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SCOTUS undercuts constitutional gun rights in Hayes without even mentioning Heller or Second Amendment

By Douglas A. Berman

As regular readers know, I have been watching the Hayescase involving a federal statute prohibiting gun possession by certain misdemeanants as a potential Second Amendment sleeper case.  And today the Supreme Court decided Hayes and kept the Second Amendment sleeping.  Indeed, I think we can and should read Hayes as an indication that the Justices are just fine with the Second Amendment sleeping with the fishes: not a single Justice even mentions Helleror the Second Amendment in the course of broadly interpreting a federal criminal statute that prohibits certain misdemeanants from ever possessing a gun. Posts by Lyle Denniston here and here provide the basic story of Hayes, which will appear (and may be reported) to be just a technical little statutory interpretation case: The Court has issued an opinion in United States v...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on February 24, 2009 (boomark / email).