to hear the case.

I’ve written about this issue before. A few years ago, I spent an hour on a conference call with three people at a consulting firm hired by the Denver Fire Department to water down the test so black applicants could pass it at higher rates. They told me, somewhat proudly, they’d been hired to create watered down tests for fire departments in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties in Maryland, too. I asked them repeatedly what changing the test would entail: more pictures, fewer words, no math…what? I just got jargon. No straight answers. My request for a copy of a sample test was denied.

According to the firm’s web site, the new test would measure a “broader range of job related abilities than traditional written tests” to identify “well-rounded, motivated, and qualified” applicants. In other words, the goal was to play down what apparently made blacks look bad — abstract reasoning ability — and play up “interpersonal” skills.

I also blogged about a fire department that eliminated a swimming test because too many black applicants can’t swim. Can you believe it? Instead of eliminating non-swimming applicants or even doing the paternal thing – sending them to swimming lessons like dependent children – the department eliminates an important requirement for the job!

I wish blacks would protest in the streets and burn cars over this. How much more demeaning can you get? Lowering standards for black applicants? What happened to “We shall overcome” and being treated equally? And all that talk about being given a chance, the same chance as everyone else? Black America should be in an uproar over being perceived as stupid and incapable.

But, no. Government-wide lowered standards for blacks don’t raise anyone’s blood pressure but mine.

Ricci v. DeStefano is an important case. Even if the Supreme Court sides with Ricci and rules that throwing out the test results because too many whites would get promotions is unconstitutional, however, the practice won’t disappear altogether. In some form or another, the government will find a way, any way, to lower the bar for blacks and keep it raised high for everybody else.

Those who fought and died during the civil rights movement must be so proud.

I knew all I had to do was wait.

Today, Dick Heller, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court DC gun ban case, filed another lawsuit against DC, claiming its new regulations violate the Second Amendment.

He calls the regulations “highly unusual and unreasonable.” (Source)

Earlier this month, I told you about DC’s so-called compliance with the Supreme Court’s recent ruling. Five out of nine justices said that DC’s former handgun ban violated the Second Amendment. In response, DC drew up new and restrictive gun laws. Follow this: I may buy and register a handgun and keep it in my home, but I must allow the police department to perform ballistics tests on it, I must take and pass a written exam, and I must keep my handgun unloaded and disassembled in my home. If I or anyone in my home feels threatened, I may assemble and load my gun and shoot the person. Such sweethearts.

Heller’s lawyer illustrated the absurdity of the new regulations, saying that a thug would have to make an appointment to rob a resident in order for that resident to use his/her handgun under DC’s new regulations.

Mayor Adrian Fenty and his Second Amendment-hating liberal cabal are determined to keep guns in the hands of criminals and out of the hands of law-abiding residents.

Also see Packing Heat In VA/Defenseless In DC.

“The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”

As expected, the District has set up an obstacle course to owning and registering firearms. Under the former ban, residents could own and keep shotguns in the home, but these firearms had to be disassembled and/or fitted with trigger locks. In light of the Supreme Court ruling, District residents may own handguns, but the government will require that these handguns be kept unloaded “and either disassembled secured with a trigger lock, gun safe, or similar device.” (press release)

So, I may own a handgun and keep it in my home, but I must keep the gun unloaded and disassembled? Not a chance.

This is the funniest part. The District has allowed me an exception to the unloaded and disassembled rule (how sweet). Check it out. If I “reasonably” perceive a threat of “immediate harm” to myself or anyone in my home, I may unlock and load my gun to defend myself. Gee, thanks.

Among other restrictions, I must allow the police department to perform ballistics tests on my new handgun, and I must take and pass a written firearms test.

I don’t want to register my gun, I don’t want the police department to perform tests on my gun, I don’t want to take a written test or go through a background check, I want to keep my gun fully loaded inside and outside my home, and I want to carry it with me when I leave my home.

I have no doubt Congress will act in light of the District’s effort to continue obstructing residents’ Second Amendment rights. DC is notoriously inept at governing.

Any advice on how I can get around these restrictions without actually breaking the law?

Update: Commenter ElCee answers the question with a question: “Become the plaintiff in the next lawsuit?”

