Feds Tried to Disarm Him, but SCOTUS Just Said No

Hembree was not accused in the federal case of drug trafficking or committing a violent crime tied to the methamphetamine conviction. His lawyers moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the lifetime ban “violates the Second Amendment as applied to him in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.”

SCOTUS declined U.S. v. Hembree, letting stand the 5th Circuit ruling: a felon-in-possession conviction is unconstitutional as applied where the underlying felony was simple drug possession. DOJ wanted a redo under Hemani; Court said no. No Second Amendment grants this term.

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He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six months in prison and three years of supervised release. However, a panel of three judges reversed the conviction, noting that “the government did not meet its burden to prove that history and tradition support simple possession as a valid felony predicate.”

The Justice Department appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case, meaning that the appeals court decision stands.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Hemani that a federal law barring “habitual” drug users from having guns violates the Second Amendment, at least as it applied to a Texas man who said that he uses marijuana a few times a week. In his opinion for the court in Hemani, Justice Neil Gorsuch emphasized that “[i]n many respects, this case is a narrow one.” Among other things, Gorsuch noted, the court was not addressing the federal law “disarming individuals convicted of felonies (often including drug-related ones).”

On Monday, the Supreme Court announced that it had passed on an opportunity to take up a Second Amendment challenge to that “felon in possession” statute, denying review in United States v. Hembree.

That case involved Charles Hembree, who in 2018 was convicted of possession of methamphetamine. Four years later, he was charged with, and eventually pleaded guilty to, being a convicted felon in possession of a gun. He was sentenced to six months in prison and three years of supervised release.

On appeal, Hembree argued – and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit agreed – that (at least as applied to him) the federal law barring individuals who have been convicted of felonies from having a gun violates the Second Amendment because the government cannot show, as the Supreme Court’s precedents require, that there was a historical tradition of disarming people based on their convictions for simple drug possession.

The federal government came to the Supreme Court in April of this year. It asked the court to hold Hembree’s case until it issued its decision in Hemani and then, “if appropriate,” send the case back to the lower court for another look in light of that ruling.

After the Supreme Court handed down its Hemani decision on June 18, Hembree urged the justices to leave the 5th Circuit’s ruling in place. “The decision in Hemani does not affect the outcome here,” he wrote, because it “says nothing about nonviolent felons being categorically and permanently disarmed.”

This comes after the Supreme Court ruled in June that the government could not prosecute Ali Danial Hemani for possessing a firearm because he was an “unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” based on his marijuana usage.

Other courts have issued similar rulings against laws barring people who consume narcotics from exercising their right to keep and bear arms.