It seems judicial activism is alive and well in Tennessee.  Though information is scarce, it appears that a judge has ruled unconstitutional a law recently enacted by the state which allowed guns to be legally carried in restaurants that serve alcohol.  The opinion was apparently issued from the bench and I haven’t yet been able to hunt down a written opinion or transcript, but if a news report is to be believed, the judge’s decision is a mess of illogic and policy driven judicial craftsmanship.

As I understand the background of the case, it arises out of the new Tennessee law which allows guns to be carried in restaurants which sell alcohol, but not in bars.  The law works by repealing most of an earlier provision that prohibited guns in any alcohol-serving establishment.  A group of permit holders challenged the law in court, seeking a declaration that the law is unconstitutionally vague.  The law is vague, they claim, because it fails to clearly distinguish between restaurants (where guns are allowed) and bars (where they are not).  The judge agreed and struck down the law, which, by my understanding, reverts everything to the pre-law conditions where guns are prohibited wherever alcohol is sold.

Examining the results of the case closely, it becomes apparent that the court’s decision, however the opinion was written, was an exercise of judicial policymaking.  In order to even be heard in court, the challengers would have needed to show that they were harmed by the vagueness of the law (or, if this is a declaratory judgment, that they are likely to be harmed by it).  The only way someone is harmed by vagueness in the law is if they violate the law unknowingly.  The only possible way to violate the law unknowingly is to carry a gun into a bar that they thought was a restaurant.

The court’s decision purports to solve this problem by (effectively) making it illegal to carry guns in restaurants.  But this is not a solution at all.  Under the court’s decision, it is still illegal to carry a gun into a bar that you think is a restaurant.  Nothing changes except that a great number of legal carries now become illegal carries, causing harm to the rights of restaurateurs and patrons who had no problem having guns at the table.

Assuming that the law truly is vague on this point, the court had two valid options available.

The first option is a variation on the option chosen by the court: Eliminate the distinction between restaurants and bars.  However, the distinction would need to be eliminated in favor of gun carriers, because that is the only way to remove the hazard of being caught with a gun in a bar that you thought was a restaurant.  This option eliminates the vagueness entirely, and solves the problem at hand.  The downside, however, is that it rewrites the law to produce a result, guns in bars, which was expressly rejected by the political process.  Though not the atrocity of the actual opinion, this choice would still have been activist.

The second option is effectively to punt: Dismiss the case and leave the law, as it is, intact.  Over time, courts will be called on to decide whether or not particular establishments are restaurants or bars, building a body of common law precedent in the absence of legislative definition.  This sort of case by case decision making is certainly not as clean as a proper definition from the legislature, but it is a common procedure undertaken by the courts which ultimately yields a workable standard.  Further, while true that some people will end up on the wrong side of uncertainty, the Rule of Lenity will generally protect these people from harm.

It is that final option which the court should have selected.  Instead, the court chose to deviate from the duly enacted will of the people in pursuit of an outcome which does not resolve any harm the law may have caused.  Such a decision is hard to reconcile with anything other than an apparent policy preference from a judge now translated into law.

Tags: 2nd Amendment, court opinions, logic