Wouldn’t that be cool? The publicity…

Does the gun law’s “good vision” requirement violate the disability law? I like this suggestion: “[L]et’s require the cops to keep their guns disassembled and locked away at all times too, with an exemption allowed only while it’s being fired wildly at some perp during the commission of a crime.”

You may recall that last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that imposing the death penalty for child rape violates the Eight Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

A blogger who read the brief noticed something was amiss. Col. Dwight H. Sullivan found an error in the court’s 65-page ruling.

In his majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that six jurisdictions authorize the death penalty for child rape (Louisiana, Georgia, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina). Both the majority and minority expressly stated that Congress had not enacted a law permitting death for child rape. But both were wrong. Congress has enacted a law permitting death for child rape. There are seven jurisdictions in the U.S., not six, that authorize the death penalty for child rape.

Sullivan writes (emphases added):

“Section 552(b) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, 119 Stat. 3136, 3264 (2006), provides that “[u]ntil the President otherwise provides pursuant to” UCMJ article 56, “the punishment which a court-martial may direct for an offense under” the amended UCMJ article 120 “may not exceed the following limits: . . . For an offense under subsection (a) (rape) or subsection (b) (rape of a child), death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.

“That is a congressional statute expressly authorizing the death penalty for the rape of a child. How come neither side in the Kennedy case even mentioned it?”

Why, indeed? It seems that no party involved in the case knew about the military statute. That’s a big screw-up, especially when you consider how many Ivy League-educated law clerks were working on this case. Why didn’t they know about the military provision? If one blogger knew about it…anyway, since Sullivan brought the error to light, mainstream newspapers like the New York Times covered the story (see Justice Dept. Admits Error in Not Briefing Court and In Court Ruling on Executions, a Factual Flaw).

This weekend, the Washington Post called for the case to be reopened.

What’s the big deal, you’re probably asking, about overlooking a military statute? The oversight may have little bearing on the ruling, but as the Washington Post notes, the court’s “legitimacy depends not only on the substance of its rulings but also on the quality of its deliberations.”

While agreeing with the decision to remove death as a penalty for rapes in which the children aren’t killed, the Post nevertheless believes the court should reopen the case and hear arguments on the significance of the military statute.

I wholeheartedly agree. I doubt the case will be reopened, and I doubt the military statute will make a difference. But if there’s even a tiny possibility the court will reverse itself and rule that death for the rape of a child is not cruel and unusual, it’s worth it. I want those perverts to fry.

Is that too judgmental?

I’m happy to announce that today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns is unconstitutional. (Source) Individuals have a right to bear arms, so says the court, and this DC resident is about to start bearing, baby!

Background

In 1976, the Council of the District of Columbia passed gun control laws in a misguided and fruitless attempt to curb the violent crime rate. Residents who owned handguns before 1976 could keep them, but only in the home. While the laws banned handgun ownership, residents were permitted to own and keep registered rifles and shotguns inside the home – unloaded and disassembled or trigger-locked.

A group of DC residents file suit challenging the District’s ban on handguns. The U.S. District Court ruled against the group, but the D.C. Circuit reversed the ruling. A three-judge panel declared DC’s ban on handguns unconstitutional last March and refused to rehear the case. The district appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Foreground

This morning, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment grants individuals the right to own guns. The court held (emphases added):

“The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
…
“The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of ‘arms’ that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition—in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute—would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.”

Download the 157-page opinion (PDF). There is nowhere else for the District to appeal. Residents now need to push for concealed carry laws. Sign me up! (Commenter Robbie says residents need to push for concealed carry and open carry laws. Agreed!)

More about the decision (and Obama’s opinion of the former gun ban) at Michelle Malkin’s. McCain’s reaction at Hot Air.

Last year I asked readers for gun recommendations. Some people also gave me firing range recommendations. Going shopping. Catch you later!

Related post:

• Packing Heat In VA/Defenseless In DC

A little over a year ago, I wrote a Townhall column about a child rapist named Patrick Kennedy. He brutally raped his wife’s eight-year-old daughter. If you’re squeamish, don’t read about the physical damage he caused.

