Illinois has a whole bushel basket full of legal actions challenging the new gun ban. These include Robert Bevis’ case from Naperville. Bevis filed for an emergency injunction from the US Supreme Court after both the district court and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his petition for a preliminary injunction blocking Illinois’ gun gun as well as Naperville’s ban on gun sales of America’s favorite rifle and the magazines that feed it.
Justice Barrett received her filings this past Monday morning in the Naperville case (Click here for a list of documents and to view them on this case). The SCOTUS justices hold a weekly conference on Thursdays (see calendar here). Knowing that and knowing the history of the court since Bruen was handed down last summer, lawyers and legal beagles like Todd Vandermyde are speculating that Justice ACB probably ran this past the entire court to get their input rather than do it herself. That would explain why she didn’t issue an order earlier in the week.
Whatever she’s going to do, it will likely happen Monday unless she needs more time to craft an opinion. But then again, she’s got clerks and that’s what they’re for.
The fact that Robert Bevis is even in front of SCOTUS is “extraordinary.” The Supreme Court gets a lot of these emergency petitions and it rejects the bulk of them promptly and allows most of the rest to linger for a while before ultimately rejecting them. In this case, ACB not only accepted it, but she took the remarkable step of asking the defendants for a brief.
Here’s my take: I want an injunction. Personally, I don’t think many clear-thinking, well-informed people would disagree with me: there’s more than a chance that she would issue such an order. Especially as there are a lot of reasons for her to do so given the behavior of not only the Northern District Judges as well as “Frivolous” Frank Easterbrook at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to say nothing of actions in other districts (like yesterday’s decision at the district court level in DC affirming a ban on magazines) ignoring Bruen.
However, despite all of the good reasons for doing so, it typically just isn’t done. ACB issuing injunctive relief, especially as a recent appointee, would be exceptional. I see it as unlikely.
In talking with a couple of folks whose opinions I respect, I think she denies the order, but cautions the lower courts to faithfully apply the Bruen decision instead of trying to play cute games with it. Todd Vandermyde thinks the same (maybe we’re talking to the same peeps.)
Maybe something akin to what SCOTUS did with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. The justices turned that request for an emergency order away, but they also told the appellants to come back if the 2nd Circuit didn’t respond with a satisfactory explanation for what they did with the case.
Also under the “possible” category is that Bevis request will be turned away without much in the way of comment from the court. I see this as about a 50/50 chance.
Here are a couple of YouTube videos I’d encourage folks to watch if they want to geek out on this.
First, Four Boxes Diner and Mark Smith.
Todd Vandermyde / Freedom’s Steel:
Should you want to go deeper still:
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