Snope v. Brown — Amicus Brief

ddavies Firearms Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, we filed an Amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Fourth Circuit decision approving Maryland’s 2013 ban on “assault weapons.”   The banned firearms are ordinary semi-automatic weapons and most are “commonly used,” if not ubiquitous among the gun-owning public, except where banned by a few states.  We argue that the Fourth Circuit’s decision was really an attempt to circumvent Bruen.  We argue “the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct” in possessing such a weapon. Our brief shows that the “plain text” of the Second Amendment presumptively protects bearable firearms and Maryland could provide no relevant historical analogues. Link to brief

Crouch v. Anderson — Amicus Brief Supporting Petition for Certiorari

ddavies Constitutional Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Our amicus brief filed today urges the Supreme Court to review a Fourth Circuit decision ordering West Virginia Medicaid to pay for gender transition procedures.  The opinion was based on modern transgender ideology, finding no difference between removal of cancerous tissue and removing healthy body parts.  The Fourth Circuit based its decision on that court’s Grimm v. Gloucester Co. School Board case — a case in which our firm filed four amicus briefs to prevent a girl from accessing the boys restroom.  Now that seemingly innocuous (and erroneous) precedent is being badly misused. The circuit court relied on Standards of Care of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (“WPATH”), but in recent months, an abundance of evidence has surfaced that WPATH is an advocacy group, not an independent medical organization.  Even the American Society of Plastic Surgeons rescinded its support for and is reassessing its position on transgender surgery.  There was no justification to expand the Equal Protection Clause to require dangerous and irreversible procedures to make persons suffering a type of mental disorder feel better about themselves. Link to brief

West Virginia v. B.P.J. — Amicus Brief Supporting Petition for Certiorari

ddavies Constitutional Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Our amicus brief supports a petition for certiorari filed by the State of West Virginia, to protect its law protecting girls in girls’ sports from unfair and potentially dangerous competition from biological males.  Men have an unfair physical advantage over girls for many reasons, and allowing them to compete against girls deprives girls of the ability to develop their own abilities and be recognized for their achievements.  The Fourth Circuit, over a strong and thoughtful dissent, sacrificed girls’ sports on the altar of transgenderism.  The division in sports between girls  and boys has been well established and is unquestionably legal and constitutional.  The Grimm decision allowing a girl to use the boys’ restroom, on which the Fourth Circuit relied, is no precedent whatsoever for compelling a school to allow boy to compete against girls in girls’ sports.  Moreover, Grimm was based on the Standards of Care published by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (“WPATH”), an organization has been exposed as having been a political player in the transgender wars, not  a neutral medical organization focused on actual health issues.  WPATH has tailored its standards to facilitate wins in court.  Even if a court believes a specific transgender person could benefit from some policy, that does not provide the judiciary the authority to override the state legislature and impose that policy on a state.  No court has the right to compel the rest of the country to sacrifice their liberty to satisfy those who wish to participate in what is, at base, an ancient Pagan practice, dangerous to all concerned.

Link to brief

Little v. Hecox — Amicus Brief Supporting Petition for Certiorari

ddavies Constitutional Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Our amicus brief supports a petition for certiorari filed by Governor Bradley Little of Idaho concerning the Idaho Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.  That law bars males from participation in girls’ supports based on clear factual findings of the legislature. The Ninth Circuit found the Act discriminatory and unconstitutional, believing that the new concept of transgenderism legally dislaces Read More

Parents Protecting Our Children v. Eau Claire Area School District, Wisconsin — Amicus Brief Supporting Petition for Certiorari

Jeremiah Morgan Constitutional Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, our firm filed an amicus brief in support of a petition for certiorari filed by a coalition of parents of schoolchildren in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The parents are challenging a policy of the school district to assist children with sexual transitioning without telling the parents of those children. The lower courts dismissed the claims, concluding that the parents did not have standing to Read More

Lake v. Fontes — Amicus Brief for Maricopa County GOP

Jeremiah Morgan Constitutional Law, Election Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, our firm filed an amicus brief in support of the petition for writ of certiorari filed by Kari Lake and Mark Finchem to challenge election procedures used in Arizona in 2022. Our brief was filed for the Maricopa County Republican Committee, 10 other county GOP committees, the Nebraska and New Mexico State Republican Parties, and CLDEF. Our brief discussed how the courts have repeatedly found Read More