In Louisiana, the rape of a child under 12 is (or was) a capital crime. Kennedy was found guilty of aggravated rape and sentenced to death. His appeal reached the Louisiana Supreme Court, which upheld his death sentence.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that imposing the death penalty for child rape violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. (Source)

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the opinion, “The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child.”

Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “The harm that is caused to the victims and to society at large by the worst child rapists is grave. It is the judgment of the Louisiana lawmakers and those in an increasing number of other states that these harms justify the death penalty.”

Needless to say, I do not agree with the court’s ruling. I believe child rapists should be subject to the death penalty. I’ll have more to say once I track down and read the opinion.

Do you believe child rapists should get the death penalty, whether or not they’ve killed the child?

Update: Commenting on Justice Kennedy’s “proportional punishment” remark, the Independent Conservative writes on his blog (emphasis in original):

“I don’t find this talk of ‘proportional punishment’ in the Constitution and death for a child rapist is not ‘cruel’ or ‘unusual’. Proportional punishment for a rapist would be to have them raped as many times as they had raped someone else. It would have to be done in a manner that knowingly disturbed the rapist’s sensibilities, so they actually felt they were ‘raped’ as they did to their victim.”

Update II (6/26): I found the 65-page opinion (PDF). Check it out.

Previous posts:

• Death to Pedophiles
• Pray for the Pedophiles

You may recall that the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) sued a couple for transferring copyrighted digital music files to a peer-to-peer network (P2P) called Kazaa.

According to an earlier RIAA motion for summary judgment, Jeffrey Howell admitted to loading Kazaa file-sharing software onto his computer and placing the files at issue into the folder. The court granted the motion for summary judgment. (A summary judgment means that a court makes a judgment in a case without a full trial.)

Howell later said he admitted no such thing. In his motion to reconsider, he admitted creating a Kazaa account, installing Kazaa software, and authorizing “certain types of files to be shared through KaZaA.” But he denied placing copyrighted files into the shared folder or authorizing sharing those files. He claims that his computer placed the files into the Kazaa folder.

It wasn’t me. It was my computer! Sounds strange (as a defense), but it makes a difference legally.

The RIAA filed another motion for summary judgment. On Monday, a federal court denied it on two grounds. Download the 17-page order in PDF.

As I mentioned before, the RIAA wants to nab people on a “make available” claim. If a user has placed copyrighted files in a P2P folder, the files have been made available for distribution. Regardless of whether the user intends to distribute the files or actually distributes the files, he has infringed copyright and should be held liable.

Last month, the court in Elektra v. Barker rejected the make available claim, as did the court in the present case. After some discussion about what constitutes “distribution” under the Copyright Act and how courts have interpreted the term, the court said that infringement of a copyright holder’s distribution right requires actual dissemination of the work. Making a copy available doesn’t constitute distribution.

The court denied the motion because there is a “disputed issue of fact” whether Howell was responsible for the file sharing. As I noted earlier, he said that his computer placed the files in the shared folder. This was the court’s first ground for denying the motion.

The court also discussed primary and secondary copyright infringement. If someone places a file in a P2P folder and another copies it, the one who placed it in the shared folder is potentially liable as a secondary infringer. From the motion:

The courts and commentators have recognized that making a copyrighted work and the facilities to copy it available to another implicates contributory, not direct, liability for copyright infringement.

If the owner of a shared folder gives the public access to a file and the means to make an unauthorized copy, the owner is not the primary infringer but potentially a secondary infringer.

The RIAA’s motion for summary judgment is based on a direct or primary liability theory, and there is insufficient evidence to “determine conclusively whether the owner of the shared folder distributes an unauthorized copy (direct violation of the distribution right), or simply provides a third-party with access and resources to make a copy on their own (contributory violation of the reproduction right).” This is the second ground on which the motion for summary judgment was denied.

The court added that in order to hold Howell even contributorily liable, the RIAA has to prove a third party actually obtained an unauthorized copy of the file. Howell can’t be secondarily liable unless the RIAA proves the existence of a “direct and primary” infringer. Back to the drawing board!

