Did we lose one, or am I missing something?

Boxcab said:

Start reading...

http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=56480

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gprimr1 said:

Don't stress to much. Williams was a pot shot. If it had hit, it would have been EPIC, but the Supreme Court doesn't seem to like dropping bombs of that magnitude.

The Bradys are happy now, but I expect the knife to come out soon, and begin disessting their joy.

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hvymax said:

The court is not comfortable adressing anything significant. MD told them that Heller and Mcdonald were insignificant and meaningless and they chose not to disagree.

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Tactics said:

I wish we could just present the D instead of beating around the bush.

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Tactics said:

I wish we could just present the D instead of beating around the bush.

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Tactics said:

I wish we could just present the D instead of beating around the bush.

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Tactics said:

I wish we could just present the D instead of beating around the bush.

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Enzo_Guy said:

Until you realize you're shooting with a .380 and you really need to a .44 magnum to get that particular job done.

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MirandaB said:

I would like to provide some context into the Williams decision, but first you should know my bona fides.

I was a civil rights attorney in private practice for 10 years (before closing my practice to invest my energies full-time into my company, Just Right Carbines). I did a LOT of appellate work, primarily in the federal courts but in the state courts as well, representing the constitutional civil rights claims of individual plaintiffs - like Williams. I took several cases before the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals. In one case I won a landmark ruling that was the first ever in the nation. I also succeeded, among other things, in getting a municipal ordinance in the city of Youngstown, Ohio, ruled as an unconstitutional restriction of my client's right of free speech. It took winning 3 separate cases brought against my client in as many years before the court finally agreed with me that the city was unconstitutionally persecuting my client based solely on, and in retaliation for, his publicly expressed negative opinions of some officials in city government.

I viewed most of the oral argument in the State v. Williams Court of Appeals case - enough to know pretty well why the COA ruled against Williams (and why the SCOTUS denied cert). Here are my observations:

1) Williams's first mistake was failing to put the State to its burden of denying him a permit. Had he done so he could have demonstrated that he made every attempt to comply with the law, only to be turned down because the law was unconstitutionally overbroad, vague, etc. His subsequent arrest for carrying would have been more challengeable on appeal. Failing to make the application in the first place - even though applying may well have been pointless - relieved the State from having to deny him a permit and proved justification for the denial. The courts seldom accept at face value the claim that someone didn't file an application/petition/request on the grounds that they would have been denied anyway regardless of qualification. Evidence of the pointlessness of such request must be overwhelming, and must be based upon hard evidence that either proves the matter or leads to the inescapable inference. No such evidence other than the general reputation or perception of the permitting agency was referenced in oral argument.

2) Williams appeared to have "unclean hands" in the matter, having removed a mislaid (as opposed to lost) backpack from the bus and been seen digging through its contents while waiting for a transfer connection at the bus stop. It did not appear that Williams was ever charged with anything in connection with the removal of the backpack. Nevertheless, it seemed as though some of the justices imputed a degree of untrustworthiness to his actions. It would have been one thing if he had found the backpack along the side of the road, in which case "finders keepers" might have applied. However, the backpack was apparently inadvertently left on the bus where, presumably, if might have been located when the owner later remembered their error. Finders keepers does not apply to items that are merely mislaid because the owner may well return to claim them. Of Williams's three errors affecting the case, I think this one was the least problematic, but some of the justices' negative reaction to it was nevertheless discernible.

3) Williams acted guilty when he hid his gun in the nearby bushes. I understand why he did it, but his actions tacitly acknowledge both that he knew the law prohibited him from carrying his gun at that place and time, and that he was in violation of the law. It would have been better for him to have retained possession of the gun and informed the officer when approached that he was in possession of a gun that he was in the immediate process transporting from one residence to another.

Williams's case essentially asked the COA to throw out wholesale the entire statute under which he was convicted. Courts are loath to rule even a part of a law unconstitutional unless given no other choice. Unfortunately, the circumstances of Williams's case gave them lots of ways to rule otherwise. As someone previously pointed out this case was a longshot, a hail mary, and it is no surprise that the COA ruled as they did.

The SCOTUS is even more stringent in the kinds of cases they will accept for cert. Cases that make it to the High Nine have to be very narrowly focused on one issue of law, and for a case to receive cert a minimum of 4 of the justices must agree to hear it.

My take is that, apart from giving the Brady bunch a pretext upon which to issue a press release, State v. Williams is of no real value in either direction to anyone except Williams.

I hope this helps,

Miranda

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