Lake v. Fontes — Amicus Brief Supporting Petition for Certiorari

Jeremiah Morgan Constitutional Law, Election Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, our firm filed an amicus brief in support of a petition for writ of certiorari filed by Kari Lake, former candidate for governor of Arizona and current candidate for U.S. Senate. Lake filed suit against Arizona to require that it follow Arizona law to ensure the integrity of elections when using electronic voting machines. Our amicus brief supported the standing of Lake to bring the challenge, Read More

Trump v. United States — Amicus Brief

Jeremiah Morgan Constitutional Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, our firm filed an amicus brief in support of the President having immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts taken while in office. Our amicus brief explained that the Constitution provides for impeachment of the President, and there are other principles which support the immunity of the President. Allowing criminal prosecution results in specious charges such as the ones in this Read More

Murthy v. Missouri — Amicus Brief

Jeremiah Morgan Constitutional Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, our firm filed an amicus brief on the issue of government censorship committed by coercing Big Tech social media companies to do the censoring of protected speech. Our amicus brief presented additional arguments to support the respondents’ claims that they had standing to sue the federal agencies and to counter the government’s claims that the First Amendment protects its coercive Read More

Fischer v. United States — Amicus Brief

Jeremiah Morgan Constitutional Law, Statutory Construction, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, our firm filed an amicus brief on the merits opposing the Biden Justice Department’s use of the Sarbanes-Oxley anti-shredding statute against the January 6 defendants. The statute, which can be used to impose sentences of up to 20 years in prison, was passed in the wake of the Enron document shredding scandal, but is now being used by the Biden DOJ as a cudgel to obtain guilty pleas Read More

Garland v. Cargill — Amicus Brief

Jeremiah Morgan Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Firearms Law, Statutory Construction, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, our firm filed our fifth amicus brief opposing the ATF’s Rule banning bumpstocks — and our third amicus brief in this case. Our amicus brief argued that the bumpstock rule was politically motivated and was not based on a better interpretation of the statutes relating to machineguns. We also explained how the technical mechanisms of a semi-automatic rifle operates, both with and Read More

Trump v. Anderson — Amicus Brief

Jeremiah Morgan Constitutional Law, Election Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, our firm filed an amicus brief opposing an effort to remove President Trump from the primary ballot in Colorado. The challengers claim that Trump engaged in “insurrection” and thus is ineligible to be President under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Colorado Supreme Court agreed, in a 4-3 decision. Our amicus brief urged the U.S. Supreme Court to decide only the Read More

NRA v. Vullo — Amicus Brief

Jeremiah Morgan Constitutional Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, our firm filed an amicus brief in support of NRA’s challenge to the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) coercion of banks and insurance companies doing business with the NRA because it is pro-gun. We previously filed an amicus brief in support NRA’s petition which was granted.

Our amicus brief demonstrated New York’s pattern of coercive behavior towards private Read More

Fischer v. United States — Amicus Supporting Petition for Certiorari

Jeremiah Morgan Constitutional Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, our firm filed an amicus brief in support of a petition for certiorari filed by a January 6 defendant. Our brief argued that, since the government claimed the election protest on January 6 was an insurrection, it should have charged many defendants with that crime, but instead it charged no one with insurrection, preferring use of a Sarbanes-Oxley provision (which does not apply) to get a Read More

United States v. Rahimi — Merits Amicus Brief

Jeremiah Morgan Constitutional Law, Firearms Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, our firm filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court in defense of the proper Second Amendment interpretation recognized in D.C. v. Heller in 2008 and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen in 2022. This case involves the federal firearms ban on individuals who have certain types of restraining orders issued against them, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8). To try to prevent the Bruen Read More

O’Handley v. Weber — Amicus Supporting Petition for Certiorari

Jeremiah Morgan Constitutional Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, our firm filed an amicus brief in support of a petition for certiorari in a challenge to California’s efforts to coerce social media companies to censor a user on Twitter. The petitioner had a tweet deleted and then his account suspended by Twitter, at the direction of California and its Office of Elections Cybersecurity. Our brief disputed California’s censorship of “false Read More

Loper Bright v. Raimondo — Merits Amicus Brief

Jeremiah Morgan Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Statutory Construction, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, our firm filed an amicus brief in a case requesting the Supreme Court to overturn its Chevron doctrine, a judicially created rule to defer to executive branch agency interpretations of statutes instead of the courts actually interpreting the statutes. Our amicus brief described the confusion caused by Chevron deference, both in the D.C. Circuit in this case and as demonstrated in the various Read More