The court concluded (emphasis added):

The court is not unsympathetic to the difficulty that Internet file-sharing systems pose to owners of registered copyrights. Even so, it is not the position of this court to respond to new technological innovations by expanding the protections received by copyright holders beyond those found in the Copyright Act.

Indeed. It’s up to the legislature (Congress, in this case), the branch of government that writes laws, to expand the Copyright Act for “new technological innovations.” (And the laws should be updated for the digital age.) The judiciary branch merely interprets those laws.

Check Google News for more about the case.

Other bloggers:

• Recording Industry vs. The People
• Wired’s Listening Post
• CNet’s News Blog

Previous posts:

• RIAA and the “Make Available” Claim
• RIAA Brief: Washington Post Gets It Wrong
• Stop, Thief! Before You Rip That CD…

Always reminded of the Stepin Fetchit stereotype whenever black liberal politicians open their mouths, I’m pleased the court understands that no matter who you are, what color, or how old, you’re expected to be a responsible, law-abiding citizen reasonably intelligent enough to get yourself down to the local DMV and obtain a driver’s license or non-driver’s license ID before you can vote.

If you’re not, shuffle along.

Previous posts:

• Before the Supreme Court: Voter ID Case
• More on Georgia’s Voter ID Law

The Supreme Court seems poised to rule that the District’s law banning handguns violates the Second Amendment. Coincidence?

Friday, January 11: Blogger Stacy Harp is having a contest to give away an Archaeological Study Bible. Check it out.
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I don’t know how to tag this post. Lunacy? Comedy? Faith? Judiciary? A group of Christian parents in South Iron School District near St. Louis, Missouri, sued to stop the Gideons from distributing Bibles in classrooms. Why would Christians want to get in bed with the ACLU? Yuck.

According to an ACLU lawyer, the parents “believe religious beliefs should be taught in the home, not school.”

Once upon a homogenous time in America, that statement would have been utter nonsense. In a town where everyone was “Christian,” whether or not they actually were saved or even attended church, Christianity was more than a faith. It was a way of life. (On a grander scale, it’s the foundation of Western Civilization.) While parents understood it was their job to raise their children in the faith and teach them good morals and values, these morals and values were reiterated in the classroom.

Imagine this scenario: a child is boasting in class about his A+ paper and making fun of a classmate who received a C+, and the teacher gently reminds him of the pastor’s sermon on humility the previous Sunday. I’m sure this has happened countless times in various ways in the history of public schools in small towns across America. I should know. I grew up in one of those towns.

Whenever I read “banning the Bible in school” stories like this one, I’m always reminded of Mrs. Trumble, the Bible study teacher who visited my fifth grade elementary school classroom. I think it was once a week. It’s been so long ago, I can’t be sure. Anyway, there we sat, black and white kids together, listening to Mrs. Trumble’s Bible lesson for the week and watching her pace the classroom in her low-heeled shoes. It was part of the curriculum, part of our education, part of our lives.

These days, that would be considered unconstitutional. I’ve written before about how the so-called separation between church and state doctrine came to be; I won’t reinvent the microchip here. See Incompatible Kerry’s Immaculate Deception and State-Sponsored School Prayer and the Constitution.

Bottom line: the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses restrict the government from establishing a national religion and from interfering with the people’s right to practice their religion. It was not intended to allow government to ban religious books from the public sphere.

But let’s look at this a different way. Although a majority of Americans would identify themselves as Christians (as opposed to Muslims), the country isn’t religiously homogenous anymore. How would you feel about Muslims distributing Korans in public school classrooms? If a Muslim teacher visited your kid’s classroom every week to give a Koran lesson, what would you do? I wouldn’t like it. I’d probably file suit. Does that make me a hypocrite?

Perhaps that’s why these Christian parents in South Iron School District sued, to pre-empt such scenarios, to get rid of all religious books in classrooms before Muslims and others demand to distribute their literature.

America’s not a Norman Rockwell painting anymore, is it? Was it ever?

Tuesday, January 8: Mark La Roi says: “Quick, clean and over is what they would want, right? Guillotine!”

That’s better than choking on gas or feeling electricity or poison running through your body, isn’t it? The guillotine is quick, clean, and painless, yes?
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Last June, I wrote a column for Townhall titled, Death to Child Rapists.

