Printz v. United States


Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that certain interim provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act violated the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Background

The Gun Control Act of 1968

The Gun Control Act of 1968, Pub. L 90-618 and subsequent amendments established a detailed Federal program governing the distribution of firearms. The GCA prohibited firearms ownership by certain broad categories of individuals thought to pose a threat to public safety: convicted felons, convicted misdemeanor domestic violence or stalking offenders, persons with an outstanding felony warrant, fugitives from justice, unlawful aliens, persons with court-mandated protective orders issued against them, persons who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, adjudicated mentally ill by a court, and others.
Persons disqualified from firearms ownership for mental health reasons can apply to have this disability removed. States that do not maintain an application process to allow persons disqualified for mental health reasons to obtain relief from firearms prohibition face Justice Assistance Grant penalties. Section 105 of the , cited as Pub. L. 110–180, § 105, provides for restoration of firearm ownership rights in mental health cases. Under NIAA it is up to each U.S. state to come up with its own application process; thus the procedure to regain one's rights vary from state-to-state.

The Brady Act

On November 30, 1993, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, Pub. L. 103–159, amending the 1968 Gun Control Act. This "Brady Bill" required the United States Attorney General to establish an electronic or phone-based background check to prevent firearms sales to persons already prohibited from owning firearms. This check, entitled the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, went into effect as required on November 30, 1998.

Interim provisions

The Act also immediately put in place certain interim provisions until that system became operative. Under the interim provisions, a firearms dealer who proposes to transfer a handgun must receive from the transferee a statement, containing the name, address and date of the proposed transfer along with a sworn statement that the transferee is not among any of the classes of prohibited purchasers, verify the identity of the transferee by examining an identification document, and provide the "chief law enforcement officer" of the transferee's residence with notice of the contents of the Brady Form.
When a CLEO receives the required notice of a proposed transfer, they must "make a reasonable effort to ascertain within 5 business days whether receipt or possession would be in violation of the law, including research in whatever State and local recordkeeping systems are available and in a national system designated by the Attorney General."

The plaintiffs

Petitioners Sheriffs Jay Printz and Richard Mack, the Chief Law Enforcement Officers for Ravalli County, Montana, and Graham County, Arizona, represented by Stephen Halbrook and David T. Hardy respectively, filed separate actions challenging the constitutionality of the Brady Act's interim provisions. They objected to the use of congressional action to compel state officers to execute Federal law.

Lower court decisions

On May 16, 1994, United States District Judge Charles C. Lovell granted the Sheriff declaratory judgment, finding that the provision requiring CLEOs to perform background checks violated the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, but also concluding that provision was severable from the remainder of the Act, effectively leaving a voluntary background check system in place. On June 29, 1994, United States District Judge John Roll reached the same conclusion. Those judgments were reversed on September 8, 1995, by United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Judge William C. Canby Jr., joined by Judge Herbert Choy, over the dissent of Judge Ferdinand Francis Fernandez.
The Second Circuit also rejected a sheriff's challenge to the mandate, but the Fifth Circuit found that the mandate was unconstitutional, creating a circuit split.

Supreme Court

The Montana and Arizona Sheriffs’ petition for a writ of certiorari was granted and one-hour of oral arguments were heard on December 3, 1996, where Hallbrook appeared for the sheriffs and Walter E. Dellinger III, the acting Solicitor General of the United States, appeared for the Government.

Opinion of the Court

On June 27, 1997, the last day of the term, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist alongside Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas found that the Brady Act's attempted commandeering of the sheriffs to perform background checks violated the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In his opinion of the Court, Justice Scalia stated that, although there is no constitutional text precisely responding to the challenge, an answer can be found “in historical understanding and practice, the structure of the Constitution, and in the jurisprudence of this Court.”

Historical understanding and practice

Founding era Acts of Congress imposing obligations on state judges are not evidence of federal power over state officials because, according to the Court, the Madisonian Compromise had agreed to leave the creation of lower federal courts optional. The Court rejected the Government's argument that Federalist No. 36, Federalist No. 45, and Federalist No. 27 anticipated that Congress would "make use" of state officials. Rather, the Court viewed “almost two centuries of apparent congressional avoidance of the practice” as strong evidence that Congressmen did not think they had the power to command state officials.

