Posted on 06/27/2014 11:17:15 AM PDT by Red Steel
DENVER - A Federal judge has ruled in favor of Colorado's controversial new gun laws and against a lawsuit filed by many of the state's sheriffs, several organizations and businesses.
Federal Chief Judge Marcia Krieger ruled in favor of the defendant, the state of Colorado, in a ruling issued Thursday.
"In determining whether a law is constitutional, this decision does not determine whether either law is “good,” only whether it is constitutionally permissible," Kreiger wrote.
The sheriffs filed suit last year in an attempt to block laws passed in response to mass shootings at an Aurora movie theater and at a school in Connecticut. They argued that the laws requiring universal background checks for gun buyers and restricting the size of high-capacity magazines violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms and the Fourteenth Amendment's prohibition against states denying individuals due process and equal protection under the law. They also argued that the laws violated the Americans with Disabilities act.
At trial, the arguments on behalf of the large group of individual plaintiffs were made by Weld County Sheriff John Cooke, former Colorado resident David Bayne and ongoing resident Dylan Harrell.
The judge found that Cooke's testimony did not have standing to challenge the magazine capacity statute and that his testimony consisted only of a poll of his deputies, Bayne was unlikely to be subject to the statutes in the future and Harrell's possession of existing high-capacity magazines would be protected by the law's grandfather clause.
On the background check statute, the judge again dismissed Bayne's testimony for the same reason. She wrote that Cooke did not provide any testimony with regard to his personal weapons, his intention to transfer them to others or his plans to acquire new ones.
About Harrell, she wrote that he testified he occasionally kept weapons from friends or neighbors for more than three days to install scopes. While the law exempts temporary transfers for up to 72 hours, Kreiger wrote that because he had the owner's permission to do maintenance he did not show a credible threat that would be prosecuted for not first obtaining a background check.
"Judicial review of laws for constitutional compliance focuses on only a small sliver of the issues that the legislature considers. A court does not act as a super-legislature to determine the wisdom or workability of legislation. Instead, it determines only whether legislation is constitutionally permissible. A law may be constitutional, but nevertheless foolish, ineffective, or cumbersome to enforce," Kreiger wrote in her ruling.
The judge also considered arguments from representatives of the businesses and organizations involved in bringing the suit, but ruled against them.
"Constitutionality is a binary determination: either a law is constitutional, or it is not."
Hickenlooper election campaign gets no relief from the courts.
Another “W” appointee.
No, really! Some liberal judge found a weaselly reason to say the constitution doesn’t protect me from the tyrants in Denver. I am shocked!
I would like to object specifically to this phrase “ passed in response to mass shootings at an Aurora movie theater”. For their attack on my rights to have been in response to the Aurora shooting they would have had to happen right after it instead of after all the Democrats involved were safely reelected.
Never forget, never forgive.
I would also like to object to “A law may be constitutional, but nevertheless foolish, ineffective, or cumbersome to enforce,” Kreiger wrote in her ruling.” She specifically avoided ruling on the constitutionality of the law by throwing the case out entirely on legal standing. She did not make, and can not support, the determination she claims in her ruling.
a lawsuit filed by many of the state's sheriffs, several organizations and businesses.
I believe it would be more accurate to say that 65 sheriffs, of the 67 counties, in CO filed suit.
Screw her and her decision. Illegal aliens don’t have to follow the law. Neither does the IRS, the Justice Department, Congress or the White House. Why should anyone follow her decision?
I’m sick of being told I must or else while those same people flaunt the law on a regular basis.
I am with you on this: Since no one else must follow the law, then why should we?
More of the story.
“—Sheriffs vow to appeal—
“Today was only the first round of the case, not the last,” Sheriff Cooke said in a press conference a few hours after the ruling was released.
Cooke, accompanied by other sheriffs and a pro bono attorney, said they believed the judge applied law and precedents incorrectly. They vowed to appeal the case to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals and, if necessary, the Supreme Court of the United States.
“We will continue the fight and look forward to presenting our case to the higher court,” Cooke said.
In his speech, Cooke also referenced Gov. John Hickenlooper’s recent statements at County Sheriffs of Colorado conference in Aspen and said he continues to believe the laws are unenforceable. “
Another lowlife, scumbag Feral “judge”. Those clowns are all clueless. Thank you Marcia. You dimwit idiot!
They should get their act together, with folks who have both standing and a likelihood of being harmed, and try again.
The question of whether Ms. Dahlberg is suffering a continuing injury is a close one, because it is not clear when Ms. Dahlberg’s magazines are likely to need replacement and whether, at that indeterminate point in future, she will desire to replace them with magazines of similar type. Notwithstanding her current interests, with the passage of time, Ms. Dahlberg’s desire to carry large-capacity magazines may change If that happened, this statute would not affect her.
No judge she's not going to change her mind being a plaintiff in this lawsuit and all that.
Shear ignorance. Makes me sick to my stomach. Screw em. We are criminals, now. Don’t that make you feel good?
That is extremely tortured, but confirms the fact that a stronger case should have been made. However, the problem is apparently that no-one has yet been injured, and it .
00is quite common for judges to require an actual ‘injury’, not an expectation that there might be one in the future. Now if someone could show they were wounded while defending themselves because they ran out of ammo in their too-small magazines........
Nom even with a stronger case
they would have thrown out standing, not even actual injury
could stop this — the USSC did exactly this when they threw out the Prop 8 case (claiming the people of CA had no standing) despite the CA supreme court having certified that the people did, and despite the very obvious injury of the people's amending their own State's constitution being rejected as invalid by a third party [federal judges].
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