推 qilai:鄉民魂再度獲勝 06/29 16:08
案名：McDonald v. Chicago
芝加哥市與其郊區以地方法律嚴格限制個人槍枝註冊，兩位律師在全國步槍協會支持
下向聯邦法院起訴，最高法院於昨日遞交判決。
5-4，裁定個人擁槍權不僅適用聯邦法律，同樣對州與地方法律有規範效力。代表多
數派的阿利托大法官在意見書中指出，憲法的起草者很明顯認為個人擁有槍枝是維護
既有系統與自由的基本要素。
不同意見書由布瑞耶大法官宣讀，認定此判決將地方依照各自環境制定限槍法律的權
利轉給聯邦法官。
本案並未挑戰對精神病患或是罪犯持槍的限制，全案發回更審。
Gun rights case: Supreme Court rules on second amendment
By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 28, 2010; 2:40 PM
The Supreme Court ruled for the first time Monday that the Second Amendment
provides all Americans a fundamental right to bear arms, a long-sought
victory for gun rights advocates who have chafed at federal, state and local
efforts to restrict gun ownership.
The court was considering a restrictive handgun law in Chicago and one of its
suburbs that was similar to the District law that it ruled against in 2008.
The 5 to 4 decision does not strike any other gun control measures currently
in place, but it provides a legal basis for challenges across the country
where gun owners think that government has been too restrictive.
"It is clear that the Framers . . . counted the right to keep and bear arms
among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty,"
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the conservatives on the court.
(Photos from Patriot's Day gun rights rally)
The victory might be more symbolic than substantive, at least initially. Few
cities have laws as restrictive as those in Chicago and Washington.
Alito said government can restrict gun ownership in certain instances but did
not elaborate on what those would be. That will be determined in future
litigation.
Alito said the court had made clear in its 2008 decision that it was not
casting doubt on such long-standing measures as keeping felons and the
mentally ill from possessing guns or keeping guns out of "sensitive places"
such as schools and government buildings.
"We repeat those assurances here," Alito wrote. "Despite municipal
respondents' doomsday proclamations, [the decision] does not imperil every
law regulating firearms."
The decision came on the final day of the term and at a time of great change
for the court. Justice John Paul Stevens sat at the mahogany bench for the
last time, and will end more than 34 years on the court when his retirement
becomes official Tuesday. Confirmation hearings for Solicitor General Elena
Kagan, President Obama's choice to replace Stevens, were scheduled to begin
Monday afternoon.
And Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 77, was with the court despite the death of
her husband of 56 years, Martin D. Ginsburg, on Sunday.
Besides the decision in McDonald v. Chicago, the court completed its work by
issuing opinions in its final cases of the term:
-- It ruled that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, an
independent board set up by the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the aftermath of
the huge corporate failures of Enron, WorldCom and others, is
unconstitutional. The board was designed to provide much tougher regulation
of the auditing of public companies than under previous regimes, but the
court said that because it was insulated from direct control of the
president, it violated the separation of powers.
It also said, however, that the problem could be corrected by allowing the
Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees the board and is more
accountable to the president, to remove the board's members at will.
The case is Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
-- By a vote of 5 to 4, the justices said that a public university does not
have to recognize a student religious group that wants to exclude gays and
others who do not share its core beliefs. The University of California's
Hastings College of the Law said its anti-discrimination policy required
officially recognized student groups to include all who wanted to join. The
Christian Legal Society argued that being forced to include those who did not
share its beliefs violated constitutional protections of freedom of
association and exercise of religion.
The majority included the court's liberal wing plus Justice Anthony M.
Kennedy.
The case is Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.
-- The court rejected a claim from inventors who wanted to have their
business method patented. A majority of the court said such a claim would be
possible in some cases, but not in this one, where a patent was sought for a
strategy for hedging risk in buying energy.
The case is Bilski v. Kappos.
The guns case was the logical sequel to the court's 5 to 4 decision in
District of Columbia v. Heller. That decision established for the first time
that the Second Amendment's "right to keep and bear arms" referred to an
individual right, not one related to military service. But the decision that
there is a right to keep a gun in one's home did not extend beyond the
federal government and its enclaves such as Washington.
Gun rights activists immediately filed suit against the handgun restrictions
in Chicago and the suburb of Oak Park.
"Today marks a great moment in American history," said Wayne LaPierre,
executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, in a statement.
"This is a landmark decision. It is a vindication for the great majority of
American citizens who have always believed the Second Amendment was an
individual right and freedom worth defending."
The court's decision means that the enigmatically worded Second Amendment --
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,
the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" --
identifies an individual right to gun ownership, like the freedom of speech,
that cannot be unduly restricted by Congress, state laws or city ordinances.
Also voting in the majority were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and
Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer objected to the majority decision, and read his
dissent from the bench. He disagreed with the majority that it is a
fundamental right, and said the court was restricting state and local efforts
from designing gun control laws that fit their particular circumstances, and
turning over all decisions to federal judges. Joining him with dissenting
votes were John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.
Stevens wrote his own dissent and did not join Breyer's.
"Given the empirical and local value-laden nature of the questions that lie
at the heart of the issue, why, in a nation whose constitution foresees
democratic decision-making, is it so fundamental a matter as to require
taking that power from the people?" Breyer wrote. "What is it here that the
people did not know? What is it that a judge knows better?"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/28/
AR2010062802134_pf.html
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