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Baird V Becerra Reply of State Motion To Dismiss
Baird V Becerra Reply of State Motion To Dismiss
1 XAVIER BECERRA
Attorney General of California
2 MARK R. BECKINGTON
Supervising Deputy Attorney General
3 R. MATTHEW WISE, SBN 238485
Deputy Attorney General
4 1300 I Street, Suite 125
P.O. Box 944255
5 Sacramento, CA 94244-2550
Telephone: (916) 210-6046
6 Fax: (916) 324-8835
E-mail: [email protected]
7 Attorneys for Defendant Attorney General Xavier
Becerra
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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
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FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
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1 TABLE OF CONTENTS
2 Page
3 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1
Argument ........................................................................................................................................ 1
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I. Plaintiffs’ Intrastate Travel Claims in Counts 7 and 8 Should Be Dismissed ........ 1
5 II. Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment Claim in Count 12 Should Be Dismissed .............. 3
6 III. Plaintiffs’ Procedural Due Process Claim in Count 13 Should Be
Dismissed ................................................................................................................ 4
7 IV. Plaintiffs’ Substantive Due Process Claim in Count 14 Should Be
Dismissed ................................................................................................................ 5
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V. Plaintiffs’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment Allegations in Counts 9 and
9 10 Should Be Dismissed ......................................................................................... 6
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 7
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Defendant’s Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss (2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC)
Case 2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC Document 26 Filed 10/01/19 Page 3 of 12
1 TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
2 Page
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4 CASES
5 Albright v. Oliver
510 U.S. 266 (1994) ....................................................................................................................6
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7 Ashcroft v. Iqbal
556 U.S. 662 (2009) ................................................................................................................1, 4
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Att’y Gen. of N.Y. v. Soto-Lopez
9 476 U.S. 898 (1986) ....................................................................................................................2
10 Carver v. Lehman
558 F.3d 869 (9th Cir. 2009)...................................................................................................4, 5
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Cedar Point Nursery v. Shiroma
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923 F.3d 524 (9th Cir. 2019).......................................................................................................3
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Chavez v. Martinez
14 538 U.S. 760 (2003) ....................................................................................................................5
15 Cupp v. Harris
2:16-cv-00524-TLN-KJN, 2018 WL 4599590 (E.D. Cal. Sept. 21, 2018).................................5
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District of Columbia v. Heller
17 554 U.S. 570 (2008) ............................................................................................................2, 4, 6
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Hill v. Opus Corp.
19 841 F. Supp. 2d 1070 (C.D. Cal. 2011).......................................................................................7
20 Mathews v. Eldridge
424 U.S. 319 (1976) ....................................................................................................................5
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Soldal v. Cook County, Ill.
22 506 U.S. 56 (1992) ......................................................................................................................3
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United States v. Guest
24 383 U.S. 745 (1966) ....................................................................................................................2
25 Washington v. Glucksberg
521 U.S. 702 (1997) ................................................................................................................5, 6
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Defendant’s Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss (2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC)
Case 2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC Document 26 Filed 10/01/19 Page 4 of 12
1 TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
(continued)
2 Page
3 STATUTES
4 Penal Code
§ 25850 ................................................................................................................................1, 3, 6
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§ 25850(a) ...................................................................................................................................3
6 § 26150 .............................................................................................................................. passim
§ 26155 ....................................................................................................................................1, 3
7 § 26155(b)(2) ..............................................................................................................................3
§ 26350 ................................................................................................................................1, 3, 5
8 § 26350(a) ...................................................................................................................................3
§ 26360 ........................................................................................................................................3
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Defendant’s Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss (2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC)
Case 2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC Document 26 Filed 10/01/19 Page 5 of 12
1 INTRODUCTION
2 California has enacted a firearms regulatory scheme that balances the rights of private
3 individuals and the State’s interest in public safety. These laws include California Penal Code
4 sections 26150 and 26155, which allow local authorities—who are most familiar with the needs
5 and desires of their own communities—the discretion to grant open carry licenses, operable in the
6 county of issuance, to qualified individuals, on a showing of “good cause.” They also include
7 sections 26350 and 25850, which levy criminal penalties on individuals that carry firearms,
9 Plaintiffs seek to overturn these laws so that virtually anyone in California would have the
10 right to openly carry a firearm. They bring not only Second Amendment claims, but Fourth and
11 Fourteenth Amendment claims, as well. 1 Yet the laws they challenge have not burdened any
12 right Plaintiffs may have to intrastate travel, or caused a meaningful interference with Plaintiffs’
13 possessory interest in their firearms, or infringed upon Plaintiffs’ liberty or property interests.
