Federal court in Florida has decided to postpone proceedings on a long-running case that challenges the constitutionality ban of gun ownership for people who use marijuana. Justice Department claims the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision recently to hear a dispute related to the issue warrants the stay.
The Supreme Court granted a cert in a case separate. U.S. v. Hemani, last week to settle the question of whether the ban—known as Section 922(g)(3)—is consistent with the Second Amendment.
With that potentially precedent-setting judgement now pending, DOJ submitted a motion—which was unopposed by the plaintiffs—requesting that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida hold the matter at least until “the Supreme Court’s resolution” in Hemani.
Trump said that the government shutdown has caused a delay in the case because it is robbing DOJ of its resources. It also prevents DOJ’s lawyers from “working except under certain circumstances”.
The Court would benefit from granting a stay by promoting judicial efficiency and efficient resource use.,” It was said. Hemani’s resolution will have a major impact in this case. The Supreme Court’s ruling on the constitutionality of § 922(g)(3) will likely shed significant light on the viability of Plaintiffs’ claims here and what factual development, if any, is necessary to determine whether the application of § 922(g)(3) is constitutional as applied to Plaintiffs.”
Allen Winsor was unanimous in his brief ruling issued Thursday.
Hemani (ECF no. “Defendants’ unopposed motion to stay the proceedings pending resolution in United States v.Hemani (ECF no. “This case has been STAYED and all deadlines have been suspended,” wrote he. Any party can lift the stay any time.
Vera Cooper, Nicole Hansell and Neill Franklin are the plaintiffs of the Florida lawsuit. They are both registered medical cannabis users who were denied the purchase of guns because they had admitted to taking part in the program. Franklin is a former officer and wants to have access to medical marijuana while not jeopardizing the right to possess a gun.
A three-judge panel of U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh District in an opinion written by Judge Elizabeth Branch departed, on August 28, from the earlier district court ruling which upheld Sections 922(g),(3). The plaintiffs won, but the case has been remanded to lower court.
Nikki Fried was the former Florida agriculture commissioner who led the initial lawsuit. She left the state after that. The Republican commissioner who replaced her declined to become involved in the legal proceedings. Fried is the chairperson of Florida’s Democratic Party.
The Supreme Court also refused to hear a case last week on the gun rights of cannabis users. However, several other cases are still awaiting a ruling from the Justices. However, the decision to decide on whether or not to accept a case is up to the justices. Hemani In particular, this is welcome news to Justice Department. The department has consistently defended gun prohibitions and asked SCOTUS to review the case in question instead of other alternatives.
This could have been because the defendant was not only a pot smoker, but also used cocaine and sold drugs before. The DOJ may have thought that this person is less sympathetic to the cause. In the other cases, defendants were only found to be in possession of a gun and marijuana.
U.S. D. John Sauer (a nominee of Donald Trump) was the Solicitor-General of the United States. He filed a document with the Supreme Court stating that “Section 922.3(g3) complies to the Second Amendment” and “the statute targets a group of people who are clearly at risk of misusing guns: those habitual drug users.”
Sauer explained that “the law bars their possession of guns only temporarily but leaves it in their hands to lift this restriction at any point; anyone who ceases using drugs habitually can resume their firearms.”
Interestingly, although the word “habitual users” of illegal drugs is used 40 times within its submission, it does not actually appear in paragraph 922g(3). According to the language in the law, anyone who is “an unlawful user or addict of any controlled substance”, cannot purchase or possess firearms or ammo.
In a separate August filing for the case, the Justice Department also emphasized that “the question presented is the subject of a multi-sided and growing circuit conflict.” The solicitor general, in seeking cert from the court, also pointed out that the defendant was a dual American-Pakistani national with suspected ties to Iranian organizations hostile to the U.S. This put him on the FBI radar.
The court also recently denied a petition for cert in another gun and marijuana case, U.S. v. Baxter, It was not particularly surprising that neither DOJ nor the defendants wanted to pursue the case any further, after an inferior court had reinstated his conviction as an illegal drug user in possession with a gun.