A Louisiana man brutally raped his wife’s eight-year-old daughter. Louisiana allows for consideration of the death penalty in rape cases involving a child under 12. The man was found guilty and sentenced to death. He appealed to Louisiana’s highest court, which upheld the sentence.

He appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Earlier today, the Supreme Court decided to hear the case. Louisiana is one of five states that allows the death penalty in child rape cases. South Carolina, the state of my birth, is another.

You know what decision I’m hoping for. More later…

Update (1/7): States got rid of the gas chamber because some cried, “That’s cruel!” Then more got rid of the electric chair because that, too, was “cruel.” (Although one can choose the chair, the chamber, or the gallows in some states.)

Now, some folks have issues with lethal injection, a modern and humane-if-you-ask-me way to execute murderers and rapers of children. What do they want? To fall peacefully asleep in a candle-lit room while lying on a bed of sweet-smelling roses? If I were running things, the only “choice” the condemned would have is the electric chair.

Related posts:

• Supreme Court Will Hear DC Gun Ban Cases
• Before the Supreme Court: Voter ID Case

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

In fact, violent crime, particularly murder, went up. The ban deprived law-abiding citizens of the constitutional right to bear arms and to protect themselves, while thugs ran free and killed without conscience.

Last March, a three-judge panel of the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia declared DC’s ban on handguns unconstitutional and refused to rehear the case in May. The city appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and today the court has decided to hear the cases.

I am hopeful that sometime in 2008, I will be the owner of several (legal) firearms.

Does owning a gun go far enough? How about concealed carry? I dig that.

Previous posts:

• Before the Supreme Court (Maybe): Gun Ban Cases
• Packing Heat In VA/Defenseless In DC

Tuesday, November 13: Did you land here from a Google search? No word from the Supreme Court yet on whether it will take up the gun ban cases. Check this space for updates. While you’re here, visit the front page.
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***Scroll down for a correction!***

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. (Second Amendment)

In the high-murder-rate District of Columbia, law-abiding citizens cannot register handguns or keep them inside their homes. Licensed rifles and shotguns are allowed, but they must be kept locked and disassembled. (At a recent presidential debate, Duncan Hunter said he’d support DC statehood if the city repealed the gun ban.)

In March, a three-judge panel of the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (D.C. Circuit) declared DC’s ban on handguns unconstitutional and refused to rehear the case in May. For a bit of light reading this weekend, download the 75-page opinion, Parker v. District of Columbia, in PDF. The case was the result of a suit filed by a group of DC residents, only one of whom had legal standing to challenge the gun ban law. He was a security guard whose application for a handgun permit was denied.

The U.S. Supreme Court began a new term earlier this week. After declining to hear Second Amendment cases for several decades, the court decided may decide to hear the DC gun ban case. Does the awkwardly worded Second Amendment grant individuals the right to own guns, or are state militias in view? You know what I think. But read on in case you have doubts.

Law-abiding citizens should be allowed to protect themselves with guns. The cops and criminals have them; so should we. The gun ban has done absolutely nothing to decrease violent crime in the district. In fact, the murder rate shot up as a result of the ban. If you were a gun-toting thug, wouldn’t a gun ban make you fairly confident that a potential victim is unarmed?

At issue is whether the language “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” vests this right in individuals or in state militias only. The D.C. Circuit reasoned:

“To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad). In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate their Antifederalist opponents. The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for militia duty. Despite the importance of the Second Amendment’s civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.”

I’m 90 percent sure the Supreme Court will reason the same way.

Rest easy this weekend, everybody. Thanks again for reading LBC.

Update: The Supreme Court has not decided to hear the gun ban case. It’s one of several cases the court may hear this term.

Actually, I think it would be better if the court didn’t hear the case. The D.C. Circuit’s ruling would stand, which means I can keep a handgun or (and!) a shotgun (unlocked and assembled) in my home. Legally! (wink) Now, we’ve got to work on a conceal and carry law…

Related posts:

• DC Gun Ban Law Declared Unconstitutional
• Last Days for DC’s Gun Ban?
• DC Gun Ban Update
• Before the Supreme Court: Voter ID Case