14 Because these superfluous claims find no support in the law, they should be dismissed. See
15 Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (plaintiff must do more than present “a sheer
16 possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully” to state a facially plausible claim).
17 ARGUMENT
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Plaintiffs have abandoned their dormant Commerce Clause claims (Counts 5 and 6).
28 Opp’n 1 n. 1. Those claims should be dismissed.
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Defendant’s Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss (2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC)
Case 2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC Document 26 Filed 10/01/19 Page 6 of 12
1 [or] right[]” to which Plaintiffs are entitled. See Att’y Gen. of N.Y. v. Soto-Lopez, 476 U.S. 898,
2 907 (1986).
3 To support their claim, Plaintiffs make a single argument—that “[b]anning open carry
4 (i) outside of one’s own county and (ii) in counties having a population over 200,000 forces
5 Plaintiffs to choose between two fundamental rights: the right to travel [or] the Second
6 Amendment right to [openly] bear arms for self-defense in public.” Opp’n 14. Yet Plaintiffs fail
8 In contrast to the right to interstate travel, which “has been firmly established and
9 repeatedly recognized,” United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745, 756 (1966), a right to intrastate
10 travel is not so firmly entrenched. Plaintiffs argue that, “[b]y analogy,” it is “plausible” that an
11 “unrestricted” right to intrastate travel may exist. Opp’n 13-14. But they do not identify a single
12 case that embraces this theory. They cite only the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Attorney
13 General of New York v. Soto-Lopez, which addresses the right to interstate, not intrastate, travel.
14 Id. at 14 (citing Soto-Lopez, 476 U.S. at 903). At best, then, whether Plaintiffs have a right to
16 Nor do Plaintiffs cite any authority for the proposition that there is a right to bear arms for
17 self-defense in any manner and in any place “in public.” Opp’n 14. The core Second
18 Amendment right recognized by District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) is the right
19 to keep and bear arms “in defense of hearth and home.” Id. at 635. Nothing in Heller—or any
20 other case—suggests that this right applies in exactly the same way in almost any public place.
21 Nor does it suggest that if there is a Second Amendment right to carry a firearm in certain public
22 areas, the State must accommodate that right by allowing an individual to carry a firearm in a
23 particular manner. Having failed to plausibly allege that sections 26150 and 26155 deny them a
24 “very important [] right[]” to openly bear arms for self-defense in public, Plaintiffs cannot show
25 that these statutes “penalize” their intrastate travel. See Soto-Lopez, 476 U.S. at 907.
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Defendant’s Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss (2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC)
Case 2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC Document 26 Filed 10/01/19 Page 7 of 12
2 Plaintiffs allege, in Count 12, that sections 26150, 26155, 26350, and 25850 effect an
3 unlawful seizure “by dictating the manner in which they carry their firearms in public. . . .”
4 Compl. ¶ 288. Because these statutes neither meaningfully interfere with Plaintiffs’ possessory
5 interests nor infringe upon a reasonable expectation of privacy, they do not violate Plaintiffs’
7 Without citing any authority, Plaintiffs broadly assert that they have suffered a meaningful
8 interference with their possessory interests because sections 26150 and 26155 assume “control
9 over how [they] wear, carry, or possess their handgun[s] in public” and sections 25850 and 26360
10 “expose[] Plaintiffs to criminal prosecution” for openly carrying a loaded or unloaded firearm in
11 public. Opp’n 4-5. Plaintiffs argue that these statutes “have no limitations,” Opp’n 5, and thus,
12 usurp greater authority than the regulation in Cedar Point Nursery v. Shiroma, 923 F.3d 524 (9th
13 Cir. 2019), which permitted “controlled” intrusions that were limited in time, place, and manner,
14 id. at 536. Yet the contested statutes do not prohibit Plaintiffs from openly carrying their firearms
15 in all locations and circumstances. Instead, the statutes merely regulate the scope of an open
16 carry license (sections 26150(b)(2) and 26155(b)(2)) and prohibit carrying firearms in certain
17 public places without a valid license (sections 26350(a) and 25850(a)). Like the regulation in
18 Shiroma, the statutes here are appropriately tailored to ensure that they only minimally burden
19 Plaintiffs’ possessory interests in their firearms. Plaintiffs cannot meet the threshold requirement
21 Nor can Plaintiffs show that any seizure of their property is unreasonable. Whether a
23 private interests.” Soldal v. Cook County, Ill., 506 U.S. 56, 71 (1992). All that Plaintiffs offer, in
24 this regard, is the platitude that “law-abiding people pose no threat to society.” Opp’n 5. Their
25 complaint similarly alleges that “California has no legitimate governmental interest in controlling
26 and/or interfering with the way law-abiding individuals, including Plaintiffs, carry their firearms
27 in public.” Compl. ¶ 218. And Plaintiffs also suggest that California’s significant governmental
28 interests in regulating where, how, and by whom firearms may be carried are “contested issues
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Defendant’s Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss (2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC)
Case 2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC Document 26 Filed 10/01/19 Page 8 of 12
1 outside of the Complaint. . . .” Id. at 3. But in striking down the District of Columbia’s ban on
2 handgun possession in the home, the Supreme Court recognized that “gun violence is a serious
3 problem,” and that the government has “a variety of tools for combating that problem, including
4 some measures regulating handguns.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 636. That the State has a legitimate
5 interest in regulating firearms is thus not in dispute. Plaintiffs “mere conclusory statements” that
6 their private interests outweigh the State’s interests “do not suffice” to state a claim that the
7 statutes they challenge infringe upon a reasonable expectation of privacy. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at
8 678.
