D.C. Fights $3.1 million Fee Request in Handgun Case

Lawyers for the District of Columbia are fighting a request from a private attorney who wants more than $3.12 million in fees for successfully challenging the city’s handgun ban.

The attorney, Alan Gura, who argued and won D.C. v. Heller in the U.S. Supreme Court, said in court papers that prosecuting the case was “far more protracted and difficult” than anticipated. Gura, who recently won another landmark handgun case, is pushing for a fee enhancement.

In response, lawyers for the District have filed papers calling Gura’s petition for fees “a study in unreasonableness.” Attorneys with the city’s Office of the Attorney General filed court papers July 9 in federal district court in Washington opposing Gura’s request. Click here for a copy of the city’s court filing.

The District attorneys—Ellen Efros, Robert Utiger and Andrew Saindon—said legal fees should not exceed about $830,000. The attorneys applaud Gura for “an impressive, indeed precedential win” but maintain that city residents should not have to pay for “over-preparation” for oral argument at the Supreme Court.

Gura’s “fee petition would be grossly excessive under any circumstances, but in a time of financial crisis, attempts to invoke the public interest to justify a fee award of over $3 million is perverse at best,” lawyers for the District said. “Instead, the “public interest” falls squarely on the shoulders of the District and its residents whose essential services are threatened by shrinking budgets, not the wallets of plaintiff’s counsel, which will be more than adequately filled under the fee proposed by the District.”

Lawyers for the city note in court papers that the Heller case has provided Gura “tremendous” career opportunities. “Few attorneys have the opportunity to argue a Supreme Court case, and fewer still have the opportunity to argue one of this significance,” the District lawyers wrote. “It was, literally, the opportunity of a lifetime and the first Supreme Court argument for plaintiffs’ counsel.”

Comments

[Carl from Chicago]

The District is perverse!

What they are trying to do is PRECISELY why the Congress enacted the 1976 Civil Rights Attorney Fee Act (42 USC, Section 1988).

The intent of this legislation is to keep governments like DC and Chicago from purposefully enacting and defending unconstitutional laws.

DC stubbornly pursued this case, and they knew the consequences. Now they are acting like whining babies.

Pay Alan Gura, and more importantly, learn your lesson. Your onerous gun laws are AGAIN under suit. Be responsible with the taxpayer's money. Repeal your gun restrictions.

[Sean]

There should be a financial penalty for the district, or any other city that passes unconstitutional laws. Lets not forget, the time Mr. Gura had to spend preparing his case, he could not spend this time earning money elsewhere. He performed his service, and he did so very well, he should be paid, not only for his work, but as a sign to other cities that think they can trample on citizens freedoms and not have to risk anything of their own.

[Rob]

"DC taxpayers will have plenty pay for all the lifetime care needed by innocent people with crippling injuries caused by random firearm violence without having to support Gura's legal career."

Yeah, right. And maybe you want to explain how this BS matches up with the fact that in 2009, the first full year without the ban in place (thanks to Gura), DC experienced the lowest murder rate it's had in 30 years.

Owning a gun doesn't make one a criminal, the people who commit violent crimes. It deters such people from victimizing you. Which is why the National Academy of Sciences couldn't find even one single legitimate study showing that gun control does anything at all to reduce violent crime or gun violence.

[Rob]

"Lawyers for the city note in court papers that the Heller case has provided Gura “tremendous” career opportunities. “Few attorneys have the opportunity to argue a Supreme Court case, and fewer still have the opportunity to argue one of this significance,” the District lawyers wrote. “It was, literally, the opportunity of a lifetime and the first Supreme Court argument for plaintiffs’ counsel.”"

So, what they're saying is that he did such a good job that he'll receive the recognition he deserves, they shouldn't have to pay their bill.

[jdberger]

"If the city doesn't want to pay civil rights lawyers' fees, it should obey the Constitution. Freedom isn't free." Alan Gura

All DC had to do was stop digging their heels in. All it had to do was comply with the Constitution. All it had to do was reject the tired soothsaying of the Brady Campaign and other anti-rights groups who assured Mayor Fenty that "of course, DC will win".

[JR]

Fine, if the city can't afford want to pay, the traitors who violated civil rights and helped criminals kill countless disarmed souls can pay out of their personal bank accounts until they go bankrupt. It's still better than they deserve.

[Tim DuPertuis]

DC should have to pay for depriving DC citizens of their civil rights for decades...

[Captain Kirk]

He got his right to bear arms. You mean he wants money, too? I thought this was about the justice of the issue. If it was such a great idea he should have done it pro bono. DC taxpayers will have plenty pay for all the lifetime care needed by innocent people with crippling injuries caused by random firearm violence without having to support Gura's legal career.

[Unrelenting]

Gura should be paid!