New York Times

Supreme Court Rules Agains 'Straw' Purchases of Guns

By ADAM LIPTAK JUNE 16, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed a challenge to an
Ohio law banning lies in political campaigns to move forward, turned back a
challenge to a law concerning gun purchases and refused to hear a case about
holding high school graduations in churches.

The court ruled unanimously that two advocacy groups could challenge an
Ohio law that makes it a crime to make knowingly or recklessly false statements
about political candidates that are intended to help elect or defeat them. The
first offense could lead to six months in jail and the second could lead to
disenfranchisement.

Lower courts had dismissed the case, saying the groups seeking the
challenge had not faced imminent harm sufficient to give them standing to sue.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court, said the groups “have alleged a
credible threat of enforcement” of the law and so were not barred from pursuing
their challenge to it.

The case was brought by Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group,
and Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes.

Both had sought to criticize Steve Driehaus, a Democrat, in the midst of
what turned out to be his unsuccessful 2010 run for re-election to the House of
Representatives. They asserted that his vote in favor of the Affordable Care Act
could be interpreted as one “for taxpayer-funded abortion.”

The Supreme Court took no position on the truth of that statement.

Mr. Driehaus filed a complaint against the anti-abortion group with the
Ohio Elections Commission, which makes preliminary determinations and can
recommend criminal prosecutions. It issued a finding of probable cause that the
group had violated the law.

Mr. Driehaus dropped his complaint after he lost the election and before the
case had gotten much further.

The federal appeals court in Cincinnati dismissed the groups’ suit
challenging the law, saying they no longer had anything to worry about.

In his opinion reversing that ruling, Justice Thomas said the groups had
shown that they intended to repeat their critique of the Affordable Care Act
against other candidates and that “the threat of future enforcement of the false
statement statute is substantial.” That meant, he said, that their lawsuit could
move forward.

The case is Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, No. 13-193.

Straw Buyers of Firearms

By a 5-to-4 vote, the court allowed a prosecution under a federal law that
requires gun buyers to disclose that they are making their purchase for someone
else, even if both the straw buyer and the real one are eligible to own guns.

The case involved Bruce Abramski, a former police officer in Virginia who
bought a handgun for his uncle, Angel Alvarez, who lived in Pennsylvania. At the
gun store, Mr. Abramski filled out a federal form indicating that he was buying
the gun for himself.

Mr. Abramski pleaded guilty to making a false statement but reserved the
right to appeal. He was sentenced to five years of probation.

Writing for the majority in a case that divided the court’s more liberal
members from its more conservative ones, Justice Elena Kagan rejected Mr.
Abramski’s argument that his misstatement had been immaterial because the
federal law meant only to make sure that the immediate buyer was eligible to
own a gun.

“Abramski’s reading would undermine — indeed, for all important
purposes, would virtually repeal — the gun law’s core provisions,” she wrote,
including ones meant to keep firearms out of the wrong hands and to help
investigate serious crimes.

Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and
Sonia Sotomayor joined the majority opinion.

In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia noted that it is permissible to buy guns as
gifts, for later resale or as raffle prizes. The majority erred, he said, in
interpreting the law to make it “a federal crime for one lawful gun owner to buy
a gun for another lawful gun owner.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel
A. Alito Jr. joined the dissent in the case, Abramski v. United States, No. 12-
1493.

Graduation Ceremonies

The court said it would not hear a case about whether high school
graduation ceremonies held in a church violated the First Amendment’s
prohibition of government establishment of religion.

The court’s order gave no reasons. Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas,
dissented, saying the court should have heard the case or sent it back to the
lower courts for reconsideration in light of the Supreme Court’s decision last
month allowing prayers at town board meetings.

Justice Scalia said he knew that some might be offended by the religious
symbols in a church.

“I can understand that attitude: It parallels my own toward the playing in
public of rock music or Stravinsky,” he wrote. “And I, too, am especially annoyed
when the intrusion upon my inner peace occurs while I am part of a captive
audience, as on a municipal bus or in the waiting room of a public agency.”

But that sort of offense, Justice Scalia continued, was not a problem under
the First Amendment.

“It is perhaps the job of school officials to prevent hurt feelings at school
events,” he wrote. “But that is decidedly not the job of the Constitution.”

The case, Elmbrook School District v. Doe, No. 12-755, arose from
graduation ceremonies held by two public high schools in Brookfield, Wis., at
Elmbrook Church, an evangelical Christian institution. Administrators said they
chose the church for its comfortable seats, air-conditioning and ample parking.

In 2012, a divided 10-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for
the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, ruled that the religious symbols in the church,
including a large cross and pews filled with Bibles and hymnals, made it an
inappropriate setting.

“Regardless of the purpose of school administrators in choosing the
location,” Judge Joel M. Flaum wrote for the seven-judge majority, “the sheer
religiosity of the space created a likelihood that high school students and their
younger siblings would perceive a link between church and state.”

In a dissent, Frank H. Easterbrook, the chief judge at the time, said the
majority did not give the students enough credit. “No reasonable observer
believes,” he wrote, “that renting an auditorium for a day endorses the way the
landlord uses that space the other 364 days.”

“Elmbrook Church is full of religious symbols — but any space is full of
symbols,” Chief Judge Easterbrook continued. “Suppose the school district had
rented the United Center, home of the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago
Blackhawks. A larger-than-life statue of Michael Jordan stands outside; United
Airlines’ logo is huge. No one would believe that the school district had
established basketball as its official sport or United Airlines as its official air
carrier, let alone sanctified Michael Jordan.”

A version of this article appears in print on June 17, 2014, on page A14 of the New York edition with the
headline: Justices Permit Challenge to an Ohio Law Banning Lies During Campaigns.