A number of federal courts in recent years have cast doubt on the legality of § 922(g)(3), finding generally that while the ban on gun ownership among drug users may not be entirely unconstitutional, there’s scant historical precedent for such a broad restriction of Second Amendment rights on an entire a category of people.
Meanwhile, in recent interviews with MEDCAN24, several Republican senators shared their views on the federal ban on gun possession by people who use marijuana—with one saying that if alcohol drinkers can lawfully buy and use firearms, the same standard should apply to cannabis consumers.
Separately, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit last month sided with a federal district court that dismissed an indictment against Jared Michael Harrison, who was charged in Oklahoma in 2022 after police discovered cannabis and a handgun in his vehicle during a traffic stop.
This case was remanded back to the lower court that determined the law prohibiting “illegal” marijuana users from owning firearms is in violation of the Second Amendment of Constitution.
The lower court largely based his initial decision on an interpretation of a Supreme Court ruling in which the justices generally created a higher standard for policies that seek to impose restrictions on gun rights.
This ruling says that such restrictions should be in line with the context of 1791’s original ratification.
In order to prove that this ban was consistent, the Justice Department referred to old case laws that prohibited Catholics, Loyalists, Slave Indians and loyalists from owning guns.
Circuit court said, “the government has to show that non-intoxicated users of marijuana pose a future risk” in order to justify the policy. This inquiry is better suited to the district courts, as it may require fact-finding.
As a recent report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) explained the current legal landscape, a growing number of federal courts are now “finding constitutional problems in the application of at least some parts” of the firearms prohibition.
In a recent ruling, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated a defendant’s conviction and remanded the case back to a district court, noting that a retrial before a jury may be necessary to determine whether cannabis in fact caused the defendant to be dangerous or pose a credible threat to others.
The Third Circuit separately said in a published opinion that district courts must make “individualized judgments” to determine whether 922(g)(3) is constitutional as applied to particular defendants.
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Earlier this year, a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that the ban was unconstitutional as applied to two defendants, writing that the government failed to establish that the “sweeping” prohibition against gun ownership by marijuana users was grounded in historical precedent.
A federal judge in El Paso separately ruled late last year that the government’s ongoing ban on gun ownership by habitual marijuana users is unconstitutional in the case of a defendant who earlier pleaded guilty to the criminal charge. This court permitted the defendant to withdraw his guilty plea and dismissed the charges.
DOJ has claimed in multiple federal cases over the past several years that the statute banning cannabis consumers from owning or possessing guns is constitutional because it’s consistent with the nation’s history of disarming “dangerous” individuals.
For example, by 2023 the Justice Department will have told the U.S. Court of Appeals of Third Circuit the historical precedents support the restrictions. Cannabis consumers with guns pose a unique danger to society, the Biden administration claimed, in part because they’re “unlikely” to store their weapon properly.
Some states, however, have passed laws that either restrict gun rights or attempt to protect them in relation to marijuana.
Recently a Pennsylvania lawmaker introduced a bill meant to remove state barriers to medical marijuana patients carrying firearms.
Colorado activists also attempted to qualify an initiative for November’s ballot that would have protected the Second Amendment rights of marijuana consumers in that state, but the campaign’s signature-gathering drive ultimately fell short.
As 2024 drew to a close, the ATF issued a warning to Kentucky residents that, if they choose to participate in the state’s medical marijuana program that’s set to launch imminently, they will be prohibited from buying or possessing firearms under federal law.
Officials said people with firearms who become cannabis patients in states that allow it are not “expected” to turn those guns over, but those who want to “follow federal law” and “not be in violation” of the law must “decide to divest” themselves of their firearms.
Since then, bipartisan state lawmakers have introduced legislation that would urge Kentucky’s representatives in Congress to amend federal law to clarify that users of medical marijuana may legally possess firearms, though no action has since been taken on that bill.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said in January that he supported the legislature’s effort to urge the state’s congressional delegation to call for federal reforms to protect the Second Amendment rights of medical marijuana patients, but the governor added that he’d like to see even more sweeping change on the federal level.
Below you can read the decision and the motion to stay the Florida gun and medical marijuana case.
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