What law did the Supreme Court strike down in its 1995 decision on United States v. Lopez?

United States v. Lopez, 514 US 549 (1995)

In March 1992, Alfonso Lopez, Jr., a San Antonio, Texas, high school senior just 12 weeks shy of graduation, was caught carrying an unloaded .38 caliber handgun and ammunition on school property. Lopez denied the gun was his, insisting he had been paid $40 to transport it from one student to another. He was initially arrested and charged under a Texas state law that prohibits possession of guns on school grounds. The next day, agents dropped the State charges in favor of the recent federal "Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1990" (18 USC § 922(q)) law that carried a stiffer penalty.

Alfonso's court-appointed lawyer, Jack Carter, recognizing his client had little chance of being found not-guilty, conceded his client's guilt, but objected to the constitutionality of the federal law under which he was charged. The challenge also called into question several decades of legislation that infringed on civil and state rights eroded by an activist Congress, and allowed by a Supreme Court practicing excessive judicial restraint (in other Words, the Court chose to ignore the constitutional issues raised by certain other laws past during the last 60 years).

The Tenth Amendment delegates control over both law enforcement and education to the states, and is beyond the constitutional reach of the federal government. The positive intent of the legislation was to compel state action in areas where Congress believed the states were deficient in adequately protecting their citizens.

The federal District Court found Lopez guilty and sentenced him to six months in prison followed by two years' supervised probation. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the District Court's decision, and the government appealed to the Supreme Court.

In defense of the Congressional legislation, the government argued that the statute was a legitimate extension of the Interstate Commerce Clause (US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) because inadequate gun laws raised crime rates, which made a State less desirable to do business with, which reduced revenue from commerce.

Supreme Court Decision

The Court, in a 5-4 decision, held that Congress had exceeded its authority by enacting the Gun-Free School Zone law under the Interstate Commerce Clause. Acknowledging other laws had been allowed to go too far astray from the purpose of the Commerce Clause, the Court found the "Gun-Free School Zones Act" too far removed to be applicable under that constitutional provision.

The Commerce Clause is intended to regulate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce, and that the 1990 statute failed to meet even the most superficial requirements of that particular enumerated power, on the following grounds:

# No economic activity was involved. # The federal government lacked jurisdiction because there was no evidence the handgun had been or would be moved between the states. # There was a lack of supporting evidence of a link between guns and education. # The link between the regulated activity and the Interstate Commerce Clause was too attenuated to be applicable. Further, the Court held, by passing a criminal statute, Congress had usurped police powers that belong to the states under the Tenth Amendment (as does education).

The Court found the government's argument unreasonable, and the logic convoluted. Upholding the statute set a dangerous precedent that could lead to the federal government claiming Lopez allowed them to regulate other activities that "might" lead to crime, which could ultimately result in a single, centralized government, rather than the dual system of government the Founding Fathers intended.

Rehnquist's opinion quoted cautionary language from Jones v. Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 US 1 (1937) that had also dealt with an unreasonable extension of the Interstate Commerce Clause: "In Jones & Laughlin Steel, the Court warned that the scope of the interstate commerce power "must be considered in the light of our dual system of government and may not be extended so as to embrace effects upon interstate commerce so indirect and remote that to embrace them, in view of our complex society, would effectually obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local and create a completely centralized government.""

United States v. Morrison, 529 US 598 (2000)

This case overturned parts of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which allowed women to file civil suit in federal court if their grievances weren't properly addressed in the state court system, on the grounds that Congress had exceeded their authority under the Commerce Clause and under Section 5 of the Fourteen Amendment (incorporation).

Morrison closed the item (3) loophole in Lopez, that used "lack of supporting evidence" as part of the construction of the Court's decision, and ruled that even in the face of supporting evidence that states were failing to provide consistent prosecution and protection against gender-based crimes, Congress did not have the right to regulate state authorized police action. They also held that, since the suits were being filed against individuals, the Fourteenth Amendment didn't apply because its intent was only to regulate government bodies, not private individuals.