Surpeme Court grants cert on First Step resentencing, GVRs gun issues, and lots of statements in (final?) order list

I am already way, way behind on my Supreme Court reading, and the Justices this morning via this order list gave us all another 53 pages of SCOTUS copy to process.  As is common for an end-of-term order list, this one starts with a bunch of GVRs (cert “granted,” judgment “vacated,” case “remanded”) based on notable recent rulings, then follows with a few grants and then a bunch of comments on cert denials. 

I saw a big bunch of Erlinger remands along with a number of Loper Bright ones and a few based on Fischer and Diaz.  The most notable of the set, though, are the many Rahimi remands in an array of cases raising Second Amendment challenges to various application of federal criminal gun possession prohibitions under 18 USC 922(g).  In particular, it seems SCOTUS has GVRed all the felon-in-possession cases that the US Solicitor General suggested be taken up right away in light of Rahimi.  I am not really surprised the Justcies are content to kick federal felon-in-possession cases down the road, but it simply ensure a lot more legal churn in lower courts (and perhaps a lot more people unconstitutonally prosecuted) as the Justice go off on their summer vacation and the rest of us try to read Rahimi tea leaves.  There is little doubt in my mind that the Justices will have to resolve the constitutionality of 922(g)(1) sooner or later, but they ultimately get to decided just when and how while the rest of use deal with the legal uncertainty.

But I suppose I cannot be too grumpy at the Justices because, in this same order list, they did grant cert (and consolidate) two cases involving the application of the First Step Act.  Specifically, as explained in this cert petition in one of the cases, the issue taken up by SCOTUS in the new cases of Duffey and Hewitt is:

Whether the First Step Act’s sentencing reduction provisions apply to a defendant originally sentenced before the First Step Act’s enactment when that original sentence is judicially vacated and the defendant is resentenced to a new term of imprisonment after the First Step Act’s enactment.

Last but certainly not least, the lengthy order lists concludes with statements or dissents in a half-dozen cases in which cert was denied authored by a handful of Justices.  A number of these cases are criminal matters of note, so I will cover some of that action in a future post. Whew.