United States v. Lopez

SCOTUSCase
Litigants=United States v. Lopez
ArgueDate=November 8
ArgueYear=1994
DecideDate=April 26
DecideYear=1995
FullName=United States v. Alfonso Lopez, Jr.
USVol=514
USPage=549
Citation=115 S. Ct. 1624; 131 L. Ed. 2d 626; 1995 U.S. LEXIS 3039; 63 U.S.L.W. 4343; 95 Cal. Daily Op. Service 3074; 8 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 752
Prior=On writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Subsequent=
Holding=Possession of a gun near school is not an economic activity that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce. A law "prohibiting guns near schools is a criminal statute that does not relate to commerce or any sort of economic activity."
SCOTUS=1994-2005
Majority=Rehnquist
JoinMajority=O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas
Concurrence=Kennedy
JoinConcurrence=O'Connor
Concurrence2=Thomas
Dissent=Breyer
JoinDissent=Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg
Dissent2=Stevens
Dissent3=Souter
LawsApplied=U.S. Const. art. I, , cl. 3

"United States v. Lopez", ussc|514|549|1995 was the first United States Supreme Court case since the Great Depression to set limits to Congress's power under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

Alfonso Lopez Jr. carried a handgun and cartridges into his high school, Edison High, San Antonio, Texas. He was charged with violating the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, usc|18|922(q).

Lopez's legal defense held that the federal government had no authority to regulate firearms in school zones, and argued that the federal law under which Lopez was convicted was unconstitutional.

The Federal Government's main point during this case was the possession of a firearm in an educational district and environment would most likely lead to a situation involving a violent crime, which would affect the general economic condition by limiting travel in the area. The government also explicitly claimed that the presence of firearms in a school district could always be seen dangerous, scare people and also disturb people from learning properly due to the constant fear of violent crime, leading to a weaker economy. Thus, the government argued that the possession of a firearm at a school fell under the jurisdiction of the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

upreme Court decision

The Supreme Court held that while Congress had broad lawmaking authority under the Commerce Clause, it was not unlimited, and did not apply to something as far from commerce as carrying handguns, especially when there was no evidence that carrying them affected the economy on a massive scale. (A later case, "United States v. Morrison" (2000), ruled that Congress could not make such laws even when there was evidence of aggregate effect.)

Chief Justice Rehnquist, delivering the opinion of the court, wrote that the court had identified three broad categories of activity that Congress could regulate under the Commerce clause:

* the channels of commerce,
* the instrumentalities of commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even if the threat comes from intrastate activities, and
* action that substantially affects interstate commerce, in relation to a broad regulatory scheme

The decision stated:

Consistent with this structure, we have identified three broad categories of activity that Congress may regulate under its commerce power. First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce. Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities. Finally, Congress' commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.

The Court's opinion focused on the third category--regulation of activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. The opinion rejected the government's argument that because crime negatively impacted education Congress might have reasonably concluded that crime in schools substantially affects commerce. The Court reasoned that if Congress could regulate something so far removed from commerce, then it could regulate anything, and since the Constitution clearly creates Congress as a body with enumerated powers, this could not be so. He concludes:

:To uphold the Government's contentions here, we have to pile inference upon inference in a manner that would bid fair to convert congressional authority under the Commerce Clause to a general police power of the sort retained by the States. Admittedly, some of our prior cases have taken long steps down that road, giving great deference to congressional action. The broad language in these opinions has suggested the possibility of additional expansion, but we decline here to proceed any further. To do so would require us to conclude that the Constitution's enumeration of powers does not presuppose something not enumerated, and that there never will be a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local. This we are unwilling to do.

The Court specifically looked to four factors in determining whether legislation represents a valid effort to use the Commerce Clause power to regulate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce:

#Whether the activity was non-economic as opposed to economic activity; previous cases involved economic activity.
#Jurisdictional element: whether the gun had moved in interstate commerce.
#Whether there had been Congressional findings of an economic link between guns and education.
#How attenuated the link was between the regulated activity and interstate commerce.

It is important to note that although the ruling stopped a decades-long trend of inclusiveness under the commerce clause, it did not reverse any past ruling about the meaning of the clause. Later, Rehnquist stated that the Court had the duty to prevent the legislative branch from usurping state powers over policing the conduct of their citizens. He admitted that the Supreme Court had upheld certain governmental steps towards taking power away from the states, and cited "Lopez" as a decision that finally stepped in to check the government's authority by defining clearly between state and federal powers.William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, American Constitutional Interpretation, Third Edition, 2000, Ed. Walter F. Murphy, James E. Fleming, Sotirios A. Barber, and Stephen Macedo, pgs. 639-640]

The impact of the decision

"Lopez" raised serious questions as to how far the Court might be willing to go in implementing judicial safeguards against federal encroachments on state sovereignty.Erwin Chemerinsky, Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Southern California, "Florida Law Review", "The Values of Federalism", September 1995, 46 Fla. L. Rev. 499] This precedent takes special significance in cases where the federal government is attempting to limit private conduct. Commentators are still postulating on how other established federal interstate laws might be affected, such as the Clean Water Act. The argument can be made that this significant limiting of federal power is necessary to establish a greater threshold for governmental accountability and revitalizes the role of the states in public policymaking.Kristin Collins, J.D., Yale Law School, Cardozo Law Review, April 2005, pg. Lexis]

ee also

*List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 514

References

External links

*caselaw source
case="United States v. Lopez", 514 U.S. 549 (1995)
enfacto=http://www.enfacto.com/case/U.S./514/549/
other_source1=LII
other_url1=http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-1260.ZS.html