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Supreme Court Upholds Domestic Violence Gun Restriction; Supreme Court Upholds Law Barring Domestic Abusers from Owning Guns; Astronauts Stuck in Space; Boeing Starliner Spacecraft Issues. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired June 21, 2024 - 10:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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DEBORAH PEARLSTEIN, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY AND CLERKED FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICE JOHN PAUL STEVENS: Yes. So, it sounds like -- and I'm sort of reading the opinion here as it's coming down. We've got 103 pages to sort through. But it sounds like it was roughly common sense to the justices too, at least by a vote of eight to one.

I do want to make just a couple of points about this, you know, Akhil is right, of course, Heller, the first major case by Justice Scalia that recognizes an individual right to bear arms is supported by the Second Amendment, contrary to what it had always been read by the Supreme Court previously.

But even Heller -- even Justice Scalia and Heller says there are limits on the right to bear arms. And interestingly here, the majority again by a vote of eight to one, which is really remarkable amount of consensus on this court says actually, when Justice Scalia and Heller said there are some exceptions, he meant it.

So, the court begins to say, look, you don't have to -- the standard Justice Thomas had announced in Bruen caused an enormous amount of confusion in the lower courts, a cascade of litigation across the country challenging different gun laws because it seemed to suggest that you had to have an identical law on the books at the founding era for something to be upheld today under the Second Amendment.

The court here, in this decision, really seems to be backing off that extraordinarily broad and almost inconceivable view saying more than just -- these can be regulations that are more than just those that were identical to those that existed in 1791. Here, the court uses some language relevantly similar. I'm not sure this is going to cure all of the confusion in the lower courts, but it is certainly pulling back from the extreme position that Justice Thomas' opinion and Bruen had staked out.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: And, Paula Reid, I want to go back to you in case you have an update on this very important case coming down from the high court today. PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: A hugely important case, Jim. And we're having a chance now to read through the opinion. And here, Chief Justice John Roberts said that the court had no trouble arriving at this decision. At least eight of them did not. He wrote, "Our tradition of firearm regulation allows the government to disarm individuals who present a credible threat to the safety, the physical safety of others.

Now, during oral argument, the solicitor general argued that a woman who lives in a house with a domestic abuser is five times more likely to be murdered if he has an axe as access to a gun. So, this, again, one of the most significant cases that we have been watching for this turn. There's still a few other big ones, but it's notable that the chief justice said here, look, this wasn't too difficult for us to come to this conclusion. Jim, we know they have other outstanding questions, the Trump immunity case, a big outstanding abortion case, or perhaps they may be having a little more difficulty reaching consensus.

ACOSTA: Yes, I mean, the chief justice saying our tradition of firearm regulation allows the government to disarm individuals who present a credible threat to the physical safety of others. I mean, that is the Supreme Court of the United States trying to apply some common sense to a very important issue in all of this.

And, Shermichael Singleton, you're on set with us as well. I know you are a staunch Second Amendment supporter. What's your response to all this?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, GUN EXPERT AND REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yes, you know, initially I'm a bit skeptical with what I've been reading thus far. I was attempting to read through Justice Thomas' disagreement here, his dissent, but I wasn't able to finish it in totality, but I think at least a bit of what I read, I think I would agree with.

I own a firearms company. One of the first things that come to mind as we've seen, Jim, a huge increase in African-American men owning guns. I was looking at the Innocence Project website and they were showcasing the large percent of black men who are falsely not only accused of domestic violence, but often found guilty of domestic violence and years later, discovered that they were actually innocent.

And so, I wonder if you're in that position, how in the world, based upon this decision does a court protect your constitutional right to keep and bear arms? And that's something that I did not see in what I've read thus far.

ACOSTA: But -- I mean, obviously, there is the overwhelming -- you know, it sounds like the Supreme Court is saying prevailing view that the public has to be able to protect the victims of domestic abuse. And you can't have domestic abusers owning firearms going to the gun store and picking out some guns.

SINGLETON: On its face, I would agree with that. Obviously, you want to keep individuals safe from folks who want to cause harm. But I also think you have to protect people's rights to keep and bear arms, particularly individuals who have a higher and increased propensity of being falsely accused of domestic violence, of being found guilty of domestic violence, and then later on being found innocent.

And you see that in higher rates with men of color, specifically black men. And that concerns me with the higher number of black men who now on firearms.

ACOSTA: Yes. You're talking about a very big issue, which is just the unfairness of the system that we have in this country that unfairly targets African-Americans. There's no question about that.

