United States Supreme Court Holds 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3) Prosecution Unconstitutional

The team at Evergreen Attorneys are proud to announce that the United States Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government’s prosecution of Mr. Hemani under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) violates the Second Amendment in United States v. Hemani. As we have previously stated, vague and overboard laws like 922(g)(3) allow the federal government to arbitrarily impose criminal penalties. Americans like Mr. Hemani deserve to clearly know when their fundamental rights are at risk, and they should not face up to fifteen years in federal prison for keeping a locked firearm in a gun safe at home and occasionally using marijuana.

Below is a detailed analysis of the Court’s June 18, 2026 opinion. You can also read more about this case in our previous posts:

• Ali Hemani’s Story
• United States v. Hemani: An Animated Explainer
• Supreme Court will decide if “habitual drug users” lose their rights under the 2nd Amendment

Evergreen Attorneys: Federal Defense Attorneys

Evergreen Attorneys pride themselves on standing out from the crowd. Our law firm was founded solely to provide the absolute highest level of federal criminal defense in a small boutique law firm setting.

Here are some of the things that we think makes Evergreen Attorneys different from the pack:

• We only focus on federal cases and high-stakes felonies. No family law clients, no medical malpractice, no transactional lawyers, no traffic tickets.
• We only employ experienced partner-level attorneys. No fresh-faced associates right out of law school.
• We are a boutique federal white collar law firm. Every decision is tailored towards providing client-first exceptional criminal defense.
• Evergreen Attorneys handles criminal cases nationwide. We are not interested in being golfing buddies with the prosecutor.

United States v. Hemani: The Facts

Mr. Hemani is a dual citizen of the United States and Pakistan. He was born in Texas, lived in the Dallas area, and had a stable and productive job. However, in 2022, federal agents conducted a search of his home based on unfounded suspicions of terrorism-related activities. Mr. Hemani was cooperative with law enforcement. He surrendered his lawfully owned gun he kept locked in a safe in his house and a small amount of marijuana. During interviews with law enforcement, he stated that he used marijuana “about every other day.”

Six months later, the government charged Mr. Hemani in a single-count indictment with possession of a firearm while being an “unlawful user” of a controlled substance in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3). The allegations were based solely off of Mr. Hemani’s statement that he used marijuana and had a firearm in his home.

Mr. Hemani was denied bail and held in detention for six months before the district court dismissed the charge. The government appealed that decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and lost. Undeterred, the government brought the case to the United States Supreme Court.

Unanimous Court Holds Hemani’s Prosecution Unconstitutional

In a 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of Mr. Hemani’s prosecution holding that it violated the Second Amendment. Applying the test for Second Amendment restrictions first announced in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), the Court was tasked with determining whether Mr. Hemani’s prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) was consistent with the history and tradition of firearm regulation. Under Bruen, the government bears the burden of showing 922(g)(3) is analogous or relatively similar to well-established National History.

The Government Argues that All Drug Users are Banned From Possessing Firearms

The government argued before the Court that the law automatically bans any individual from possessing a gun from the moment he becomes an unlawful user of any controlled substance until he ceases to be one. And according to the government, the law does not require anything more.

It doesn’t matter what controlled substance an individual uses, in what amounts he does so, or whether his drug use has ever made him a danger to himself or others. It doesn’t even matter why he keeps a gun or how safely he does so. And for violating this automatic ban, the government insists, an individual like Mr. Hemani may be sent to prison for up to 15 years and disarmed for life.

To support this sweeping argument, the government posits that historical “habitual drunkard” laws are analogous to the restrictions imposed by section 922(g)(3). Every member of the Court disagreed. The Court noted that the government’s proposed “habitual drunkard” laws really consisted of three general categories: vagrancy laws, civil-commitment statutes, and surety laws.

The Missing Why and How

In order for a historical law to support a modern day Second Amendment regulation, the government has to demonstrate that the modern regulation fits the “why” and “how” of the Nation’s history and tradition. The government argued that the historical laws targeting habitual drunkards met the “why” the same way 922(g)(3) does, because they both regulate intoxicants and protect the public from “unusually dangerous” people who commit “violent crimes.” As to the “how,” the government suggested that these historical laws operated to allow the government to detain people in places where they could not bear arms and § 922(g)(3) “temporarily” disarms unlawful users. The Court did not buy the government’s argument:

[T]he habitual drunkard laws on which the government relies here differ dramatically from §922(g)(3)’s unlawful user provision on every single metric the government invites us to consider: They targeted different kinds of people, did so for different purposes, and operated in different ways. Whether any one of these problems taken in isolation would prove fatal to the government’s cause, we need not decide. Taken cumulatively, we hold, they certainly do. And, apart from pointing to habitual drunkard laws, the government has not even attempted to prove that any other specific historical principle might justify its prosecution in this case.

Overbroad Analogues

The Court further noted that the government’s historical laws targeted habitual drunkards not just because they regulated intoxicants, but because their drinking rendered them incapacitated and incapable of managing their affairs. The same was not true for 922(g)(3), which automatically disarms anyone who regularly uses any amount of any controlled substance for anything other than its prescribed purpose.

This case illustrates the disconnect. The government considers Mr. Hemani an unlawful user of a controlled substance because he admits to using marijuana about every other day. But how much marijuana does Mr. Hemani use, in what potency, and to what effect? Is he routinely unable to manage his affairs, a risk to himself or his family? Or does he use a mild gummy as a sleep aid a few times a week? We do not know, and the government says, it doesn’t matter. The government asks us to analogize him to a habitual drunkard all the same.

