The United States Supreme Court issued an emergency order late Monday night, March 2, 2026, in Mirabelli v. Bonta, No. 25A810, 607 U.S. ___ (2026), partially reinstating a permanent injunction entered by none other than Judge Roger T. Benitez of the Southern District of California. The Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s stay as to the parent plaintiffs — a 6–3 result that tells you everything about where the constitutional fault lines run. This ruling matters far beyond parental rights. It is a demonstration of how constitutional litigation should be conducted, and I have been hammering this lesson in the Second Amendment context for years.
What California Did — and What Judge Benitez Said About It
California’s AB 1955 — the so-called “SAFETY Act” signed by Governor Newsom in July 2024 — prohibited school employees from disclosing a student’s gender identity or transitioning status to the student’s parents without the student’s consent. Read that again. A thirteen-year-old cannot sign a contract, buy a firearm, buy alcohol, drive, or vote — but under California’s policy, that same child could transition at school and the state would actively hide that from mom and dad.
Judge Benitez entered a permanent injunction in December 2025 finding that the policy violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, the substantive Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and Equal Protection. The Ninth Circuit, doing what the Ninth Circuit does, stayed that injunction on January 5, 2026. The plaintiff parents and teachers came to the Supreme Court seeking emergency relief.
The Supreme Court’s Order — and Why the Facts Won This Case
The Court’s per curiam order is worth reading carefully. After framing the procedural posture, the majority quoted directly from the record the facts concerning plaintiffs John and Jane Poe:
Two of the parent plaintiffs, John and Jane Poe, have religious objections to gender transitioning, but were not told by their daughter’s school when she began to present as a boy and use a male name and male pronouns during her seventh grade year. In parent-teacher meetings, no one told the Poes about their daughter’s transitioning or referred to her using the male name and pronouns that were used at school. At the beginning of their daughter’s eighth grade year, she attempted [self-harm] and was hospitalized. Only then did her parents learn from a doctor that she had gender dysphoria and had been presenting as a boy at school. Just months after being discharged, the Poes’ daughter was re-hospitalized and held there involuntarily because she was at risk for self-harm.
If you want to know why those facts appear that prominently in a Supreme Court order, there is your answer: they are devastating. They make California’s policy indefensible at an intuitive human level before the Court even gets to the constitutional analysis.
On the merits, the Court applied the strict-scrutiny standard demanded by Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606 U.S. 522 (2025), last Term’s 6–3 decision on religious parents’ free-exercise rights in public schools:
California’s policy will likely not survive the strict scrutiny that Mahmoud demands. The state argues that its policies advance a compelling interest in student safety and privacy. But those policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interest, their parents. California’s policies also appear to fail the narrow tailoring requirement.
Justices Thomas and Alito would have granted the full application — broader relief than the majority provided. Justice Barrett, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh, concurred. Justices Kagan and Jackson dissented. Justice Sotomayor would have denied relief entirely.
The 2A Lesson: Facts Are the Ballgame
Here is where my frustration boils over into a direct message — and I am directing this specifically at the Office of the Solicitor General under D. John Sauer. Facts matter. Constitutional outcomes do not happen in a vacuum. They happen on records built around specific human beings with specific stories.
Think about the cases that defined the Second Amendment. Dick Heller — a licensed law enforcement officer who wanted a handgun in his own home for self-defense. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). Otis McDonald — a retired maintenance engineer in a crime-ridden Chicago neighborhood, denied the basic right to defend himself in his own home. McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010). Sympathetic plaintiffs. Clean facts. Clear rights violations. That is how you build precedent.
Compare that to United States v. Hemani, No. 24-1234, currently before the Court on a challenge to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) — the federal marijuana-user gun ban. The DOJ’s own framing of the case has leaned into alleged links between the defendant and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Whether those allegations hold up is almost beside the point: when the government poisons the factual atmosphere around a Second Amendment vehicle case with counterterrorism rhetoric, it poisons the precedential waters for every law-abiding gun owner who comes after.
The Mirabelli parents — devout Catholics, children in crisis, a school system hiding everything from them — those are the facts that move courts. I want that same discipline applied to Second Amendment cases before this Court.
What Comes Next for Judge Benitez
Saint Benitez has been on the right side of history in case after case — Mirabelli, Duncan v. Bonta, 695 F.Supp.3d 1206 (S.D. Cal. 2023), and his long record of fidelity to the Second Amendment as an individual right. The Supreme Court has now, in effect, told the Ninth Circuit it was wrong to stay his injunction. That is a significant institutional statement.
My hope is that the same vindication comes in the Second Amendment context. The history of the future is still being written, and the lesson from Mirabelli is clear: bring the right facts, bring the right plaintiffs, and the constitutional text will do the rest.
This article is based on analysis by Professor Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner 2nd Amendment channel. Watch the original video here. This does not constitute legal advice.