Paula Reid, let me get back to you.

[10:35:00]

REID: Yes, on the issue of domestic violence, Shermichael makes a great point about the importance of making sure people have their day in court, they're heard, but it's also a fact that it's very difficult to successfully prosecute domestic violence cases. A lot of times you have reluctant witnesses. It can devolve into a very difficult situation for prosecutors to successfully convict people. So, I think that's an important point to remember.

We actually have a large portion of the Thomas dissent here. I want to read some of it. Again, he disagrees with the majority in this case. He is saying that the question before us is not whether Rahimi, the defendant at the center of this, and others like him can be disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment. Instead, the question is whether the government can strip the Second Amendment right of anyone subject to a protective order, even if he has never been accused or convicted of a crime.

That's what Shermichael, you and I were just -- we're just talking about this. It doesn't go so far as to require a conviction. But like I said, domestic violence is a very difficult thing to successfully prosecute. It is often very difficult to get survivors to cooperate with prosecutors, to cooperate with officials. Thomas here saying, the court and the government do not point to a single historical law revoking a citizen's Second Amendment right based on possible interpersonal violence. Yet, in the interest of ensuring the government can regulate one subset of society, today's decision puts at risk the Second Amendment rights of many more, which is why he says he respectfully dissented.

ACOSTA: All right. Very interesting, Paula. And I want to go to Kate Bedingfield. She's here with me because you work for Joe Biden. The president has been trying to seek more gun safety laws in this country. This is going to be welcome news over at the White House. At least the Supreme court is receptive to some regulation.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND FORMER BIDEN WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Yes. No question. This is a good and important decision. It obviously fits. It's part and parcel of a lot of the work, as you note, that Joe Biden has tried to do both on guns, but also on domestic violence. I mean, this is an issue. He was the author of the Violence Against Women Act, you know, 30 plus years ago. This is an issue that he has -- you know, he's been an advocate for domestic violence victims his entire career. It's something that he feels personally very strongly about. So, certainly, this will be a welcome news at the White House and I would argue a good thing for the country.

ACOSTA: And I'll go back to Akhil and Deborah. Deborah, anything else that stands out to you in this decision? Pretty close to unanimous.

PEARLSTEIN: Very close to unanimous. And I should mention, right, the court is notwithstanding Justice Thomas' dissent. The court is faced with what's called a facial challenge under the constitution. So, the defendant would need to establish that there's really no set of circumstances in which this regulation would be constitutional. And there, the court -- this is in part I think why you get a justices saying, no, there are some circumstances in which this would be OK.

So, I think Justice Thomas is writing against a different kind of question. But no question, the more significant consequence of the ruling is the court saying, look, the Second Amendment is just like any other right under the constitution, the first or any others. They're all subject to limitation if the government has a good enough reason. And here, the court concludes, by an enormous maturity, that a domestic violence victim under a protective order is a good enough reason to prevent the abuser from retaining a gun.

ACOSTA: Akhil, what do you think?

AKHIL REED AMAR, PROFESSOR OF LAW AND POLITICAL SCIENCE, YALE UNIVERSITY AND CLERKED FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICE STEPHEN BREYER: I agree with my friend Deborah that the Bruen decision by Justice Thomas caused a lot of consternation among lower court judges. I meet with them all the time. And this is the first question I got asked at all sorts of judicial conferences. Today's decision clarifies what the best reading of Bruen. And of course, the author of Bruen is in dissent.

Bruen had a lot of originalist like passages saying that it could be read to say, oh, a gun limiting law is only -- can only be upheld if it had a precise counterpart at the time of the founding or at the time of the reconstruction amendments. Today's opinion makes clear that's not, you know, an absolute necessity and highlights another big. theme that was in the Bruen decision, and especially in a concurrence by Justices Kavanaugh and Roberts back in Bruen. And without those two, you didn't have a majority even in Bruen.

They said, listen, the law in Bruen is an outlier law. 43 states do it differently than New York did in Bruen. And actually, the Heller law was an outlier law, and so was the McDonald law. This one is not an outlier law. Jim, you earlier said -- use the phrase common sense. One way that judges can figure out common sense is by looking at the practices of many states counting, and this is highlighted in today's opinion that we don't just look at the founding and the reconstruction, we might look at consensus and tradition and state practice. [10:40:00]

And those are all that can be relevant factors where the text of the constitution is not, you know, absolutely overwhelmingly decisively differ. People want to hear more about this. I do have a free weekly podcast. And right after the Rahimi case was argued back in November, we had a whole hour and a half episode playing clips from the oral argument and analyzing them and actually, frankly, I think predicting this result.

