Articles Posted in Constitutional Law

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A new lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Maryland Firearm Safety Act of 2013 underscores the continued tension between those seeking greater regulation of firearms and those advocating for the protection of individual Second Amendment rights.  In 2023, as states like Maryland continue to grapple with issues such as permit requirements, background checks, and restrictions on certain types of firearms, legal challenges to these measures continue to wage.  Gun rights proponents see new daylight in an increasingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court.

Maryland defended the Maryland Firearm Safety Act of 2013 before a skeptical 4th Circuit.

We also have commentary below on the new opinion in a different Maryland Shall Issue lawsuit against Montgomery County from May 2023.

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It is expected that the Supreme Court will soon announce its ruling on the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s health care law passed in 2010. At the latest, the decision will be announced on June 28th, although it could come earlier.

In the meantime, a new survey that was paid for by the American Action Forum has concluded that the court will strike down the so-called individual mandate, a central provision within the law requiring that every American purchase a government-approved form of health insurance.

Using a scale from 0 to 100, the pollsters asked the 58 legal experts (38 former clerks of current Supreme Court justices and 18 attorneys who have argued before the court) to rate the probability that the individual mandate provision would be declared unconstitutional. The insiders provided an average rating of 57 percent, a significant jump from the pre-hearing survey when the average was just 35 percent. Of note, the same expert survey was conducted before the hearings began, and found that most thought the law would be upheld.

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The Maryland Daily Record reports that jurors in the Sheila Dixon trial Facebook friended each other before the jury verdict.

The messages were very “no harm, no foul” but there were 12 lawyers working on this case for Dixon. Somehow, I expect this will come up. Judge Sweeney will not declare a mistrial over it, and neither is the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. But expect a lot of trees to go in the process of this outcome.

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The Maryland Daily Record published a story today about a St. Mary’s County, Maryland man who is suing adultfriendfinder.com and three anonymous users of the site for defamation and false light invasion of privacy over the posting of sexually explicit pictures of his wife.

I hope more information comes out about this story because I have a lot of questions. First, the man claims that his reputation as a monogamous spouse has been smeared because of the inference that he is a swinger. This is nonsense on several levels. As a service to you, the loyal Maryland Lawyer Blog reader, I went to this website. There is no presumption that everyone on the site is part of a swinging couple. In fact, I think the major purpose of the site is to give couples a chance to pick up a third if you will. This might cast some unfavorable impressions of his wife, who is notably not a plaintiff, but it says very little about him and whether he has been faithful to his wife.

I would also be curious to know exactly where sexually explicit pictures of his wife of 22 years came from in the first place. Three different users apparently have these pictures. There does not appear to be any suggestion that the pictures were stolen or unlawfully obtained.

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