Comments on: Jim Copland: Congress should override NY’s Martin Act

By: Robert McTamaney

Robert McTamaney — Sun, 05 Mar 2017 14:41:54 +0000

I’ve been tilting at this windmill for a long, long time. See, e.g., McTamaney, New York’s Martin Act: Preemption Delayed Is Justice Denied; Washington Legal Foundation March 25, 2011. Cert was denied in the Greenberg/AIG case, presumably because it was not yet a final judgment, but someday someone will get this awful law to SCOTUS, and that will be the end of it. The Martin Act is probably the single most preempted law in the history of American jurisprudence.

By: great unknown

great unknown — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 14:29:13 +0000

It will only work if the override explicitly strips State and local prosecutors of absolute immunity. Otherwise, as demonstrated elsewhere, the locals will prosecute and the Federal Law could only be invoked as an affirmative defense. By which time a business might have been stripped of all of its records and computers.

This is precisely how New York treats the Federal Firearms Owners’ Protection Act.