Supreme Court OK's Early Release of Heller Arguments

[Winchester 73]

They have been doing this on a few important cases recently.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/04/AR2008030402005.html?hpid=sec-metro

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2008/03/listening-in-on.html

D.C. GUN CONTROL CASE

By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 5, 2008; Page B03

The Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will take the special step of releasing audiotapes of oral arguments on the same day that it hears a case challenging the District's gun law.

Every argument before the justices is recorded, but the tapes normally are not available until well after the court's term has ended. But beginning in 2000, with the arguments in Bush v. Gore, the court has released same-day audiotapes in high-profile cases when there is substantial media interest.

Because the court is not open to cameras, the audiotapes are the only recordings of the proceedings.

The case of District of Columbia v. Heller, to be heard March 18, will be the court's first consideration of the meaning of the Second Amendment in nearly 70 years. Last year, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2 to 1 that the District's ban on private handgun possession violated the amendment.

The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own a firearm, and if so, what restrictions government may place on that right. It is one of the most prominent cases of the court's term. More than 60 organizations and individuals have filed amicus briefs to support the city or those challenging what is acknowledged as the nation's strictest gun control law.

This term, the court released same-day audiotapes in two other important cases, one involving the rights of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison and the other involving the constitutionality of lethal injections.

The arguments in the gun control case are scheduled for 10 a.m. March 18. Each side will receive 30 minutes to present its case, and U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement has been granted 15 minutes for the federal government's views. The tapes will be released soon after the proceedings.

Clement's brief agrees with the law's challengers that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms, but it argues that the appeals court too broadly decided the case against the District. It recommends that the case be returned to lower courts.

 

[romma]

Clement's brief agrees with the law's challengers that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms, but it argues that the appeals court too broadly decided the case against the District. It recommends that the case be returned to lower courts.

Clements is a traitor! JMO

 

[Wineoceros]

Clements is a traitor! JMO

With amici like that, who needs enemas?

 

[Winchester 73]

With amici like that, who needs enemas?

Very clever.

 

[shdwfx]

I hate enimas ;-)

 

[rocinante]

Each side will receive 30 minutes to present its case, and U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement has been granted 15 minutes for the federal government's views.

Why so little time given for arguments for such an important case? O.J. was on the tv for months and here is Georgia we have a trial coming up that has already cost millions and should last weeks for a man that killed a judge and several other people with multiple eyewitnesses. Courts defy common sense and that is so worrisome.

 

[BridgeWalker]

rocinant: the vast majority of the time in a normal trial like the OJ trial is for presentation of evidence. Very little is spent in actual arguments.

Here, all the evidence has been presented in briefs. Oral arguments are for, well arguing and then answering some specific questions. That takes very little time to be effective.

The justices have and will spend plenty of time on this case, merely very little time hearing arguments.

This is more analogous to the closing arguments in the OJ trial than to the whole trial. And it's not really analogous at all, because there's a world of difference between the density of material that can be submitted to nine of the most premier jurists in the nation and the much more simplistic and clear presentation that must be made to a jury box full of laymen, out of their element and trying to juggle vast amounts of unfamiliar information.