Professor J. Joel Alicea, the St. Robert Bellarmine Professor of Law and Director of the Center for the Constitution and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition at Catholic Law, has submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of the petitioners in the case of Wolford v. Lopez. The case examines whether Hawaii’s law, which presumptively prohibits licensed concealed carry permit holders from carrying handguns on private property open to the public without express permission from the property owner, violates constitutional protections. The Court’s decision could have significant implications for the interpretation of Second Amendment rights.

Professor Alicea is a leading scholar in constitutional theory, with his work appearing in prestigious journals such as the Yale Law Journal, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and Notre Dame Law Review. His article, Bruen Was Right, 174 U. Pa. L. Rev. 13 (2025), provides a comprehensive defense of the Court’s approach to adjudicating Second Amendment cases, which forms the basis of his arguments in this brief. Professor Alicea’s brief focuses on the appropriate level of generality in historical analysis, a key issue in the case. He has also written extensively on the topic in his forthcoming article, Bruen and the Founding-Era Conception of Rights, 101 Notre Dame L. Rev. (2026).