The Supreme Court released its orders from the “long conference” held last week, and no new Second Amendment cases were granted. There were multiple 922(g)(1) challenges that the Court passed by, including a Fifth Circuit case called U.S. v. Hembree involving a man convicted for possessing a firearm as a felon.
Charles Hembree has a previous felony conviction for possession of methamphetamine, and was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2022 for being a felon in possession of a firearm. The district court rejected Hembree’s attempt to challenge 922(g)(1) on Second Amendment grounds, and Hembree ended up pleading guilty after agreeing to a plea deal that allowed him to pursue a Second Amendment challenge on appeal.
The Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Hembree, concluding that precedent within the circuit allowed for no other conclusion.
The court explained that its precedent required it to evaluate the as-applied challenge by focusing on the predicate crime (possessing methamphetamine) rather than respondent’s “history or characteristics.” The court then concluded that, though history supports disarming individuals who have been convicted of “dealing drugs,” it does not support disarming individuals who have been convicted of possessing drugs.
In the Hemani case, decided last year, the Supreme Court concluded that a lifetime ban on firearm possession for a man convicted of possessing a firearm while regularly consuming marijuana violated his Second Amendment rights. Hembree takes that one step further, with the Fifth Circuit concluding that a felony conviction for possessing methamphetamine should not deprive Mr. Hembree of his right to possess a firearm going forward.
SCOTUS didn’t necessarily endorse that decision just because it declined the government’s request to hear the case. As I said, the Court denied virtually every one of the 922(g)(1) cases it heard in conference last week, and the government prevailed in many of them. At this point, the most that can be said is that there’s not enough interest among the justices to settle the issue, despite growing circuit court splits on the constitutionality of prohibiting everyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year in prison from exercising their Second Amendment rights.
The Court also turned away a case that dealt with reciprocity for concealed carry licenses. Jeffrey Johnson, an over-the-road truck driver, sued Minnesota’s Department of Public Safety for not recognizing any of the concealed carry licenses he possesses. Instead, under Minnesota statute Johnson is required to apply for a non-resident permit.
Johnson contended that process imposes a burden on his right to bear arms, but lost at both the district court and in the Eighth Circuit. After he filed his cert petition, a coalition of Second Amendment groups filed an amicus brief in support of his case, but the Court still denied cert without any commentary or written dissent from any of the justices.
Johnson’s case was seen as a long shot, given that no justice requested a reply from the defendants after they declined to file one on their own. It is extremely disappointing to see SCOTUS once again punt when it comes to our right to bear arms disappearing once we cross state lines, but there are several other cases making their way to the Supreme Court, so the issue isn’t going away anytime soon.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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