Court orders makers of gun parts to comply with rules on ghost guns
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday ordered two internet sellers of gun parts to comply with a Biden administration regulation aimed at ghost guns, firearms that are difficult to trace because they lack serial numbers.
The court had intervened once before, by a 5-4 vote in August, to keep the regulation in effect after it had been invalidated by a lower court. No justice dissented publicly from Monday's order, which followed a ruling from a federal judge in Texas that exempted the two companies, Blackhawk Manufacturing Group and Defense Distributed, from having to abide by the regulation of ghost gun kits.
Other makers of gun parts also had been seeking similar court orders, the administration told the Supreme Court in a filing.
"Absent relief from this Court, therefore, untraceable ghost guns will remain widely available to anyone with a computer and a credit card — no background check required," Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote.
The regulation changed the definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts, like the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun, so they can be tracked more easily. Those parts must be licensed and include serial numbers. Manufacturers must also run background checks before a sale — as they do with other commercially made firearms.
The requirement applies regardless of how the firearm was made, meaning it includes ghost guns made from individual parts or kits or by 3D printers.
The regulation will be in effect while the administration appeals the judge's ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans — and potentially the Supreme Court.
Justices leave in place a court victory for PETA over North Carolina's ag-gag law
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected North Carolina's appeal in a dispute with animal rights groups over a law aimed at preventing undercover employees at farms and other workplaces from taking documents or recording video.
The justices left in placea legal victory for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in its challenge to the state law, which was enacted in 2015. PETA has said it had wanted to conduct an undercover investigation at testing laboratories at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill but feared prosecution under the "Property Protection Act."
In a 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in February that the law could not be enforced against PETA — and likely others in similar situations — when its undercover work is being performed to conduct newsgathering activities.
"People have a right to know about illegal and unethical conduct. Exposing unsafe or inhumane practices and working conditions is essential to holding powerful bad actors accountable for the harm they cause," said David Muraskin, a lawyer with FarmSTAND — representing PETA and other groups that challenged the law. A PETA attorney separately also praised Monday's refusal.
The law is similar to so-called state ag-gag laws — aimed at gagging undercover activists who record footage of the animal agriculture industry — that have been struck down by several courts around the country over free speech concerns. The Supreme Court has so far refused to weigh in.
The majority opinion at the 4th Circuit had narrowed a 2020 ruling by a trial court judge who had struck down four provisions in the law related to the potentially secretive activities.
State lawyers for Attorney General Josh Stein, a defendant in the case along with UNC-Chapel Hill's chancellor, had asked the Supreme Court to take up the matter. So did the North Carolina Farm Bureau Federation, which also defended the law in court.
Stein's office had told the justices there were conflicting decisions among circuits "about whether audio-visual recording always constitutes protected speech or whether recording may be unprotected when it takes place on nonpublic property without the property owner's consent."
Muraskin said Monday that reversing that decision would have had a chilling effect on whistleblowers and undercover investigations of many kinds, including those of sexual harassment.
N.C. Farm Bureau attorney Jake Parker called Monday's decision not to hear the case "disappointing and troubling" and expressed hope that the North Carolina legislature would "step up again and protect our fundamental rights to privacy and property."
"Meanwhile, farmers and other business owners should consider themselves activist targets and take caution when hiring new employees," Parker said.
A spokesperson for Stein, the state's top law enforcement officer, said his office was reviewing Monday's decision and its implications.
Justice Barrett expresses support for a formal U.S. Supreme Court ethics code in Minnesota speech
By Steve Karnowski
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett said Monday that it would be a good idea for the nation's highest court to adopt a formal code of conduct, but she said the nine justices already agree that they should hold themselves to the highest ethical standards possible.
Barrett spoke at a University of Minnesota Law School event just two weeks after the high court opened its current term in October with fresh cases on guns, abortion and the power of regulatory agencies on its docket, but with ethical concerns high on many observers' minds. Ethics issues have dogged some justices — including conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito and liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
"I think it would be a good idea for us to do it, particularly so that we can communicate to the public exactly what it is that we're doing — and in a clearer way than perhaps we have been able to do so far," Barrett said. "I will say this, there is no lack of consensus among the justices — there is unanimity among all nine justices — that we should and do hold ourselves to the highest standards, highest ethical standards possible."
Barrett went further than she did in August when she told a judicial conference in Wisconsin that she welcomed public scrutiny of the high court, but stopped short of commenting on whether she thinks the court should change how it operates in the face of growing ethics concerns. She did not offer any opinion nor did she speak directly about calls for the justices to adopt an official code of conduct.
In her remarks Monday, Barrett said what she has in mind for a code is "how best to express what it is that we are already doing." She said the justices already abide by statutes that apply to all judges by filing financial disclosure forms. She said she still personally follows the formal canons of conduct that applied to her when she was an appeals court judge — which don't apply to the Supreme Court — and that her fellow justices do the same.
But when asked by her host, former Law School Dean Robert Stein, how long it might take the Supreme Court to reach consensus about what its own ethics code should be, Barrett demurred.
"I think that's something that I can't really speak for the court about or make any sort of guess," she said.
Barrett spoke as part of a lecture series named for Stein that has also brought to the university Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Chief Justice John Roberts. But security in and around the auditorium was notably tighter than for the other justices, following calls by activist groups to protest against Barrett's appearance.
Several protesters stood up early during Barrett's remarks and chanted slogans including: "Not the court. Not the state. People must decide their fate." Police escorted them out after a couple of minutes, and police said there were no arrests.
More than 200 people peacefully protested outside the auditorium. Freshman Sean Colfer, 18, said the university keeps "hammering on these ideas of diversity, equity and inclusion," but that Barrett doesn't represent those principles.
Several protesters waved bright yellow signs that read, "Amy Coney Barrett Off Our Campus."
The Supreme Court has been tipped further to the right by the three justices named by former President Donald Trump, including Barrett. Public trust in the institution fell to a 50-year low following a series of polarizing rulings, including the overturning of Roe v. Wade and federal abortion protections last year.
The Associated Press reported this summer that it obtained thousands of pages of documents showing how justices spanning the court's ideological divide have lent the prestige of their positions to partisan activity — by headlining speaking events with prominent politicians — or to advance their own personal interests, such as boosting book sales, through college visits. And reporting from ProPublica earlier this year revealed that Thomas participated in lavish vacations and a real estate deal with a top Republican donor.
But justices have treaded gingerly in their public comments. Kagan declared her support for an ethics code for the Supreme Court at a conference in Oregon in August. But she said there was no consensus among the justices on how to proceed.
Alito said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal in July, after Democrats pushed Supreme Court ethics legislation through a Senate committee, that Congress lacks the constitutional authority to impose a code of ethics on the high court. And Justice Brett Kavanaugh largely avoided discussing ethics during an appearance at a judicial conference in Minnesota in July.
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Associated Press reporter Trisha Ahmed contributed to this report. Ahmed is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.
