Updated at 1:15 p.m. EDT
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in United States v. Hemani that the federal government cannot prosecute a Texas man on charges that he violated a federal law barring users of illegal drugs from having a gun. In an opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the justices agreed with Ali Danial Hemani that, at least as when it is applied to him, the law violates the Second Amendment.
Writing for the court, Gorsuch emphasized that the government was seeking to “automatically strip Mr. Hemani of his Second Amendment right to possess a firearm” and “imprison him for up to 15 years” based only on a showing that he “regularly uses any amount of any controlled substance.” But the government’s arguments fell short, Gorsuch concluded, because the early American laws on which the government relied to support these restrictions “targeted different kinds of people, did so for different reasons, and operated in different ways.”
The case began in 2022, when FBI agents searched Hemani’s home and found a Glock 19 9mm pistol, 60 grams of marijuana, and 4.7 grams of cocaine. Hemani said that he used marijuana approximately every other day.
Based on his admission that he used marijuana, Hemani was indicted on charges that he had violated a federal law that makes it a crime for anyone who is “an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” to have a gun. A knowing violation of the law is a felony, which can carry a sentence of up to 15 years in prison.
Hemani asked the federal trial judge to throw out the charge against him. He contended that at least as applied to him, the law violated the Second Amendment, which protects “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.”
U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant granted that request, pointing to a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit holding that the law is unconstitutional when it is used to charge someone who may have been a habitual drug user but was not shown to be under the influence of drugs when he had the gun.
On appeal, the federal government agreed with Hemani that, based on the 5th Circuit’s ruling, the dismissal of the charge against Hemani should stand. In a brief, unsigned opinion, the court of appeals upheld Mazzant’s ruling.
The federal government then asked the justices to weigh in, which they agreed to do in October. On Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld the 5th Circuit’s decision.
In a 19-page opinion for the majority, Gorsuch explained that under the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, courts should uphold restrictions on gun rights only when there is a tradition of such regulations in early U.S. history. And in 2023’s United States v. Rahimi, Gorsuch continued, the court made clear that the government is not required “to point to a ‘historical twin’”; it is enough, he said, that “the challenged regulation is consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition.”
Here, Gorsuch wrote, the federal government cannot meet this high bar. Although the government points to early American laws targeting “habitual drunkards” – for example, by jailing them, placing them in workhouses, committing them to asylums, or requiring them to post a bond to ensure their good behavior – these laws are not sufficiently analogous to justify Hemani’s prosecution. First, Gorsuch suggested, a “habitual drunkard” was not the same thing as someone who regularly uses intoxicants such as alcohol. Even some of the Founding Fathers were heavy drinkers by today’s standards, Gorsuch noted, but to be regarded as a “habitual drunkard” someone would have to frequently be so drunk that they were “practically incapacitated and incapable of managing their affairs.” Yet the government in this case maintains that it does not need to show that a drug user “is regularly incapacitated.” Indeed, Gorsuch said, under the government’s theory it could also prosecute “a husband who regularly takes his wife’s prescription Ambien to sleep” – a scenario raised by Justice Amy Coney Barrett at the oral argument – “and a college student who routinely uses a friend’s Adderall to cram for exams.”
Gorsuch next rejected the government’s argument that the law at the center of this case serves a similar purpose as the law targeting habitual drunkards – that is, “to protect the public from ‘unusually dangerous’ individuals who will ‘misuse . . . firearms’ to commit ‘violent crime[s].’” Even if that is the goal of the law in this case, Gorsuch countered, the habitual drunkard laws normally “had little to do with protecting the public from categorically violent and unusually dangerous persons.”
Moreover, Gorsuch continued, the habitual drunkard laws are not an apt analogy because their operation “differs significantly” from the operation of the law at the center of this case. In particular, Gorsuch stressed, those laws “usually provided some form of process” – such as a trial, proceedings in a probate court, or a bond hearing – “before an individual lost any of his liberties, even temporarily.” By contrast, under the government’s rule, the law in this case “automatically divests an individual of his constitutional right to bear arms the moment he becomes an unlawful user and until he ends his drug use.”
Gorsuch made clear that the court did “not question that sometimes an individual’s unlawful use of marijuana (or any other controlled substance) may render him a danger to others.” But here, he said, the government is asking the court “to conclude that anyone who regularly uses marijuana is categorically violent and dangerous without any further showing.” Such a position, Gorsuch posited, is at odds with the government’s own actions – for example, its recent decision to downgrade the categorization of marijuana on its list of controlled substances, so that it is now classified as having “a lower potential for dependence and abuse” and “a ‘currently accepted medical use.’”
Gorsuch emphasized that Thursday’s ruling was “a narrow one” that did not address whether the government could prosecute drug addicts for having a gun or the legality of other gun restrictions – such as the ban on the possession of guns by people who have been convicted of felonies. Indeed, Gorsuch added, Thursday’s decision did “not even address whether the government” could prosecute someone if it had proof that a specific individual’s drug use “renders him a danger to himself or others.”
Although all of the justices agreed that Hemani’s conviction was improper, several justices wrote separate opinions. Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion in which he argued that the law under which Hemani had been convicted violates the Constitution, because Congress does not have the power “to regulate the possession of firearms solely on the ground that they crossed state lines at some point in the past.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in which she contended that the framework established by the Supreme Court in Bruen “is unworkable” and “vulnerable to inconsistent and arbitrary application, as judges draw different conclusions from the same historical evidence.”
Justice Samuel Alito, in an opinion joined by Justice Elena Kagan, agreed with the result that the majority reached, if not its reasoning. In his view, the federal government had “failed to show that a marijuana user like” Hemani “is incapacitated in a way analogous to the habitual drunkards that the Government’s analogues regulated.”
The court has not yet released its ruling in Wolford v. Lopez, a challenge to a Hawaii law that bars gun owners from bringing their guns onto private property without express permission from the property’s owner. That decision could come at any time now.
