SCOTUS Gun Watch – Week of 5/25/20

Last Friday, the Supreme Court did something that veteran SCOTUS expert John Elwood said it hasn’t ever done before—it relisted cases for another conference before releasing an order list from the prior one. Normally, the Court considers a set of cases at conference (usually on Friday) and the next week (usually on Monday morning) releases an order list that shows the cases for which it has granted cert and denied cert. Cases discussed at conference that are not on the order list—i.e., those for which it hasn’t granted or denied cert—are typically either cases being held for another case (as almost all of the cases below were for NYSRPA) or are cases that the Court will consider again at the next conference, “relisted” cases (as now all of the cases below are). What was surprising about Friday’s relisting of these cases to the upcoming conference is that the Court did not wait until this morning’s order list laying out what cases were granted and denied first. Needless to say, we got no more clarity from this morning’s order list about Second Amendment cases. They are all heading to conference again this week. We’ll get an order list next Monday, June 1 at 9:30am that should let us know if one of these will be taken up (or whether they will be relisted yet again).

Mance now gears up to head to its 5th conference, spread out over more than a year. Many others have been around for quite a while too. It’s not entirely clear why the Court hasn’t decided which (if any) Second Amendment case it will take, but we may soon find out.