ACOSTA: Very interesting. It sounds like a fascinating podcast. We'll have to listen to it this weekend. Akhil and Deborah, everybody, thanks very much. The Supreme Court once again, just to recap the breaking news, upholding a law banning domestic abusers from owning guns. A significant case. We did not get the immunity decision from the Supreme Court. We're going to talk about all the implications of that on the other side of the break. Stay with us.

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[10:45:00]

ACOSTA: All right. We're still talking about the breaking news that just came down this hour. The Supreme Court upholding a law that bans domestic abusers from owning firearms. Let me go back to Paula Reid with an update.

REID: Jim, one of the biggest cases of the term so far, and here the court finding that the Second Amendment, like almost all rights, has limits. And here, they're focusing on people who pose a danger to others. This eight to one decision was authored by Chief Justice John Robertson. He said that the court "had no trouble in making this finding." Writing, "Our tradition of firearm regulation allows the government to disarm individuals who present a credible threat to the physical safety of others."

Now, two years ago, they issued an opinion expanding gun rights, which has set off some confusion in the lower courts, which he acknowledged. He said, look, some courts have misunderstood the methodology of our Second Amendment cases. He said these precedents were not meant to suggest a law. The Second Amendment trapped in amber. He points to the fact that the reach of the Second Amendment is, of course, not limited to firearms. There were only in existence at the founding of our nation.

Now, there was one dissenting justice here, Justice Clarence Thomas. And in his dissent, he said, "The court and the government do not point to a single historical law revoking a citizen's Second Amendment right based on possible interpersonal violence." Here he is emphasizing the fact that the man at the center of this case, he was subject to a protective order but had not been convicted of domestic violence.

I can tell you as a recovering lawyer, it is actually very difficult to successfully convict someone of domestic violence. Often times you have difficulty with survivors wanting to testify and fully cooperate. He continues to write though in his dissent, in the interest of ensuring the government can regulate one subset of society, today's decision puts at risk the Second Amendment rights of many more, which is why he dissents. Still waiting though, Jim, for a couple other big cases at the end of the term.

ACOSTA: Absolutely. All right. Paula Reid, thank you very much. I want to go to Jennifer Becker. She is the director of the National Center on Gun Violence and Relationships. Jennifer, your response to what the Supreme Court had to say today? I'm sure you and a lot of other folks who were in your line of work were on the edge of your seat wondering what the Supreme Court was going to do here.

JENNIFER BECKER, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CENTER ON GUN VIOLENCE AND RELATIONSHIPS: Yes, we certainly have been. And it's really a collective sigh of relief for those of us who work on behalf of survivors of domestic violence every day.

We've seen this law reach its intended impact for 30 years. So, it's, you know, critical that we kind of continue doing this work and having this tool available to protect victims of domestic violence from a threat that we know is exponentially lethal in domestic violence instances.

ACOSTA: I was going to ask you, Jennifer, do you think this ruling from the Supreme Court will save lives?

BECKER: Without a doubt it will save lives. It has saved lives over the 30 years that the protection has been available. And so, you know, I'm thrilled to know that it will continue to do that. In states that fully implement this law, there has been a 12 percent reduction in intimate partner homicides over the past several decades. Those are people alive today because of this sort of protection.

ACOSTA: Well, Jennifer Becker, thank you so much for the work you do. It's extremely important work and there are so many victims of domestic abusers across the country who are probably thanking you and everybody else, even more so today because of this decision coming down from the Supreme Court. Jennifer, thank you very much.

I want to go to Steve Vladeck, who is here in the studio with me. A lot of takes we want to get on what the Supreme Court decided to do today. Steve, what do you think? I mean, this was obviously -- we were saying earlier, and it just seems like common sense, that you would have laws out there that would stop domestic abusers from owning guns. But this made it all the way to the Supreme Court.

STEVE VLADECK, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It did, Jim. And I think there are two really big takeaways that we should not lose sight of, even as the immediate effects are so clear from talking to Jennifer. So, the first is, here again, we have a case where the Supreme Court came together across ideological majority to repudiate a decision by the same federal appeals court, by the Fifth Circuit, the New Orleans-based court that hears appeals in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

It's already the fifth time this term we've seen a case like this, where the Fifth Circuit had pushed the law very, very far to the right, and the Supreme Court justices from both sides of the aisle pushing back this case, the CFPB case, the mifepristone case.

