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« This is pitiful, part 10,026 | Main | Well, that's encouraging »

Peruta v. San Diego gets lively

Posted by David Hardy · 4 December 2014 10:58 AM

The Ninth Circuit just ordered both sides to brief the petition for rehearing en banc, noting that "A judge of this Court having made a sua sponte call for a vote on whether this case should be reheard en banc..." (in legalese, "sua sponte" usually means for a court to do something without being asked to do so -- in this case, after the motion was denied. At issue are the motions by California and Brady Center to intervene and take over the case, seeking the rehearing en banc that the Sheriff did not seek.

In a separate ruling, the Court allowed Plaintiffs to file quite long (35 pages) briefs on the question.

Eugene Volokh has on the event. I think I can guess why the Court would want to consider Peruta, and not its companion cases. Peruta is cleaner case, and the other two decisions are decided essentially by referencing it. If the issue is going to be reconsidered, why not take Peruta rather than its progeny?

UPDATE: a description of what's going on. Basically,

The 9th Cir. has something like 28 active judges. The custom is that they divide into three judge panels to decide cases.

Peruta won before the panel. California cannot both (1) may "may issue" permitting and (2) ban all carrying, open or concealed, without a permit in incorporated cities and counties. The question was whether San Diego wanted to ask for en banc review (theoretically, before the entire 20+ judge court, but the Ninth Circuit is so big that en banc goes to 10 randomly selected judges and the chief judge). That's hard to get, really ties up the court, and usually it takes a conflict between two panel decisions to do it. Then en banc comes in to settle which panel decision should be the law of the circuit).

San Diego didn't want to try that, so it just let the time for requesting en banc pass.

California (and some antigun groups), which had never been involved in the case, filed motions to intervene and take over the case, so that THEY could ask for en banc. The argument was essentially, "we didn't join in this case earlier because we thought San Diego would protect our interests, and now it's not going to.

The panel denied the motion. California had simply waited too long. It could have gotten involved at any earlier stage, but passed it up.

California moved to take that decision, the denial of permission to intervene, and moved to have that decision taken en banc.

Apparently, at least one judge thought it was a good motion, so the court ordered both parties to brief it. Then they'll see if there are enough votes to grant it. It takes a majority of judges.

If denied, Peruta stands (altho two cases heard at the same time raising much the same issues might be taken en banc). If granted, California becomes the new defendant, and files its motion for rehearing en banc, and the court decides that. And of course after that, there's potential Supreme Court involvement.

· Chicago aftermath

3 Comments | Leave a comment

Charles Nichols | December 4, 2014 9:12 PM | Reply

Nordyke v. King was en banc'd twice and so I really don't see any hesitation by other than the two members of the Peruta majority on Peruta being en banc'd.

Professor Volokh is correct. The 9th can either deal with Peruta now or deal with Nichols v. Brown and Richards v. Prieto later.

Not to mention dealing with a dozen other California CCW cases either pending or in the pipeline.

Rich | December 5, 2014 8:20 AM | Reply

So they keep doing this till they get the ruling they want?

Jim D. | December 5, 2014 11:46 AM | Reply

An additional wrinkle is that libertarian-leaning Chief Judge Alex Kosinski (Reagan) was replaced December 1st by Sidney Thomas (Clinton). If Thomas filed the sua sponte himself, then substituting California as the defendant is pretty much guaranteed -- legal timelines being for disenfranchising little people which can be overridden for bullying, sympathetic political purposes.

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