supreme

The U।S. Supreme Court Thursday, in a 5-4 ruling, for the first time in U.S. history declared the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution contains a specific right to individual gun ownership and rejected Washington, D.C., handgun restrictions, which were the strictest in the nation. http://louis1j1sheehan1.blogspot.com

"There seems to us no doubt on the basis of both text and history that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the 64-page majority ruling. "This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment."

The ruling significantly restricts the ability of D.C. to tightly control gun ownership and flatly rejects its existing gun laws, enacted in 1976 as the strictest gun control law in the country.

"The Constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns," Justice Scalia said, adding the Constitution bars an absolute handgun ban.

But the Supreme Court majority fully rejected an absolute bar of individual handgun ownership and invalidated regulations requiring that all guns -- handguns, rifles and shotguns -- be dismantled and outfitted with a trigger lock.

"We hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense," the majority held.

Justice Scalia's opinion, which thoroughly discusses the legal history of gun ownership going back to the 1600s, said the individual right to own firearms is limited. "Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited," Justice Scalia wrote. "Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places."

The majority said laws barring guns in schools and government buildings and laws placing "conditions and qualifications" on the commercial sale of arms are valid.

The issue split the court along conservative and liberal ideological lines, with Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in the majority. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and David Souter dissented.

Justice Stevens, reading from the bench, took point-by-point issue with the sweeping holdings contained in the majority opinion. "There is no indication that the framers of the amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution," Stevens wrote in his dissent.http://louis1j1sheehan1.blogspot.com

The Supreme Court had not ruled directly on the Second Amendment in almost 70 years. It also, over time, has offered little guidance on the extent to which the amendment covers individual gun ownership for self-defense, hunting and recreational shooting.

The D.C. law, on the books since 1976, bans handguns, bars concealed weapons possession and requires shotguns and rifles to be registered and then kept unloaded and disassembled or locked.http://louis1j1sheehan1.blogspot.com

The law was challenged by six D.C. residents who said they wanted to legally possess handguns in their homes for self-protection. A U.S. District Court threw out the challenge, but a panel of the Washington-based U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived one of the claims and ruled a special police officer, the now-retired Dick Heller, was wrongly denied a handgun permit.

The decision affirms a lower court ruling that reached a similar conclusion based on the Second Amendment.

The case is D.C. v. Heller, 07-290.

Court Strikes Down 'Millionaire's Amendment'

The court by a 5-4 vote invalidated a federal campaign finance law that attempts to blunt the advantage wealthy self-financed candidates have in a congressional election.

The justices, splitting along ideological lines, said the so-called millionaire's amendment, part of 2002 campaign finance reforms, violates free speech rights guaranteed in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

"The unprecedented step of imposing different contribution and coordinated party expenditure limits on candidates vying for the same seat is antithetical to the First Amendment," Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision reverses a lower-court holding that had allowed the campaign-finance restriction.

Under the provision, the opponent of a wealthy candidate can solicit larger individual contributions and receive unlimited funding from party coffers when the wealthy congressional candidate spends more than $350,000 of his own money. The law raises the individual contribution limit to $6,900 from $2,300 and requires a self-financed candidate to file reports every time he spends $10,000 or more.

The case grew out of a self-financed bid by Jack Davis, who spent $1.2 million of his own funds in a 2004 race against Rep. Thomas Reynolds (R., N.Y.). Mr. Davis lost the campaign and was fined $251,000 for failing to report that he had surpassed the millionaire amendment's threshold.

Mr. Davis sued the FEC over the law in 2006, claiming it violates the First Amendment because it gives his opponent an advantage of knowing his strategy.

The FEC has argued that the provision doesn't restrict the wealthier candidate's speech because it doesn't limit how much he can spend but simply gives an opponent access to more campaign resources.

Mr. Davis is running for the same U.S. House position; Reynolds has retired.

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas voted with Alito in the majority. Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer dissented on the court's primary holding.

The case is Davis v. Federal Elections Commission, 07-320.

Court Calls for Review of Western Power Contracts

Justices asked federal courts and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to take another look at the terms of long-term wholesale energy contracts several Western utilities signed during the 2000-2001 energy crisis.

In a 5-2 opinion, the high court said FERC acted within its authority to, in a balanced analysis, determine reasonable wholesale power rates but made mistakes in its regulatory review. The opinion also faults court analysis by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, deciding the appeals court ruling didn't adequately protect the power contracts from alteration.

Under the ruling both the Ninth Circuit and FERC must review how conclusions were reached but the opinion does not suggest that the power contracts at issue in the case should be changed.

The case involves the terms of numerous power contracts purchased by utilities in California, Nevada and Washington state when energy markets were in turmoil. The decision will prolong uncertainty over contracts between the utilities and power sellers, including the power marketing unit of Morgan Stanley, a unit of Allegheny Energy Inc. and other energy companies that were sued over power contract terms.

At issue in the appeals were long-term agreements that provided power at prices set during chaos in the spot electricity markets. After the crisis subsided, the utilities decided the contracts were set at unreasonably high prices that violated federal law. But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees electricity prices, declined to order changes in the contracts.

Justice Antonin Scalia, in the majority opinion, said FERC must engage in a thorough review when it oversees wholesale power contracts. "Balancing the short-term and long-term interests of consumers entails difficult judgment calls, and to the extent FERC actually engages in this balancing, its reasoned determination is entitled to deference," Justice Scalia wrote. "But FERC cannot abdicate its statutory responsibility to ensure just and reasonable rates through the expedient of a heavy-handed presumption."

Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Ruth Bader Ginsburg voted in the majority. Justices John Paul Stevens and David Souter dissented. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Stephen Breyer, who both have significant stock portfolios, were recused from the case.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in December 2006 ordered FERC to reconsider its decision to leave the power contracts intact and suggested guidelines the agency should use in doing so.

The two appeals before the high court cover only a small amount of the refunds being sought by utility districts. But the ruling will also affect a separate case where the California Public Utilities Commission is seeking $1.4 billion in refunds from Sempra Energy.

The cases are Morgan Stanley Capital Group v. Snohomish County Washington Public Utility District No. 1, 06-1457, and American Electric Power Service Corp. v. Snohomish County Washington Public Utility District No. 1, 06-1462