[10:50:00]

But on guns more generally, I think what's really important for folks to not read too much in what the Supreme Court did today. There are five separate concurring opinions. That's unusual. And I think what it really drives home is this should have been an easy case to uphold the federal statute. There are hard cases coming. There are cases about whether Congress can ban all felons from possessing firearms. There are cases about whether Congress can prohibit anyone convicted of a drug offense from possessing firearms. That's, of course, Hunter Biden's case.

So, the Supreme Court didn't decide those cases today. All it said was, hey, Fifth Circuit, you went too far. These big questions are very much still to play for.

ACOSTA: And, Andrew, but no decision immunity for Trump? I mean, that's the big one. That is just sort of looming over everything. It has so many massive implications.

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST AND FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR, FBI: That's the one that has the greatest chance of really sending shockwaves out as soon as it's dropped. And I think for that reason alone, the court has some incentive to hold on to that until the very last moment.

Now, I don't make predictions. I'll be quickly proven wrong. But it just seems likely that, you know, that -- when that case comes out, every other case that gets released on that day will be overshadowed. So, to bring some of these other cases out into the light, I think they're maybe carving a little space in terms of the release.

ACOSTA: Are they flushing out the pipes a little bit?

VLADECK: I think so. I mean, you know, we've got about 15 to 17 decisions left from the Supreme Court. We got five today. Four of them, Jim, are, I think, cases folks were not paying especially close attention to. If you look at what's left, I mean, Andy is right about the Trump immunity case. You know, we have a bunch of major cases about administrative agencies, about social media, about abortion, and the dispute coming out of Idaho.

So, you know, the court is not scheduled to sit again now until next Wednesday. The justices know that there's a presidential debate next Thursday night. I don't think they're inclined to --

ACOSTA: They do know that.

VLADECK: They read the papers.

ACOSTA: OK.

VLADECK: And I think, you know, what's relevant about that, and Andy is right, like the court is not -- they're not going to do things because of the politics, but they're not oblivious to the timing of all this. So, I think we're going to get, you know, four or five major rulings next Wednesday, maybe also next Friday, but it's looking increasingly like the court's going to go into July. Something that is loathed to do.

ACOSTA: Yes. All right. Well, gentlemen, thank you very much. Really appreciate it. We'll be right back.

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[10:55:00]

ACOSTA: It's a full house at the International Space Station as Boeing deals with another setback. The company's Starliner spacecraft along with its crew is now getting an even longer stay at the International Space Station as engineers race to study a series of issues that plagued the first leg of the journey. NASA says the crew will stay up there through at least June 26, nearly two weeks longer than planned.

My next guest spent nearly 60 days in orbit, including seven spacewalks, a former NASA astronaut and five-time space shuttle crew member Scott Parazynski joins me now. Scott, let me ask you, what do you think about this delay that's happening right now and these issues that they're having up there?

SCOTT PARAZYNSKI, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: Well, you know, space flight, especially orbital space flight is difficult and it's unforgiving. And so, they're doing exactly the right thing, which is to look at the data, evaluate what might have gone wrong. And obviously, we want to learn from malfunctions that have occurred and make sure that they don't occur the next time the spacecraft flies.

So, the crew is no danger. The crew is very, very well trained. They're grizzled veterans. Good friends of mine. And they trained for this for several years now. So, I think they're doing exactly the right thing. Gathering a little bit more data from these thrusters, because once they commit to the orbiting, that data is gone, there's no way to access the service module where the malfunctions have occurred. So, they're gathering as much data as they can on orbit.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Scott, I mean, we did learn before the spacecraft launched that there were some issues that they were trying to iron out before the successful launch. Does that factor into any concerns you might have about getting back home safely?

PARAZYNSKI: To a degree, yes. So, in prior orbital flight tests, they did have some anomalies. Obviously, they had a bit of a bumpy path to the launch pad, getting ready for this flight. They also have a lot to be proud of -- flight successfully to the space station. But it appears that some of the thruster failures, the helium leaks that we're experiencing on this particular mission have occurred on prior flights of the vehicle.

So, you know, as I said, spaceflight is very unforgiving. We need to look at what's happened before, try to understand the root cause and prevent that from happening again. So, I do think that the crew is, you know, very safe. The NASA team has indicated that it's safe for them to use the spacecraft -- earn and land in New Mexico as planned.

So, there's -- it doesn't appear to be any risk to the crew or the safe descent of the spacecraft. But obviously, there are some systemic issues that will need to be addressed. You know, like, why didn't we get to the root problem earlier?

ACOSTA: Yes. Well, we know these are grizzled veterans, as are you, and they can take on anything --

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