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Federal judge whose decision last week to overturn California’s three-decade ban on assault weapons prompted a backlash draws further criticism over his claims about Covid-19 vaccines, gun injuries fire and other topics.
As the state prepares to appeal on Friday the ruling of U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, which California Attorney General Rob Bonta has dismissed as “fundamentally flawed,” legal experts say the review case goes beyond why he concluded the state’s ban is unconstitutional to another level of concern: how he shaped his case.
“I think it’s incredibly problematic when a federal judge cites things that are factually incorrect, because it undermines the integrity of the branch,” said Jessica Levinson, professor of law at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and columnist on MSNBC.
Benitez’s decision drew attention to how he compared the AR-15 rifle, which has been used in some of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States in recent years, to a Swiss Army knife that could be used “for both home and battle”. But in his 94-page decision were other comparisons that critics said were inexplicable.
He wrote that studies prove “that the ‘harm’ of an assault rifle used in a mass shooting is an infinitely rare event,” adding: “More people have died from the Covid-19 vaccine than from shootings in mass in California “.
Benitez offered no citation for the claim, and his office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
A Newsweek analysis of the last 80 mass shootings in the United States found that 26% involved the use of AR-15 rifles.
California has seen more than a dozen mass shootings this year, the deadliest of all in May, when a gunman killed nine people in a San Jose rail yard before taking his own life. NBC News defines a mass shooting as a single incident involving three or more people who were shot dead in a public place.
Since 2017, more than 50 people in California have been killed in mass shootings, some in a March rampage at an Orange County shopping complex that left a 9-year-old dead, and in a hall crowded dance hall in 2018 at Mille Chênes.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that although they investigated nearly 4,900 nationwide reports of deaths among people who received Covid-19 vaccines from December 14 to May 24, doctors did not were unable to establish a “causal link” with the vaccines. There have been extremely rare cases of potentially fatal blood clots involving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which led to a temporary hiatus in its use in April.
Benitez’s decision last week stems from a 2019 lawsuit filed by James Miller, a California resident, and San Diego County Gun Owners, a political action committee, which alleged the guns The state’s iconic assault ban the first of its kind in the country, established in 1989 violates their Second Amendment rights.
In his decision, Benitez also makes an update on gunshot wounds, citing the testimony of an emergency doctor. He wrote that “injuries from firearms like the AR-15 which are prohibited as ‘assault weapons’ are no different from other firearms which are common and legal to own.”
The experiences of trauma surgeons treating victims of mass shootings involving military-style rifles have been documented in recent years, particularly after the 2018 Parkland, Florida high school shooting that left 17 people dead.
Dr Heather Sher, a Broward County radiologist who has treated victims of the Parkland shooting and other incidents, wrote in The Atlantic about the differences in injuries from AR-15s and handguns.
“Handgun wounds to the liver are generally survivable unless the bullet hits the main blood supply to the liver,” Sher wrote. “An AR-15 gunshot wound in the middle of the liver would cause so much bleeding that the patient would probably never make it to the trauma center to receive our care.”
Constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, said Benitez’s claims were “completely without a factual basis.”
“They are irresponsible in the extreme, whether they are portrayed as so-called ‘facts’ or repackaged as opinions,” Tribe said in an email. “His entire theory of Second Amendment guns has no basis in the text, history, or judicial interpretation of the Amendment and swallows its own tail in making the circular assertion that guns are Common usage at any given time are those protected by the amendment.
Benitez was appointed to a seat in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California in 2004 by President George W. Bush. His appointment was overwhelmingly opposed by a committee of the American Bar Association, which said other judges and lawyers interviewed about him described him as arrogant, angry and “totally lacking in human skills.”
A committee member told senators that Benitez’s response was “to systematically deny the accuracy of what I was told,” adding: “He was unable to explain why so many people would make incorrect comments and negative about it “.
The Senate confirmed his 98-1 appointment.
In recent years, Benitez, who is based in San Diego but whose decisions could spill over into several Western states under the jurisdiction of the 9th United States Court of Appeals, has overseen a number of high-profile cases related to to firearms. He opposed California’s ban on high-capacity magazines and its mandatory background checks to purchase ammunition in colorful, heavily worded decisions. He wrote that the Second Amendment “gets even less respect” than Rodney Dangerfield, a nod to the late comedian’s shtick.
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Josh Blackman, professor of law at South Texas College of Law Houston and adjunct research fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said that although Benitez writes with “flair” in his decisions, he ultimately does not violate any ethical rules. .
He added that the underlying basis for Benitez’s decision that assault weapons are “fairly ordinary, popular and modern rifles” that are not routinely used in mass shootings and that, therefore, their use should be protected by the Second Amendment is clearly established.
It’s not uncommon, Blackman added, for judges deciding burning issues, such as cases involving the right to vote and abortion, to use frills in their opinions that stray from simpler legal jargon.
Benitez suspended his order for 30 days to give the state a chance to appeal to the 9th Circuit.
Observers say the case could end up in the Supreme Court, which in April agreed to challenge New York’s concealed handguns law for the first time in more than a decade that the High Court will hear a central issue of the gun rights debate.
Levinson said the potential outcome of California’s assault weapons ban shows how lifelong federal judicial appointments can have lasting effects on many issues.
“It should be a lesson for all of us. It really matters who is on the federal bench,” she said.
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