The structure of the Constitution

The Court explained that federalism in the United States is based upon "dual sovereignty", quoting Federalist No. 39's assurance that states retain "a residual and inviolable sovereignty". The Court stated that the Framers designed the Constitution to allow Federal regulation of international and interstate matters, not internal matters reserved to the State Legislatures.
The Court expressed a worry that Members of Congress might take credit for "solving" a problem with policies that impose all the financial and administrative burden, as well as the blame, on local officials. The Court quoted Federalist No. 51’s argument that by giving voters control over dual sovereign governments "a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself." The Court concluded that allowing the Federal government to draft the police officers of the 50 states into its service would increase its powers far beyond what the Constitution intends.
The Court identified an additional structural problem with commandeering the Sheriffs: it violated the constitutional separation of powers by robbing the President of the United States of his power to execute the laws; contradicting the "unitary executive theory". The Court explained
Finally, the Court applied its past jurisprudence. The Government had argued that the anti-commandeering doctrine established in New York v. United States, which held that Congress could not command state legislatures to either pass a law or take ownership of nuclear waste, did not apply to state officials. Rejecting the Government's argument, the Court held that the Tenth Amendment categorically forbids the Federal Government from commanding state officials directly. As such, the Brady Act's mandate on the Sheriffs to perform background checks was unconstitutional.
Justice O'Connor wrote a concurring opinion, alone, highlighting that the Court's holding left local Chief Law Enforcement Officers free to voluntarily comply with the federal mandate.
Justice Thomas also added a concurrence, alone, clarifying that, in his opinion, Congress's interstate Commerce Clause powers do not apply to purely intrastate firearms transfers. Thomas went on to encourage the Court to someday consider the “colorable argument” that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution grants individuals a personal right to own firearms.

Dissents

Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer, respectfully dissented. Justice Stevens suggested the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, giving the Federal government the right to regulate handgun sales, can be coupled with the Necessary and Proper Clause, giving Congress the power to pass whatever laws are necessary and proper to carry out its previously enumerated power. The Tenth Amendment, Stevens explained, contains no additional limitations on federal power, serving merely to clarify that the Government has only those powers granted by the Constitution.
Stevens extolled the benefits of cooperative federalism. Federal direction of state officials in this manner is analogous to ordering the mass inoculation of children to forestall an epidemic, or directing state officials to respond to a terrorist threat. He was very concerned with the ability of the federal government to respond to a national emergency and did not believe that "there is anything in the 10th amendment 'in historical understanding and practice, in the structure of the Constitution, or in the jurisprudence of this Court,' that forbids the enlistment of state officers to make that response effective." Moreover, the text of the Constitution does not support the Majority's apparent proposition that "a local police officer can ignore a command contained in a statute enacted by Congress pursuant to an express delegation of power enumerated in Article I."
Justice Souter filed a dissenting opinion alone, emphasizing that he read Federalist No. 27 as providing ample evidence that the Framers’ original intent was to require states to act as auxiliaries of the Federal government.
Justice Breyer filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Stevens, using international comparative law to observe that the federalism found in many foreign countries gives the central government some authority over sub-national jurisdictions.

Subsequent developments

The immediate effects of the ruling on the Brady Bill were negligible. The vast majority of local and state law enforcement officials supported the interim provisions and were happy to comply with the background checks. The issue ended with the completion of the federal background check database. However, Printz v. United States was an important ruling in support of States' rights and the New Federalism.
Professor Ann Althouse has suggested that Printz applies to the U.S. government response to the September 11 attacks because "state and local government autonomy can exert pressure on the federal government to moderate its efforts and take care not to offend constitutional rights."
In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court adopted the suggestion from Justice Thomas's concurrence that the Constitution grants individuals a personal right to own firearms.
U.S. District Judge John Roll, who had originally declared the Brady Act unconstitutional, was shot and killed in the 2011 Tucson shooting, the same mass shooting where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head. The shooter in that case had purchased a Glock pistol after passing the FBI background check