The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) will not review the constitutionality of the most frequently challenged federal gun law. At least not yet.
On Monday, the Court declined a request by a Florida man to review his conviction over possessing a firearm as a previously convicted felon. Instead, the justices opted to grant, vacate, and remand (GVR) that decision back to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to be re-examined with the Supreme Court’s most recent Second Amendment decision in mind.
“The motions of petitioners for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petitions for writs of certiorari are granted,” the Court wrote in its orders list for US v. Rambo. “The judgments are vacated, and the cases are remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit for further consideration in light of United States v. Rahimi.”
The order did not contain any explanation or dissent from any of the justices.
The order marks a continuation of a recent SCOTUS trend in which Second Amendment petitions are routinely sent back down to the lower courts by the justices for further review. It’s a trend that has persisted despite pressure from the Department of Justice and gun-rights advocates to quickly take up another case in full and settle longstanding Second Amendment issues.
At the same time, this particular remand represents a slight departure from the Court’s treatment of other felon-in-possession ban cases. While all of its other GVRs in light of Rahimi involved decisions that pre-dated the Court’s last Second Amendment ruling, the Rambo case does not.
The Eleventh Circuit upheld Marcus Albert Rambo’s conviction late last July, more than a month after the Supreme Court handed down its opinion in US v. Rahimi. It did so primarily because it said the circuit’s post-Heller and post-Bruen rulings found the federal felon-in-possession ban constitutional in all applications.
“Our binding precedents in Dubois and Rozier similarly foreclose his Second Amendment arguments,” a three-judge panel wrote in an unsigned opinion.
However, the panel also specifically cited the Rahimi decision in its brief opinion.
“The Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Rahimi did not abrogate Dubois or Rozier because it did not ‘demolish’ or ‘eviscerate’ the ‘fundamental props’ of those precedents,” the panel wrote. “Rahimi did not discuss § 922(g)(1) at all, nor did it undermine our previous interpretation of Heller.”
That raises questions about how much room there will be for the Eleventh Circuit to change its opinion in any substantial way. Every other felon-in-possession ban case previously GVRd by the Court in light of Rahimi to issue a new decision has done so with an unchanged outcome.
Beyond the issue of gun rights for convicted felons, the Supreme Court also made moves on two other closely-watched Second Amendment issues Monday. For the fifth time, the justices relisted the cases Snope v. Brown and Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island. Those cases, which concern Maryland’s ban on so-called assault weapons and Rhode Island’s ban on “large-capacity” magazines, have been the big-ticket items for gun-rights advocates watching the Court in recent months.
The justices will again consider whether they want to take those cases up at their February 28 conference this Friday.