Marijuana Moment: Florida Case On Medical Marijuana Patients’ Gun Rights Is On Hold As Supreme Court Weighs Underlying Issue

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A federal court has agreed to delay proceedings in a years-long Florida-based case challenging the constitutionality of the ban on gun ownership by people who use medical marijuana, with the Justice Department arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to take up a related dispute warrants a stay in the lower court.

The Supreme Court accepted a petition for cert for the separate case, 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.

The Trump administration further said a pause in the proceedings is necessary due to the government shutdown, which has deprived DOJ of resources and prohibits the agency’s attorneys “from working except in certain limited circumstances.”

“Granting a stay would promote judicial economy and the efficient use of resources of the Court and the parties,” it said. “The resolution of Hemani will almost certainly have a significant impact on 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.”

Chief U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor agreed in a brief order issued on Thursday.

“Defendants’ unopposed motion to stay pending resolution of United States v. Hemani (ECF No. 41) is GRANTED. This case is STAYED, and all deadlines are suspended,” he wrote. “Any party may move to lift the stay at any time.”

The plaintiffs in the Florida case are Vera Cooper and Nicole Hansell, who are registered medical cannabis patients denied gun purchases over their admission to participating in the program, and Neill Franklin, a former police officer who wants to access medical marijuana without jeopardizing his right to own a firearm.

In August, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh District, in a opinion authored by Judge Elizabeth Branch, departed from the district court’s earlier ruling that upheld Section 922(g)(3). It was a win for the plaintiffs, though the case was remanded back to the lower court and remains unsettled.

Former Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (D) initially led the suit against the federal government, but she was removed from the case after leaving her state office. The Republican commissioner who replaced her declined to become involved in the legal proceedings. Fried is now chair of the Florida Democratic Party.

While the Supreme Court last Monday also declined to take up a separate case on cannabis consumers’ gun rights, there are still several others pending a decision from the justices. But the choice to take up Hemani in particular is likely welcome news to the Justice Department, which has consistently defended the firearm prohibition and specifically requested that SCOTUS review that case instead of alternatives.

That could be related to the fact that the defendant is not only a marijuana consumer but also a user of cocaine who’s sold drugs in the past, so it’s possible DOJ reasoned that he is a less sympathetic face for the issue. Defendants in the other cases were merely found in possession of both a firearm and marijuana.

In June, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, an appointee of President Donald Trump, submitted a filing with the Supreme Court that said “Section 922(g)(3) complies with the Second Amendment,” and the statute “targets a category of persons who pose a clear danger of misusing firearms: habitual users of unlawful drugs.”

The law “bars their possession of firearms only temporarily and leaves it within their power to lift the restriction at any time; anyone who stops habitually using illegal drugs can resume possessing firearms,” Sauer said.

Notably, while the government mentions “habitual” users of illegal drugs 40 times in its filing, that word does not itself appear in 922(g)(3). The language of the statute prohibits anyone “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition.

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.” In seeking the court’s grant of cert, the solicitor general also noted that the defendant is a joint American and Pakistani citizen with alleged ties to Iranian entities hostile to the U.S., putting him the FBI’s radar.

The court also recently denied a petition for cert in another gun and marijuana case, U.S. v. Baxter, but that wasn’t especially surprising as both DOJ and the defendants advised against further pursing the matter after a lower court reinstated his conviction for being an unlawful user of a controlled substance in possession of a firearm.

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 Marijuana Moment, 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.

The case has now been remanded to that lower court, which determined that the current statute banning “unlawful” users of marijuana from possessing firearms violates the Second Amendment of the 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.

The ruling states that any such restrictions must be consistent with the historical context of the Second Amendment’s original 1791 ratification.

The historical analogues that the Justice Department relied on to make the case that the ban is consistent included references to antiquated case law preventing Catholics, loyalists, slaves and Indians from having guns.

The circuit court, for its part, said that “the government must show non-intoxicated marijuana users pose a risk of future danger” to support the current policy. “This inquiry, which may involve fact finding, is best suited for the district court.”

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. The court allowed the man to withdraw the plea and ordered that the indictment against him be dismissed.

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.

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.

Meanwhile, some states have passed their own laws either further restricting or attempting to preserve gun rights as they relate 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.

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.”

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.

Read the ruling and motion for a stay of the Florida medical marijuana and gun case below: 

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