Hey, it's one of those rare good decisions by the Supreme Court. In a 9-0 decision the Supreme Court
ruled that a man convicted of misdemeanor domestic assault could be prevented from owning firearms under the Lautenberg Amendment:
The case concerned James A. Castleman, a Tennessee man who in 2001 was convicted of assault in state court for causing bodily injury to the mother of his child. Court records do not say precisely what he did or what injuries the woman sustained.
When Mr. Castleman was indicted under the federal gun law, he argued that it did not apply to him because his state conviction did not qualify as a crime of domestic violence. Though the federal law defines a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” as one involving the use of physical force, he argued that the state law under which he was charged did not require proof of such force.
While the Sixth Circuit agreed with Castleman's argument, citing a hypothetical of someone poisoning their partner, thereby causing bodily injury without physical force, the Supreme Court disagreed:
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for six justices, said that domestic violence must be understood broadly to include “seemingly minor acts.” The word violence standing alone connotes substantial force, she said, but that is not true of domestic violence.
She gave examples of what might qualify as only domestic violence: pushing, grabbing, shoving, hair pulling and “a squeeze of the arm that causes a bruise.”
Since Mr. Castleman had pleaded guilty to having “caused bodily injury,” Justice Sotomayor wrote, the use of physical force serious enough to amount to domestic violence could be assumed.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan joined the majority opinion.
Although Justice Scalia would have adhered to a more narrow definition of domestic violence, he nonetheless concurred in judgment. Well, in before the far right starts crying "tyranny"...oops,
too late.
