What I mean by a set up case, is a case set up by the parties involved to get a favorable appellant decision (often a Supreme Court Decision). These tend to have very narrow factual disputes (or no factual disputes at all) and very narrow issues of law that rarely occurs in real life.
For example the Dred Scott Case of 1857 was brought by Dred Scott against his Master on the grounds his master had taken him into a Free state and by that action made him a freemen under the laws of that state. His master agreed he had taken Dred Scott into the old Northwest
Territories of the US (Modern Wisconsin and Minnesota. The states of Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio had already been created out of the old Northwest Territory), but that taking Dred Scott into those areas did not make him free for under the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the US Constitution those states had to accept Dred Scott’s designation as a Slave.
Dred Scott and his master where working with an Anti-Slavery group to show that the Slaves under the Constitution could not exist once the majority of States had abolished Slavery. The Supreme Court split on the issue. One of the reason Dred Scott was pick to represent Slaves was that the Act he was claiming under was the Northwest Territory Act of 1785, which outlawed Slavery in the Northwest Territories and it was passed and adopted BEFORE the US Constitution was adopted, but preserved under that Constitution.
This narrowed the issues down, the right for a black to be free in the Northwest Territory was FEDERAL law, not State law (Thus the Supreme Court could not avoid the issue on the ground it was an issue of state law) and it was PASSED before the Constitution and the Constitution said EVERY act under the Confederation remain valid law under the Constitution (Thus the issue of whether Congress could pass such a law could not be used).
The Supreme Court split all over itself in Dred Scott. No Majority Decision, Justice Taney’s plurality (it had four out of nine Judges signing off on his opinion that basically said Blacks had never been citizens of the US and therefore Dred Scott could Never have been freed by Federal Law and therefore the Federal Government could NOT outlaw Slavery and thus the Northwest Ordinance, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the California Compromise of 1850 were all un-constitutional). Dred Scott was reversed by the Post-Civil War Amendments which clearly said non-whites have the same rights as white Americans, including the right to vote and equal protection of the laws.
My point here is this was a set up case from day one, while Dred Scott lost, his Master subsequently freed him, Dred Scott’s actual ability to be free was not really at issue. It had been hoped that by that decision the issue of Slavery would be ended but all it did was lead to Civil War.
Another made up case is the case involving sterilization of the mental retarded in BUCK v. BELL, 274 U.S. 200 (1927). In Buck both sides to the argument had agreed to limit the issue to whether the states had the right to sterilize “mental defectives” who inherited their “mental defectiveness”. Justice Holmes made his famous comment “Three generations of imbeciles are enough” The real sadness in that case is the Third Generation graduated High School later on (Experts on intelligence had NOT been permitted in the trial unless they supported the states position, and that was true about the experts called by the “mental defective’s” attorney. By the way, no one even today knows where high intelligence comes from and where it goes in the DNA. High IQ people even if they have children with High IQ children, after 2-3 generation the children are no longer high IQs. Same with Mental Retardation not caused by physical damage to the brain. Such DNA “mental Defectives” were the issue in the 1927 case).
Other made up cases have also made it to the court, often with the knowledge of some or all of the Justices. They tend to be rare but like the above case based on very narrow facts and law.
The reason I believe that to be the case here, is look at this case, everyone is admitting he did not use these weapons in a Crime, he did not try to sell them to a third party (who might have been planning to use them in a crime), he did not advertise them for sale. All of these can complicate a Right to Bare Arms Attack on Federal Gun Control Laws (which are based on the Power of Congress to Tax items that are being sold, i.e. an excise tax). He had no plans to ell them and everyone admits he had no intention to sell them, so failing to pay the Excise Tax is NOT an issue. It is also admitted that he never intended to use the weapon, thus violating laws regarding the use of weapons in a crime were also not violated. In most cases involving illegal Firearms, one or the other of these laws are violated in addition to the law prohibiting the ownership of automatic weapons. The Defense Attorney general opts for a plea bargain in such cases so there is no appeal on the issue of the mere ownership of Automatic Weapons. If no plea bargain is made, the issue of paying the tax, or conspiring with another person to commit a crime is also charged and if convicted of all charges (and most people are, it generally is all or none) on appeal the appellant court will uphold the verdict on the grounds of having not paid the tax, or conspiracy instead of just owning an automatic weapon.
Thus this sounds like a made up case. The issue is to narrow for most people who violate firearms laws (i.e. most people who are arrested for Firearms Violation also do not pay the transfer fees, keep the needed records AND conspiring with other people to commit a crime). Sounds to narrow a case to be typical, sounds more like a case made up to attack the 1986 Machine Gun Ban as violating the Second Amendment. This case will be an interesting case to watch over the next 2-3 years.
To Read Buck vs Bell see:
http://www.law.du.edu/russell/lh/alh/docs/buckvbell.htmlInformation on Dred Scott (This claim is was NOT a made up case, but given that the Supreme Court can only take cases where there is a “Controversy” no one EVER provides evidence that the case is made up. To admit you made up a case is to admit to committing a “fraud” on the Court and the lawyers can be dis-barred for committing an act of “fraud” on the court. Thus made up cases are NEVER admitted to being made up, you just have to look at them and see that there is no way such a narrow legal and factual dispute could occur unless both sides wanted, and worked together, to limit those disputes):
http://www.nps.gov/jeff/ocv-dscottd.htmThe Dred Scott Decision itself (This is Chief Justice Taney’s Opinion, each of the Justices wrote their own opinion in this case. Click on their name to read what each wrote. The original decision was over 200 pages long, at time BEFORE Typewriters and even Steel pens, thus each had to be HAND WRITTEN with a quill pen, and had to be legible also. With modern word processors 200 + opinions are easy, not so in the 1850s.)
http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Scott/
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