Appeals Court Rules Federal Law Applied Unconstitutionally Against Woman Charged For Possessing Firearms as Cannabis User

Last updated on August 29th, 2024 at 09:30 am

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled authorities applied federal law barring drug users from possessing firearms against a Texas woman in an unconstitutional manner.

The appeals court decision follows a legal challenge by Paola Connelly, a user of cannabis with no known history of drug-related violence, who also owned firearms. Connelly disputed a criminal charge for violating a federal law that bars any person who is an unlawful user of any controlled substance listed in the 1971 Controlled Substances Act to possess any firearm or ammunition.

Connelly saw her firearms confiscated after police in El Paso, Texas came to her home after her husband, John, discharged a firearm of his own during a December 2021 incident. After her husband’s arrest, police spoke to Connelly, who admitted she used cannabis to deal with anxiety and help her sleep.

Police subsequently searched Connelly’s home and found her firearms and drug paraphernalia. Federal authorities subsequently charged Connelly with violating federal law barring the possession of firearms by a controlled substance user, and with providing firearms and ammunition to another user of a controlled substance.

Connelly disputed the charges on constitutional grounds and a U.S. District Court hearing the criminal case concluded the federal laws in question are unconstitutional, both on their face and as applied against Connelly specifically. Federal authorities subsequently appealed the ruling.

A three-judge appeals court panel, on Wednesday Aug. 28, partially upheld the lower court’s ruling. The panel consisted of circuit judges Kurt Engelhardt, Jerry Edwin Smith, and Irma Carrillo Ramirez.

Judge Engelhardt, appointed to the appeal’s court by President Donald Trump, wrote the opinion of the court. In it, he concluded cannabis users like Connelly are presumptively protected by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“The right to bear arms is held by ‘the people,'” Engelhardt wrote. “That phrase ‘unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset.'”

Engelhardt reiterated, throughout his opinion, that Connelly has no history of drug-related violence.

In their assessment, the appeals court looked to the U.S. Supreme Court’s guidance in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. The Bruen decision states that those seeking to impose gun control measures must find an analog in the laws in existence at the time the U.S. Constitutional and Bill of Rights were first implemented.

“The government identifies no class of persons at the Founding who were ‘dangerous’ for reasons comparable to marijuana users. Marijuana users are not a class of political traitors, as English Loyalists were perceived to be. Nor are they like Catholics and other religious dissenters who were seen as potential insurrectionists,” Engelhardt wrote.

The appeals court panel also concluded the federal law, as applied to Connelly, does not follow the logic established in the more recent U.S. Supreme Court case of United States v. Rahimi, in which the high court upheld federal laws barring firearm possession by individuals believed to be predisposed to violent behavior.

“Not all members of the set ‘drug users’ are violent. As applied, the government has not shown how Paola’s marijuana use predisposes her to armed conflict or that she has a history of drug-related
violence,” Engelhardt wrote.

In their filings, the U.S. government argued that routine cannabis use is akin to mental illness, and that historical analogs support the confiscation of firearms by those deemed not of sound mind.

Engelhardt contended that laws barring firearm possession by the mentally ill are not an appropriate analog. Instead, he concluded Connelly’s cannabis use was more akin to alcohol use. He argued that gun control laws during the founding period only limited firearm possession and use while a person was intoxicated, and not while they were sober.

“Repeat marijuana users, like repeat alcohol users, are of sound mind upon regaining sobriety, whereas those adjudged severely mentally ill often require extensive treatment and follow-up examination before they can be said to be of sound mind again,” Engelhardt wrote.

Engelhardt argued the government might’ve succeeded with its mental illness analog if it had demonstrated that the drugs Connelly used were so powerful as to render her permanently impaired, or if they demonstrated that Connelly’s cannabis use was “so regular and heavy that it rendered her continually impaired.”

“But it shows evidence of neither here,” Engelhardt continued.

In conclusion, the appeals court panel affirmed Connelly’s arguments that the federal law against firearm possession by a controlled substance user is unconstitutional as applied in her case. Still, the court panel reversed the lower court’s finding that the federal laws Connelly challenged are facially unconstitutional, holding that there exist some instances where the laws may be applied in a constitutional manner.