Nor does the government’s theory stop at Mr. Hemani. It extends equally to a husband who regularly takes his wife’s prescription Ambien to sleep and a college student who routinely uses a friend’s Adderall to cram for exams. The drug involved makes no difference. Nor, again, does it matter how much an individual uses or the effect it has on him. That someone regularly uses any substance found on any of the CSA’s five schedules for anything other than its “prescribed purpose” is enough. Without more, the government asks us to analogize all such persons to habitual drunkards. To state the analogy is to expose its deficiency.

Lack of Due Process

Another factor that distinguished the government’s historical analogues from 922(g)(3) is the lack of process. Each of the historical laws offered by the government offered some form of process before an individual lost his liberties. A “vagrant” could be sent to jail only upon a conviction, a habitual drunkard could be assigned a guardian or committed to an asylum only after proceeding to court, and surety statutes required a proceeding before a justice of the peace before a bond could be ordered. As the Court wrote, section 922(g)(3) lacks any of the same process provided by the historical analogues. Even so, the government argued that an unlawful user who violates 922(g)(3) is entitled to “a full-dress criminal trial” before he can be disarmed. By the government missed the point. 922(g)(3) offers no pre-deprivation process before disarmament that each of the historical laws provided.

Classifying All Drug Users as Categorically Dangerous Persons

The government further argued that 922(g)(3)’s purpose is to disarm unlawful drug users to protect the public from dangerous individuals who will misuse firearms and commit violent crimes. But 922(g)(3) includes every drug listed in the Controlled Substance Act. These drugs are added to the schedule for a variety of reasons, not based on potential for violence.

The Court also highlighted the government’s approach to marijuana over the past few years. When the Supreme Court first decided to take the case, marijuana was listed on Schedule I of the Controlled Substance Act. Schedule I drugs have “a high potential for abuse” with “no currently accepted medical use.” 21 U.S.C. § 812(b)(1). However, recently the government moved some marijuana products to Schedule III, which applies to drugs with a lower potential for dependence and abuse and yields “currently accepted medical use.” While marijuana is still illegal under federal law, federal prosecution for marijuana has dropped off. Not to mention, 40 states, three territories, and the District of Columbia have legalized at least some marijuana use.

[The government] asks us to conclude that anyone who regularly uses marijuana is categorically violent and dangerous without any further showing. All based on little more than its current say-so, one at odds with its own regulatory actions. And affording the government that kind of “broad power to designate any group as dangerous and thereby disqualify its members from having a gun” would risk allowing to to “quickly swallow” the Second Amendment.

Concurring Opinions

Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices, Thomas, Sotomayor, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson.

Justice Thomas wrote separately concurring in judgment, but questioning Congress’s power to regulate firearms under the Commerce Clause.

Justice Jackson wrote a separate concurrence joined by Justice Sotomayor. While Justices Jackson and Sotomayor agree with the majority opinion, they believe the Bruen test to be unworkable.

Justice Alito also wrote a separate concurrence, and was joined by Justice Kagan (a rare and unlikely coupling). Justices Alito and Kagan agreed that the judgment should be affirmed and that the government’s analogues were not relevantly similar to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3). However, the concurrence concludes that all that is required to affirm the Fifth Circuit’s decision is that the government failed to provide a historical analogue applicable to a marijuana user such as Mr. Hemani.

Firearm Restrictions After Hemani

The Court’s holding affirmed the Fifth Circuit’s opinion that held 922(g)(3) was unconstitutional when applied to an individual who was not presently intoxicated. However, the Court was clear to carve out some limitations to its holding. First, § 922(g)(3) has two prongs: unlawful users of controlled substances and addicts of controlled substances. This opinion does not impact the addicts prong.

Second, the Court listed some exceptions to application of the statute it chose not to address in its opinion:

We do not address efforts to ban addicts, or those presently intoxicated, from possessing a firearm. We do not address other prophylactic laws Congress might adopt after determining that users of a particular drug pose a special risk of misusing firearms. We do not address 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)’s provision disarming individuals convicted of felonies (often including drug-related ones). We dno not even address whether the government could bring a prosecution under §922(g)(3) accompanied by indiviaulized proof that the defendant’s use of marijuana (or any other drug) renders him a danger to himself or others. Or proof that a certain drug always renders its users dangerous because of its potency or for some other reason. None of those issues is before us and we do not pass on them either way.

The Supreme Court Affirms the Dismissal of Mr. Hemani’s Prosecution

After years of battling the federal government, Mr. Hemani has achieved total victory in his case. We are incredibly proud to be a part of this battle and finally bring closure that Mr. Hemani deserves. We are also extremely thankful to everyone that has worked with Mr. Hemani to win his case.

Despite all of its efforts and endless resources, the government was unable to demonstrate that its prosecution of Mr. Hemani was constitutional. The government has lost at every stage of Mr. Hemani’s case and now, with the Supreme Court’s decision, the fight is finally over for Mr. Hemani.

While this case specifically deals with the Second Amendment as applied to Mr. Hemani, it is of significant importance to millions of law-abiding American citizens. The government argued for a law that holds all people who “unlawfully” use drugs are categorically dangerous and prohibited from possessing firearms, subjecting them to up to 15 years imprisonment. Today’s decision limits the government’s overreaching power to arbitrarily prosecute individuals and is a victory for millions of Americans.

Contact the Lawyers at Evergreen Attorneys

The federal criminal defense lawyers at Evergreen Attorneys are ready to fight your case at every stage, including before the United States Supreme Court. You can contact the lawyers at Evergreen Attorneys today by calling (303) 948-1489 or by email at [email protected]. Or, you can fill out a contact form to tell us about your case.