U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- Two Second Amendment-related actions filed Monday seeking to protect rights in Hawaii are being deliberately delayed through procedural moves to preclude resolving them.
The cases involved are Andrew Roberts v. Al Cummings, et al, in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and Yukutake v. Connors, In the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii. In both cases, plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Alan Alexander Beck and Stephen D. Stamboulieh.
The Roberts case, initially filed in 2018, challenges “Hawaii’s complete ban on ownership of electric arms in the home.” But wait, some will no doubt say: The legislature has since acted, the prohibition on sale and possession has been repealed and the law will go into effect on January 1.
That’s not what the appeal is about. Rather, as the filing argues;
“The district court refuses to rule on the Appellant’s Motion for Summary Judgement and has stayed this matter, in one form or another, since November 26, 2019.”
Those forms include:
- An agreement was reached to stay the matter pending a legislative fix.
- The district court stayed proceedings pending a decision by the United States Supreme Court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. City of New York. After that case was “mooted,” the court ordered the stay to continue pending a decision in the Young case (another lawsuit with the plaintiff represented by Beck and Stamboulieh).
- This is all despite the fact that “the Defendants stated in the conference of counsel … that they would not oppose the relief requested in the motion.”
The court does not want the case to move forward, and as the appeal Introduction notes:
“Because Mr. Roberts has been put effectively out of court on an indefinite stay by the district court that refuses to rule on a matter it 1) has jurisdiction over, and 2) has been fully briefed and argued, Mr. Roberts turns to this Court for relief. To be clear, Mr. Roberts is not asking this Court to rule on his motion for summary judgment, but to require the lower court to rule on it.”
Likewise, Yukutake has run into a legal brick wall. That complaint challenges the constitutionality of Hawaii’s 10-day permit use period for handguns and in-person inspection and registration requirement for firearms. And again, the state is playing the “stay” game, and trying to change the rules in the process:
“[T]here are four stay factors, each of which Defendant must demonstrate she satisfies to qualify for a stay. The Defendant cannot even satisfy the first prong which is to demonstrate a likelihood of success of the merits … Instead, Defendant presents to this court an article about ammunition magazines which has nothing to do with the instant laws being found unconstitutional and violative of Plaintiffs’ Second Amendment rights. Moreover, the Defendant also fails the other three prongs of the test to grant a stay as shown below. This Court should not stay this case because the Defendant has failed make the requisite showing under the applicable standards.”
“This court should not grant a stay pending appeal,” Beck and Stamboulieh argue, because:
- The defendant has not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merit.
- ‘[A]n injunction cannot issue merely because it is possible that there will be an irreparable injury to the plaintiff; it must be likely that there will be.’
- The balance of hardships tips sharply in Plaintiffs’ favor.
- The public interest does not favor a stay pending appeal.
The deliberate impeding of progress in these cases is reminiscent of what has been happening in the above-mentioned Young case for even longer. George Young, a native Hawaiian and Vietnam infantry veteran has been trying since 2007 to have his right to carry either openly or concealed recognized, having filed three federal lawsuits over the state’s deliberately unused handgun carry law. That case is now before the United States Supreme Court in the form of a Petition for Writ of Certiorari, and all they have to do to let it stand is…nothing, that is, refuse to hear it. Per attorney Stamboulieh, “It is up for conference on 9/27 so we ‘may’ know that by then. Or not.”
As noted in a previous AmmoLand News report, that case, and now these, are reminiscent of a Martin Luther King Jr. quote in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”:
“We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
A combined file containing both the Roberts and Yukutake appeals is embedded below:
Andrew Namiki Roberts Plaintiff-Appellant, V. Al Cummings, In His Official Capacity as The State Sheriff
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.