The U.S. Supreme Court has again turned aside a challenge to Illinois' ban on so-called "assault weapons," rejecting a petition for appeal of the Illinois Supreme Court's decision upholding the law.
The denial of the appeal came despite assertions from challengers that allowing the Illinois Supreme Court's ruling to stand amounted to permitting the Democrat-controlled court to all but thumb its nose at past directives from the nation's highest court, as well as at the U.S. and Illinois state constitutions.
The denial of the petition for appeal landed on Jan. 8. It was not accompanied by any kind of order explaining the denial or indicating if there was any disagreement among the U.S. Supreme Court's justices on the question.
Illinois Supreme Court Justices Mary K. O'Brien and Elizabeth Rochford
| twitter.com/marykayobrienil; facebook.com/JudgeRochford/
The denial came just shy of two months after a group of gun owners from downstate Macon County, notably led by Illinois State Rep. Dan Daulking, R-Decatur, filed the petition for appeal before the U.S Supreme Court.
That petition said the high court's intervention stood as the only recourse remaining to Illinois residents in addressing alleged injustices perpetrated by allegedly biased justices, who allegedly ruled under the sway of Gov. JB Pritzker and the state's two most powerful lawmakers, all Democrats and among the most vocal supporters of the state's gun ban law.
The petition particularly centered on accusatings against Illinois Supreme Court Justices Elizabeth Rochford and Mary K. O'Brien, who refused to recuse themselves from hearing Caulkins' challenge to the gun ban when it landed before the state high court earlier this year.
The denial of Caulkins' petition marked another refusal by the U.S. Supreme Court to step into the ongoing legal fight over the constitutionality of Illinois' so-called "assault weapons" ban.
The law, titled the Protect Illinois Communities Act, took full effect on Jan. 1, about a year after it was approved by the state's Democratic legislative supermajority and signed into law by Pritzker. Generally, the law bans the sale or acquisition of a long list of firearms, which the state has labeled dangerous and especially lethal "assault weapons." It also bans a long list of firearm accessories, including so-called "large capacity" ammunition magazines typically employed when using such weapons, as well as other accessories.
The law further required the current owners of such weapons to register them with the Illinois State Police by Jan. 1. Those who don't comply with the law could face steep fines or imprisonment.
Pritzker and other supporters of the law say it is needed to restrict the ability of people to acquire the “assault weapons” and reduce the risk of future mass shootings, such as the massacre carried out by a lone gunman possessing an “assault rifle” at the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park in 2022.
Challenges to the law have continued in state and federal courts in Illinois for nearly a year.
The bulk of those challenges have moved forward in federal court, asserting the law violates Illinoisans' Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms, as interpreted by recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
While those challenges continue, a federal appeals court in Chicago has rejected plaintiffs' request to put the gun ban on hold while the challenges play out. In a 2-1 ruling, two judges on the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals with a history of upholding other gun bans reasoned that the new Illinois gun ban can be considered constitutional because the state should be free to ban any weapons it believes are too dangerous and too similar to those used by the U.S. military, in the name of protecting the public.
The U.S. Supreme Court just before the end of 2023 denied emergency appeals for intervention from the plaintiffs in those cases, including from a gun store owner in Naperville, who asserted that allowing the Illinois gun ban to take effect would put him out of business.
Those denials also came without comment.
While those federal court challenges moved forward, other challengers, including Caulkins, filed suit in Illinois state courts, saying the law also violated rights and rules established by the Illinois state constitution.
Caulkins' challenge ultimately landed before the Illinois Supreme Court, which ruled last summer that the gun ban law did not violate the Illinois state constitution.
The ruling was notable for several reasons.
The ruling on the highly controversial question was authored by Justice Rochford, even though the former Lake County judge was one of the court's most junior members, having only been elected to the high court in November 2022, and never having served on any appeals court.
Next, while the ruling was nominally 4-3, only the court's two Republicans actually dissented in support of the plaintiffs. Justice O'Brien - also one of the court's newest justices - separately dissented, but on the grounds that gun ban wasn't severe enough.
The decision also explicitly refused to address any Second Amendment-related questions. Rochford and the majority noted the plaintiffs in the case went to lengths to avoid such a direct challenge to the law under the Second Amendment, to avoid having their cases consolidated with those pending in federal court.
Finally, the decision followed the decision by both Rochford and O'Brien to specifically reject a demand from Caulkins and his co-plaintiffs to step aside from hearing the case, after the two new justices had accepted not only endorsements from Gov. Pritzker and other top Illinois Democrats and gun control groups, but also accepted millions of dollars in campaign donations and support from Pritzker and other Democratic interests.
In their petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, Caulkins and his Macon County group asserted this amounted to violation of their rights to a fair hearing before a plausibly unbiased court, in defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2009 decision in Caperton v Massey.
In that case, the high court ruled a West Virginia Supreme Court justice had violated the due process rights of litigants when he refused to step aside from hearing a case, despite having received large campaign support from a businessman involved in the case.
In that decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said no one needed to prove "actual bias," only a "serious risk of actual bias - based on objective and reasonable perceptions - when peerson with a personal stake in a particular case had a significant and disprorportionate influence in placing a judge on the case by raising funds or directing the judge's election campaign when the case was pending or imminent."
In thise case, the Macon County gun owners said the campaign donations from Pritzker and his allies similarly denied them a fair hearing, setting a dangerous precedent and fueling a belief among Illinoisans that their state government and the state's courts are wholly controlled by Pritzker and his allies, without any check on their power to enact any laws they wish, at will, regardless of the rights, rules and processes specified by the state constitution and required by the U.S. Constitution.
"When the judicial branch abdicates its role to enforce the state constitution (effectively ceding its independence to the other branches) one fairly questions whether the form of government to which the citizens consented becomes an illusion," Caulkins' legal team wrote in the petition. "And, in this case, the effects transcend politics to invade the protection of fundamental rights codified in the Second Amendment, which that state judiciary is bound to protect under the United States Constitution."
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, on behalf of Pritzker, did not file a reply to the Caulkins petition.
Following the petition denial, Pritzker crowed on X, formerly known as Twitter:
"Another attempt to overturn our assault weapons ban has been DENIED! No matter the roadblocks, I'll never stop fighting against the gun lobby's dangerous agenda. Together, let's continue to make Illinois a safer place for all."
Caulkins said he and his supporters were evaluating their "legal options," but did not elaborate on what those might be in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's denial of their appeal.
“Judges must preserve both the reality and appearance of impartiality," Caulkins said. "It is impossible for these justices to be impartial after accepting millions of dollars in campaign cash from gun control advocates and after receiving the support of a radical organization like G-PAC. I will not stop in demanding real justice as opposed to the rigged outcome the Illinois Supreme Court handed down.”