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I'm sure @gattsuru will have a more full analysis, but the Second Amendment case US v Hemani just dropped. The Supreme Court found that a man who unlawfully used a controlled substance cannot, by doing so, become automatically prohibited from possessing firearms. The big shock in this case is that it was 9-0.
Unfortunately, as is to be expected, the decision is so narrow as to likely not affect any other case.
One more subtle ramification: the under-21 cases. There's a handful of these sitting on the docket, and I do mean sitting. Each one hit a single conference and then disappeared: neither relist, denial, or formal hold. They weren't scheduled from the 6/18 conference.
These cases reflect a standing circuit split. One has already been GVR'd once before. There's a mix of interlocutory and final order cases, and cases where the law was found unconstitutional and where it was upheld. There's even a class action one thrown in for yucks.
The common knowledge was that they'd been held pending Hemani. That's a lot less plausible, now that Hemani's been constrained to its very specific borders. A GVR post-Hemani is a joke.
It's still possible that's the court wanted to get Hemani and off its plate first. But these cases notably weren't scheduled for the 6/18 conference, and presumably SCOTUS knew Hemani would be released at least a couple days before it dropped. and there's only one normal conference left this session: 6/25. If they're not listed for that one by Wednesday, they're not getting a grant.
The more morbid possibility is that the simplest under-21 challenges are self-mooting. That's why there's a class-action lawsuit at all, why the organizational plaintiffs have been cycling in and out new people, and why Reese had my dander up. Too many people hit their 21st birthday, or an organization doesn't announce replacement candidates fast enough, and the case not only disappears, even a lower court victory can be vacated. And while these cases hit a lot of people, signing onto a federal lawsuit is personally costly even if someone else is paying all the legal bills, especially for a 19-year-old who's living, studying, or working in a Blue State.
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