D.C. Fires Its Gun Lawyer:
Tony Mauro reports on an interesting development in the District of Columbia v. Heller, the pending Second Amendment case before the Supreme Court. Despite his work on the District's primary brief, Alan Morrison has been fired by the city, apparently because he was seen as a "loyalist" of ousted D.C. attorney Linda Singer. Morrison is an excellent lawyer, so I find the District's actions hard to fathom — but I suppose it's also a bit of bizarre good news for the gun rights side in the case. (Hat tip: How Appealing.)
UPDATE: The Washington Post reports here.
Well that may be because Miller was a case manufactured by the government as an expedient for imposing federal gun control.
I'd doubt it. Their brief is probably already at the printers'. Which may leave Morrison ticked off. He writes the brief, sends it off, and they wait until then to say clean out your desk.
Also, to ask for a continuance they'd have to come up with more than "we decided to sack our guy, despite his competence, for reasons of internal politics, at the last minute."
Considering Morrison's Supreme Court record compared to Delliger or Goldstein, this will probably help.
...Then again, it may have been because Miller had assumed room temperature.
Not quite, according to the timeline, oral arguments were heard March 30, 1939, Miller was shot to death April 4, 1939, the decision was handed down May 15, 1939.
Miller was alive, but not present of course, for the hearing, and was indeed dead when the decision was handed down. If the government hadn't confiscated his sawed off shotgun, he may have been able to survive at least until the decision was handed down. Another innocent victim of gun control.
Cede it back to Maryland. The 1787 reasons for having a separate federal district no longer apply.
Anybody that read the article I linked would realize that my statment, "Another innocent victim of gun control." was a little sarcastic. It was kind of a take off on the old SNL ex-police skit where Ackroid and Murray would break into a house looking for drugs, kill the residents and then regret "another drug related death".
But just because Miller was no choir boy is no reason to keep the citizens of DC from lawfully owning guns.
Repeat, the .gov was the only appearance, either in brief or argument, for miller.
When I asked David Hardy if one sided representation was common back then, he related the tale to me like this:
Quote:
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Procedures in Miller were VERY strange to modern eyes. Dunno if they were in 1939. I forget the exact timing, but .... today you've got 90 or 120 days to file petition for cert., if granted another 90 or so days for first brief, same for next, then a reply, then oral argument. Whole thing takes 9 months or so, sometimes more.
In Miller's case, the atty is sitting out there in OKL, and out of the blue comes a letter from the Sup Ct. clerk telling him case is set for argument in, I forget, 3 or 5 weeks, and he better get his brief in ASAP. THink the clerk sent the letter like 9 days after cert. was granted. It probably took the better part of a week to get to the atty.
What the hell, he writes back -- I haven't even gotten the gov't's brief yet! (Remember also this is 1939. No FedEx, air travel too expensive, so he's being told to brief it in a matter of days and take the train). Clerk writes back that at end of term time limits are tight, full time for briefing is not available, and argument is not delayed for that reason.
He telegraphs back he can't find money to brief or argue, so take it as submitted on gov't brief.
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Couldn't they just lie? ;^)
After DC originally filed their petition for the SCOTUS to hear this case, Alan Gura (atty. for Heller) completely nuked their petition with his brilliant response. Now DC is supposed to respond to him, and the word is: it's not going so well.
True to typical DC government form, it appears they are botching it up, as they do everyday on a myriad of things. Usually the DC AG's office goes after easy targets like sueing bars over smoking bans, and landlords to clean up lead-based paint, that sort of thing...and if they botch those kinds of cases, well who cares, only the little people of DC pay the price. But this is the first time in a LONG time, that their office is handling a case with profound Constitutional implications for the entire US, and they are getting BIG pressure from the other lib states who joined them (NY,MD,HI) not to screw it up like they do everything else they handle.
I think that the new young Mayor of DC sees what's happening and knows that a defeat in this case would be hung around HIS neck. So he and his own general counsel are trying to micro-manage the case, so he got rid of his own AG that he appointed only 7 months ago, her entire staff, and now the otherwise competent attorney who was working on this case.
Keep rubbing your lucky rabbit's feet, boys !!!