Press Release

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC is pleased to announce that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to extend to the citizens of the States the constitutional protections of the fundamental individual right to self-protection embodied in the Second Amendment.

The Amici Curiae brief authored by Womble Carlyle attorneys John Parker Sweeney, T. Sky Woodward and Erin C. Miller was in support of the Petitioners in Otis T. McDonald, et al. vs. The City of Chicago, et al., before the U.S. Supreme Court. This particular case concerns handgun bans in the City of Chicago and Village of Oak Park, Ill. The parties were contesting whether such a broad ban is unconstitutional and should be overturned by the Supreme Court in light of its ruling last year in District of
Columbia v. Heller overturning the District’s handgun ban.

Nearly 900 State legislators and two state governors had joined the firm’s brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to secure the constitutional right to keep and bear arms against State interference.  Womble Carlyle had filed a brief of Amici Curiae State Legislatorswith the Supreme Court asking the Court to incorporate the Second Amendment (which protects the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms) as “against the States.” The Court agreed with that position, holding that “the Framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among the fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty.” Slip Op., at 31.

Womble Carlyle is grateful that 890 State legislators from all 50 States signed on in support of this Amici Curiae brief, as had Governors Charlie Crist of Florida and Rick Perry of Texas and Lieutenant Governors of a number of States. These State lawmakers said that incorporation of the Second Amendment would help clear up lingering uncertainty about the boundaries surrounding gun ownership rights and allow them to pass effective, constitutionally compliant legislation in this area. The Court’s opinion does just that, characterizing its prior holding in Heller to have established that “citizens must be permitted ‘to use [handguns] for the core lawful purpose of self-defense,’” Slip Op., 20, and forbidding the States from encroaching on that right.

The core of the State lawmakers’ position was that incorporation of the Second Amendment does no harm to the distinct roles given the Federal Government and the States in our nation’s federal system.“Federalism was not intended to be a vehicle for States to limit personal freedoms, including the fundamental right of self-protection,” Sweeney said. “The Supreme Court already has affirmed the rights of the individual to keep and bear arms in Heller. By incorporating the Second Amendment against the States in McDonald, the Court now has ensured that those rights are protected for all law-abiding citizens across the nation.”
 

Womble Carlyle contributed its services to these State lawmakers pro bono publico in this matter of great significance to the public interest.

Click here to read the opinion.

 

John Parker Sweeney—John has a national reputation in business litigation, having handled numerous “bet-the-company” cases, particularly disputes involving product liability and environmental law issues. A litigator with more than 30 years of experience, John is a National Director of DRI, the Voice of the Defense Bar, is ranked as a Maryland Super Lawyer and as one of the “Best Lawyers in America,” and has been elected a Fellow in both the America Bar Foundation and Litigation Counsel of America.

T. Sky Woodward—Sky is a veteran civil litigator with extensive experience defending manufacturers in mass tort product liability cases as well as representing real estate clients in environmental claims. She has been honored as a “Leader in the Law” by the Maryland Daily Record and as one of the “Best Lawyers in America” for product liability litigation.

Erin C. Miller—Erin focuses her practice on complex environmental litigation and regulatory compliance matters for energy, chemical and manufacturing companies, commercial and residential property owners and operators, and real estate developers.

 

 

Womble Carlyle is a full-service business law firm with a focus on innovative solutions to client needs. The firm supports the Association of Corporate Counsel in the ACC Value Challenge, which seeks to better align legal services with the needs of corporate clients.

The firm is located in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic regions, and serves clients nationally and globally, with more than 500 attorneys in eleven offices: Atlanta, GA; Greenville, SC; Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, Research Triangle Park, and Winston-Salem, NC; Washington, DC; Tysons Corner, VA; Baltimore, MD; and Wilmington, DE.

In the community, the firm is the first law firm to receive the Thurgood Marshall College Fund Corporate Leadership Award as well as the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Freedom Award.