Politics
Federal Court Reaffirms That Ban On Gun Ownership For People Who Occasionally Use Marijuana Is ‘Unconstitutional’
A federal appeals court has reaffirmed that the ban on gun ownership by people who occasionally use marijuana is unconstitutional—once again reversing a cannabis-related conviction based on a prosecutorial “error” from the Biden administration in a case known as U.S. v. Daniels.
In its latest ruling that was issued on Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said it remains unconvinced by the Department of Justice’s position that a man, Patrick Daniels, was appropriately convicted under the statute § 922(g)(3) after law enforcement officials discovered trace amounts of cannabis and firearms during a routine traffic stop in 2022.
The years-long case began in a district court, where Daniels was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for violating a federal statute that says people cannot own or possess firearms if they’re an unlawful user of a controlled substance. Upon appeal, the Fifth Circuit overturned that conviction, challenging the administration’s prosecution based on separate U.S. Supreme Court precedent that holds laws restricting an individual’s Second Amendment right must have historical analogues.
U.S. v. Daniels then made it to the Supreme Court, where justices ultimately declined to make a final ruling and remanded the case back to the Fifth Circuit for further review in light of a separate, adjacently relevant case on gun ownership by people who’ve committed domestic violence.
Last October, the Fifth Circuit took the case back up and heard oral arguments, where the government continued to defend its prosecution, arguing that there are sufficient historical analogues between the ban on gun ownership for people who use controlled substances and restrictions on firearms for those with mental illness, for example.
Now, this week, the three-judge panel has rendered their final legal opinion, as first reported by Reason, maintaining that while there are circumstances under which the federal statute related to guns and drug use could be applied, that isn’t the case with Daniels. As it ruled in a separate recent case, the judges unanimously agreed that, because there was no evidence that Daniels was actively impaired at the time he was pulled over and found in possession of firearms, his conviction should be rightfully overturned.
“[T]he government’s burden of proof was too low, as it was not required to convince a jury that Daniels was presently or even regularly intoxicated at the time of arrest,” the court said. “And even if the government had persuaded the jury that Daniels was frequently intoxicated, here…the government offers no Founding-era law or practice of disarming ordinary citizens ‘even if their intoxication was routine.'”
“Because of this instructional error, § 922(g)(3) must thus again be held unconstitutional as applied to Daniels,” the judges said.
“The government has not pointed to sufficiently analogous historical laws to establish why Daniels himself should be considered presumptively dangerous. And, as explained, even had the government supplied sufficient historical briefing to support a theory of dangerousness, the jury instruction employed in Daniels’s trial was too open-ended to support his conviction because it left open the possibility that Daniels had not even unlawfully used a controlled substance in several weeks.”
However, while the cannabis and gun rights issue has played out in numerous courts over recent years—with several similarly finding the existing ban unconstitutional—the Fifth Circuit made a point to note that its ruling “is not a windfall for defendants charged under § 922(g)(3), present company included.”
“The government remains free to reprosecute Daniels under a theory consistent with a proper understanding of the Second Amendment,” they said. “We hold only that the first prosecution failed to meet that bar.”
As the state legalization movement has continued to expand, the gun issue has become a major policy consideration within judicial and legislative circles.
Recently, for example, a federal judge in El Paso separately ruled 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. The court allowed the man to withdraw the plea and ordered that the indictment against him be dismissed.
Separately, a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit heard oral arguments in November in the government’s appeal of a district court ruling that deemed the gun ban unconstitutional.
Much of the panel’s discussion at oral argument in that case surrounded whether the underlying dispute was a facial challenge to the gun ban or an as-applied challenge. Judges also zeroed in on whether or not that defendant was actually under the influence of marijuana while in possession of a firearm.
Judges did not indicate during oral argument how they plan to rule on that dispute, instead taking the matter under submission.
In a separate federal court case, DOJ lawyers recently made arguments that the ongoing firearm restriction for cannabis users is “analogous to laws disarming the intoxicated” and other historical laws “disarming many disparate groups that the government believed presented a danger with firearms.”
That brief was the latest response to a case filed by a Pennsylvania prosecutor suing the federal government over its ban on gun ownership by cannabis users. It came two weeks after lawyers for the official, Warren County District Attorney Robert Greene, asked the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania to allow the matter to proceed to trial.
In a number of the ongoing cases, DOJ has argued that the prohibition on gun ownership by marijuana users is also supported by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, U.S. v. Rahimi, that upheld the government’s ability to limit the Second Amendment rights of people with domestic violence restraining orders.
DOJ has made such arguments, for example, in favor of the firearms ban in a case in a case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In that matter, a group of Florida medical cannabis patients contends that their Second Amendment rights are being violated because they cannot lawfully buy firearms so long as they are using cannabis as medicine, despite acting in compliance with state law.
The Biden administration, meanwhile, argues that medical marijuana patients who possess firearms “endanger public safety,” “pose a greater risk of suicide” and are more likely to commit crimes “to fund their drug habit.”
The Justice Department 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.
In 2023, for example, the Justice Department told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that historical precedent “comfortably” supports the restriction. 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.
Last year, President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was convicted by a federal jury of violating statute by buying and possessing a gun while an active user of crack cocaine. Two Republican congressmen challenged the basis of that conviction, with one pointing out that there are “millions of marijuana users” who own guns but should not be prosecuted.
Meanwhile, some states have passed their own laws either further restricting or attempting to preserve gun rights as they relate to marijuana. Recently, for example, 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, however, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (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.
The official said that while people who already own firearms aren’t “expected to” turn them over if they become state-legal cannabis patients, those who “wish to follow federal law and not be in violation of it” must “make the decision to divest themselves of those firearms.”
Read the Fifth Circuit ruling in the marijuana and gun case below:
US Daniels Gun Marijuana by KyleJaeger on Scribd