1 or property interest. Carver, 558 F.3d at 874-75 (quoting Thompson, 490 U.S. at 463). Sections
2 26350 and 25850 are criminal statutes with penalties and thus do not create a liberty or property
3 interest. And sections 26150 and 26155 use “classically permissive” language, see id. at 874, that
4 merely provides a county sheriff or city police chief the option to issue an open carry license.
5 Because none of the statutes that Plaintiffs challenge contain the mandatory language that is
6 required to create a liberty or property interest, Plaintiffs cannot satisfy the first prong of the
8 Plaintiffs attempt to address the second prong of the analysis by arguing that the allegations
9 in the complaint meet the elements of the balancing test set forth in Mathews v. Eldridge, 424
10 U.S. 319 (1976), Opp’n 11, including a showing of “the risk of an erroneous deprivation” of a
11 private interest “through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or
12 substitute procedural safeguards,” Mathews, 424 U.S. at 335. Although they state generally that
13 “valuable procedural safeguards would include placing the burden on the [S]tate to demonstrate
14 why Plaintiffs’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights should be infringed,” Plaintiffs do not
15 identify what procedure they have been denied. Having failed to “explain[] what [they] mean[]
17 “ha[ve] failed to allege a due process violation.” See Cupp v. Harris, 2:16-cv-00524-TLN-KJN,
1 (internal quotation marks omitted). Where the statutes challenged do not implicate a fundamental
2 right, they need only bear a “reasonable relation to a legitimate state interest,” see Glucksberg,
3 521 U.S. at 722—a threshold that is easily met, as shown in the Fourth Amendment analysis of
5 Plaintiffs argue that the statutes they challenge “significantly and substantially violate[]
6 [their] fundamental rights to privacy, life, liberty, and bodily integrity.” Opp’n 8. They suggest
7 that the rights violated—in particular, “the right to choose how and in what manner to wear,
8 carry, and possess one’s handgun in public”—“exist separate and apart from the rights protected
9 by the Second Amendment.” Id. at 9. But the scope of the Second Amendment, “not the more
10 generalized notion of ‘substantive due process,’ must be the guide” for determining how a firearm
11 may be legally carried. See Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 273 (1994). Because Plaintiffs’
12 substantive due process rights are no broader than their rights under the Second Amendment, they
14 Absent a showing that Plaintiffs have been deprived of a fundamental right protected by the
15 Due Process Clause, the contested statutes need only bear a reasonable relation to a legitimate
16 state interest. See Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at 722. That the California Legislature “repealed [the
17 State’s] concealed carry ban in 1870,” Opp’n 9, sheds no light on the state interests of today. The
18 state interest the statutes address—protection against the “serious problem” of gun violence,
19 Heller, 554 U.S. at 636—is legitimate. As with the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness inquiry,
20 the statutes are warranted by the legitimate state interest in regulating where, how, and by whom
1 Amendment claims in Counts 12, 13, and 14, should be dismissed. Hill v. Opus Corp., 841 F.
2 Supp. 2d 1070 (C.D. Cal. 2011) (dismissing legally deficient allegations within a claim).
3 CONCLUSION
4 The Attorney General respectfully requests that the Court grant the motion to dismiss in its
5 entirety.
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Defendant’s Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss (2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC)
Case 2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC Document 26 Filed 10/01/19 Page 12 of 12
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
Case Name: Baird, Mark v. Xavier Becerra No. 2:19-cv-00617-KJM-AC
I hereby certify that on October 1, 2019, I electronically filed the following documents with the
Clerk of the Court by using the CM/ECF system:
DEFENDANT’S REPLY IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO DISMISS PLAINTIFFS’
COMPLAINT
I certify that all participants in the case are registered CM/ECF users and that service will be
accomplished by the CM/ECF system.
I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California the foregoing is true
and correct and that this declaration was executed on October 1, 2019, at Sacramento, California.
SA2019101934
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