It looks like the Senate will approve Jennifer Mascott. If you listen to Washington Gun Law Bill Kirk, we just got Judge Mascott approved for the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. Here is our AR case Cheeseman the NJ law that made AR’s illegal. She will give us an 8-6 majority on the court finally giving us the circuit split we desperately need to encourage SCOTUS to take the case!
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Welcome drjjpdc!
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You’re assuming NJ won’t just take one for the team like DC did a few years prior to the Bruen decision.
I don’t see how they will take a L. They would appeal for sure, anything to delay.
They can appeal but that does not mean the court will put the restrictions back in place. If they think the plaintiffs are likely to prevail (which they are) then their ruling will stand until if and when SCOTUS hears the case. It’s a lose /lose scenario for them.
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What if Ciaterellli wins, wouldn’t his AG decline to appeal?
Well now that you mention it I hope we find that out. I was just going on this being NJ.
If we win, we are not going to be the active party, it will be the SCOTUS. That’s why Snope went nowhere, but when the Court has a circuit split in front of it, the almost have to take it for cert, especially in light of the 7th and 9th circuits. If and when we win the important thing is that the 3rd circuit represents a lot of liberal politicians in NJ, DE and even eastern PA. This is not the 5th Circuit challenging AR’s. Imagine if the liberal 4th Circuit had declared the MD law unconstitutional in Snope v Brown. This is the exact same scenario in Cheeseman except we have the advantage. Actually Ciaterelli doesn’t enter into it. The northern NJ Libs would be upset either way. I can’t believe that they would lie down if we win. We have a 1 vote edge in the circuit right now. I would love to hear the NJ firearms lawyer Evan N’s opinion on this scenario.
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Well it looks like NJ is running scared and has written a reply to an Amicus brief because they are afraid their argument is in the toilet and since the republican picked judges are greater in number than the democratic picked judges, they can actually lose this case. In addition if the Supreme Court thinks that this is an obvious circuit split and if they choose to hear it and if we win, there goes, NJ, NY, IL, CA and any other state that has banned semi-automatic rifles. Here is a great video by Washington Gun Law Bill Kirk. Since I can’t post a video link, you will have to check for yourself. Go to YouTube and look for the Washington Gun Law site and the title is New Jersey throws a tantrum at DOJ.
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Thanks for showing the video. This is a very significant case.
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But is she going to sit on this case? I could see that not happening and getting a split from a republican appointed judge switching sides.
Here’s one case Koons v. Platkin. 3 judge panel Krause & Chung (from Obama & Biden 2-1 with Porter from Trump). That’s one case and I looked at and a few more. It seems NJ’s bad record on guns for us was primarily because we had a liberal advantage on the 3rd circuit. From what I read the conservative judges mostly stayed with the 2nd Amendment without much crossover.
She could be sworn in pretty quickly if need be. She’s been confirmed by the Senate already. At present there are 13 judges & 7 by conservative Presidents and 6 by liberal presidents. So we technically have a majority already. If we get Judge Mascott on in time that will make it 8-6. That means we could afford 1 conservative judge crossing over and still have a 1 vote edge. I am sure Trump and his administration will be pushing she is on the court for Wednesday Oct. 15.
Guessing she’d need to be sworn in sometime tomorrow…
Not necessarily. Here’s what the law and procedure says about it.
No overlap:
The act of a judge being sworn in does not prohibit them from also participating in the scheduled en banc hearing on the same day. The administrative process of being sworn in does not interfere with the judicial process of hearing a case.
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Is something sneaky going on here? I thought the 3rd Circuit was full at 14 judges. Who is the 15th judge that made it a 15 judge panel and was he conservative or liberal? Since they haven’t released the opinion, I couldn’t find who it was. Along those lines how long does it usually take a circuit court to release an opinion?