The nation's high court has voted to hear arguments in a case concerning the legal intersection between the right to keep and bear arms and marijuana use in its upcoming term.
Last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a six-page orders list that turned away more than 90 petitions. The justices granted hearings in just three cases, with one, United States v. Hemani, of importance to the Second Amendment.
Ali Danial Hemani's case came to the court via the U.S. Fifth Circuit and poses the question,"Whether 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3), the federal statute that prohibits the possession of firearms by a person who 'is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance,' violates the Second Amendment as applied to respondent."
The Justice Department is appealing the Fifth Circuit's January ruling that dismissed a grand jury charge against Hemani of possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of a controlled substance, with the FBI finding a 9mm handgun and small amounts of marijuana and cocaine during a search of his home, although he was not under the influence at the time of the search. He did, however, tell authorities he used marijuana about every other day.
The government contends in its filing that colonial-era laws against armed "common drunkards," as well as more than a century of past restrictions on the possession of firearms by drug users or addicts, meet the "history and tradition standard" set by Bruen when it comes to upholding gun laws.
Meanwhile, attorneys for Hemani, a Texas resident who has both U.S. and Pakistani citizenship, argue that the law is unconstitutionally vague and without a basis in history, especially in light of Bruen, and that the Fifth Circuit got it right when it dismissed the charge earlier this year.
Hemani is represented by Main Street Legal Services from the New York-based CUNY School of Law, a clinic that focuses on public interest law.
Court watchers worry that Hemani's background, which includes some salacious terrorism-adjacent allegations, makes the case a poor vehicle for gun reform. Washington Gun Law President William Kirk opines on the matter in the video below.
