DC gets tagged for $1.1 million in the Heller case

Wonder if the message will sink in on the Chicago powers that be?

Why would it? It's not as if it were their money being flushed down the toilet.

They don't care. So they lose a lawsuit, and have to pony up. They will just run a deficit and try to squeeze it out of the citizens.

I say good. I don't care if they have to get the money from their citizenry. If the citizens in all the states do not want to have to pay the bill, maybe they will vote these people out and put in office people who will actually honer the constitution.

Congratulations, I wish Gura & Co., had received their entire request. That said, what really sucks is having to pay the vig back to the govt in taxes.

I'd say this little settlement will have no effect on any larger city, and most especially Chicago. In the grand scheme of things it's peanuts for an Emanuel to take a very good chance of getting a favorable decision.
Losing one is maybe an issue, but hardly reason to fold up the tent and give up.

Ouch? Really? Stop with the BS.

http://blog.simplejustice.us/2011/12/31/alan-guras-expensive-lesson.aspx

When he took on Dick Heller's case, it likely seemed like a lost cause. A good cause, perhaps, but an uphill fight the whole way. Up the steepest hill you can find. The steepest hill that never ends. Yet Alan Gura took it on, and because he did, the Supreme Court reversed its view of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, restoring it to a fundamental right, in District of Columbia v. Heller.

For his efforts, District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan smacked him. From the Blog of Legal Times:
It took six years for the attorneys for Dick Heller to win the D.C. resident, and all Washington residents, the right to possess handguns in their homes. The U.S. Supreme Court made its landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008.

It's taken another three years for those attorneys, after a lengthy court fight with the District of Columbia, to be awarded their attorney fees.

In a ruling released Friday, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington awarded Heller's attorneys, led by Alan Gura of Alexandria, Va.'s Gura & Possessky, just over $1.1 million, about one-third of what they had requested.

To the uninitiated, a fee award of $1.1 million may seem like winning the lottery. That's because law is easy and it's all wrapped up in an hour, like a television show. They neither see nor grasp the reality, that Gura has dedicated nine years of his life to this case, without any assurance of either winning the point or being awarded a dime. Regardless of whether you love of hate the fundamental personal right to keep and bear arms, you can't ignore the accomplishment.

D.C.'s argument against Gura's fee request in Heller was a diabolically curious one:

Sullivan noted in his 65-page ruling that lawyers for the city had claimed Gura's team shouldn't be allowed to "enrich themselves at the expense of the taxpayers" in a time of financial crisis. The judge made it known that he, too, was cognizant of the issue.

"Sensitive to the fact that the fees in this case will be paid by the taxpayers, this Court is left with the difficult task of closely scrutinizing plaintiff's fee petition to determine what is fair, reasonable, and just compensation for the legal services of plaintiff's attorneys," Sullivan wrote.