Joseph Frederick Johnson v. United States

18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) makes it a crime for any person “who has been [previously] convicted in any court of[] a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” to “possess … any firearm or ammunition.” Petitioner’s sole predicate felony is a 2015 state conviction for marijuana cultivation—a non-violent offense involving a substance that the federal government has since rescheduled and many States have legalized. The Tenth Circuit nevertheless affirmed his § 922(g)(1) convictions over his Second Amendment challenge because circuit precedent categorically foreclosed any as-applied challenge, regardless of the predicate offense. The question presented, on which there is an acknowledged and entrenched 6-3 circuit split, is: Whether an individual whose sole predicate felony is a non-violent offense may bring an asapplied Second Amendment challenge to § 922(g)(1)’s permanent dispossession of the right to keep and bear arms.