Hunter Biden Defense: Smoke Pot, Crack and Get a Gun
Special Prosecutor States Plea Deal Not in Effect; How the 5th Circuit Court Ruling Allowing Marijuana Users to Possess Guns Could Impact Biden's Trial
When I told you earlier this summer that Hunter Biden planned to wrap himself in the Second Amendment to get off his cocaine and gun charges at a trial, it seemed like an idle threat. Now, with his plea deal officially dropped, Biden has a stronger chance of using this politically conservative defense, thanks to a recent legitimate ruling by a federal appeals court.
Plea deal break
On Tuesday, Special Counsel David Weiss stated in this filing that Biden's plea deal to dismiss charges of firearm possession while using drugs "never went into effect" and that "none of its terms are binding on either party." The deal would have expunged Hunter's record of gun charges after two years of sobriety and other probation conditions.
Biden had claimed in a filing Monday that the Justice Department was trying to “renege” on a settlement — that also gave him immunity for future charges — that was “valid and binding.”
Biden was charged in June for possessing a firearm for several weeks in October 2018. He confessed in his memoir to being on crack cocaine when he bought the revolver in Delaware. He faces 10 years in prison on the charge.
Drugs and guns
The Gun Control Act of 1968 made it illegal under federal law to have a gun while being “an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.” It has been applied to anyone who has used drugs in the past 12 months and includes marijuana users, even in the states that have legalized it.
Hunter’s lawyers said he was going to challenge the law at trial based on the Supreme Court landmark ruling New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Two months later, his defense was successfully used by a convicted drug user.
Pot and guns
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit last week overturned Patrick Daniels’s conviction for having marijuana and guns.
Daniels was pulled over in Mississippi last year and arrested for having several marijuana butts along with two loaded firearms (a pistol and rifle) in his car. Daniels was not charged with driving under the influence.
Once in custody, he admitted to being a regular pot smoker. He was convicted by a jury for illegally possessing the firearms as a prohibited person and sentenced to four years in prison.
Supreme Court effect
The judges ruled in favor of Daniels, asserting that having firearms and marijuana while presumably sober satisfied the Supreme Court's Bruen test. (Read the 44-page opinion in USA vv Daniels here.)
Judge Jerry Smith stated that "even as a marijuana user, Daniels is a member of our political community" and therefore has a "presumptive right to bear arms," in line with the Second Amendment's text.
Regarding the requirement that gun control laws must resemble those existing during the nation's founding, Smith added:
...our history and tradition may support some limits on an intoxicated person’s right to carry a weapon, but it does not justify disarming a sober citizen based exclusively on his past drug usage.
Hunter’s rights
The federal judges wrote that their ruling only applies to Daniels, not the broader law on all drugs. It’s also different than Hunter’s alleged possession while intoxicated, but the precedent could be used at his trial.
Jake Charles, a professor at Pepperdine University Law School, tweeted about the USA v Daniels decision:
Hunter Biden’s 922(g)(3) charge would have to be dismissed under this ruling.
Charles also wrote that the government is “gonna have trouble” with the charge “now that the 5th Circuit has said it violates the Second Amendment.”
I’ve reported for over a decade that there is not a single gun control law that has reduced gun crime. But are we better off as a society now that drug users can have guns, and the police can’t arrest them?
If Patrick Daniels got off, shouldn’t Hunter Biden’s gun charges get dropped?
Debate is open to paid subscribers in the comments….