Akron Legal News by AUSTIN SARAT 8/29/2019
(THE CONVERSATION) Legal briefs, in even the most high profile cases, rarely make headlines. They are technical documents intended to persuade judges in a case about particular points of law.
In American law schools, students now take courses to help them master the arcane genre of brief writing. Their persuasiveness depends on carefully marshaling legal precedents and complex, factual arguments. As a result, they seldom interest anyone outside the legal community.
On Aug. 12, we witnessed a rare exception.
That’s when a friend of the court brief, known as an “amicus†brief, was filed in the Supreme Court by five Democratic senators, including one presidential candidate. The senators were Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Richard Durbin of Illinois, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.
The brief provoked considerable controversy and even led to the filing of a legal complaint against Whitehouse, who was its principal author.
Gun regulation case
The amicus brief asked the court to dismiss a challenge to a New York City ordinance. The law prohibited licensed gun owners from transporting their guns out of the city, for example, to shooting ranges or second homes.
The challenge was issued by the New York State Rifle and Gun Association, which argued that such a prohibition infringed on Second Amendment gun ownership rights as well as the Commerce Clause and the right to travel.
The case seemed destined to become a vehicle for the court to strictly limit gun regulations. To ward that off, New York City repealed the offending regulation in June.
Doing so, city officials assumed, would render the case moot. The plaintiffs would no longer have standing to sue, and the case would not result in weaker gun control laws.
An unusual brief
The senators supported that view. But their amicus brief presented little in the way of legal argument.
Instead it offered a broad and unprecedented indictment of the court’s conservative majority.
More:
http://www.akronlegalnews.com/editorial/27174
