Justice Department Argues That Supreme Court’s Latest Gun Ruling Weakens Hunter Biden’s Second Amendment Claim

The Justice Department is using the Supreme Court’s Rahimi ruling on Friday to strengthen its argument against Hunter Biden’s claim that his federal gun conviction violates his Second Amendment rights.

Federal prosecutors filed a brief in opposition to Hunter Biden’s acquittal motion seeking to throw out his recent conviction on three federal gun charges. In the court filing, prosecutor Derek Hines argued that the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Rahimi clarifies the scope of the landmark New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen Second Amendment case and undermines Hunter Biden’s reliance on a Fifth Circuit ruling that overturned a marijuana user’s gun conviction.

“The Supreme Court’s decision today in United States v. Rahimi, No. 22-915 (U.S. June 21, 2024) clarified that Bruen only requires the government to show ‘the challenged regulation is consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition,’ not that it is ‘identical’ to a regulation at the founding,” Hines said.

“This significantly undermines the defendant’s reliance on United States v. Daniels, 77 F.4th 337 (5th Cir. 2023), which cites repeatedly to the now-reversed Fifth Circuit decision in Rahimi,” Hines added. He repeatedly cited the Rahimi case throughout the brief to support his legal arguments.

Hines made the case that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), the law used to charge Biden for possessing the firearm, is analogous to historical laws disarming dangerous people, reflecting its constitutionality. He compared the statute to laws that prohibit mentally ill people and those under the influence of alcohol from possessing firearms.

To show that Hunter Biden was dangerous, Hines pointed to excerpts from Biden’s memoir describing long drives under the influence of crack cocaine and drug encounters where guns were pointed at him. Ex-wife Kathleen Buhle testified about finding drug paraphernalia in his car roughly a dozen times from 2015 to 2019, and ex-girlfriend Hallie Biden recalled finding crack cocaine remnants in his car on the day she discovered and discarded his firearm.

“The dangerousness of the defendant’s cocaine use is vividly shown by the evidence presented at trial, in which the loss of inhibition, emotional regulation, and self-control was demonstrated,” Hines stated.

Biden’s Second Amendment claim relies heavily on the Supreme Court’s Bruen ruling in 2022 striking down New York’s stringent requirements for concealed-carry permits. The ruling affirmed the Second Amendment right to bear arms in public, and Justice Thomas’s majority opinion established that present-day gun regulations must be consistent with historical tradition.

In addition, Biden’s Second Amendment claim cites the Daniels ruling by the Fifth Circuit, which overturned a gun conviction for a defendant who smoked marijuana a few times a month. Hines noted the difference between marijuana and crack cocaine and the fact that Hunter Biden used crack cocaine much more frequently than the defendant in the Daniels case used marijuana.

The Supreme Court ruled 8–1 on Friday in the Rahimi case that individuals with domestic-violence restraining orders cannot purchase firearms, reversing a decision by the Fifth Circuit. Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenting voice. The court’s majority cautioned that it is not imposing a blanket ban on gun possession by people believed to be dangerous, language that could feature in future court filings from Biden’s team.

Toward the end of Hunter Biden’s gun trial, his lawyers filed the acquittal motion arguing that Hunter Biden’s charges were unconstitutional under the Second and Fifth Amendments, that the third gun charge amounted to a noncrime, and that the prosecution introduced insufficient evidence against him.

Judge Maryellen Noreika appeared skeptical when Biden’s defense attorney, Abbe Lowell, announced that the motions were forthcoming, as NR previously reported. Lowell failed to have the gun charges dismissed on similar grounds before the trial took place.

On Thursday, Hines mocked the claim that the third charge amounted to a noncrime, because Congress increased the penalty for it two years ago, and he argued that the timing of the motion meant it should be dismissed outright.

“The defendant’s motion is untimely because it claims the indictment failed to state an offense, a motion that must be brought pretrial pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12, and should be dismissed for that reason alone,” Hines asserted.

“It is also meritless because under the federal saving statute, penalty provisions like those in Section 924, even if amended or repealed, apply to conduct that predates their amendment or repeal unless the statute expressly provides otherwise, which is not the case here. For that reason, even if it were not untimely, it should be dismissed.”

A Delaware jury convicted Hunter Biden last week on two false-statement charges stemming from his claim on mandatory background-check paperwork that he was not addicted to drugs when he purchased a Colt Cobra revolver in October 2018. The third charge against Biden is for possessing the firearm while being addicted to crack cocaine.

Hines and prosecutor Leo Wise secured Biden’s conviction by presenting “overwhelming evidence” of his crack-cocaine addiction around the time of the gun purchase and subsequent possession. The prosecution relied on witnesses testimony, texts, photos, videos, memoir excerpts, bank records, and further evidence to make the case against Biden. His defense failed to demonstrate that his behavior was changing around the time of a gun purchase, claims the prosecution severely weakened with the amount of evidence it presented.

Hines and Wise are part of special counsel David Weiss’s team, and after the trial Weiss praised them for taking on the “difficult assignment” of prosecuting Hunter Biden.

Weiss’s team is also prosecuting Hunter Biden on federal tax charges in California for allegedly failing to pay more than $1.4 million of taxes over a four-year period. The tax trial is scheduled to begin in early September.

President Joe Biden, Hunter’s father, strongly opposed the Bruen ruling, consistent with the Democratic Party’s advocacy for gun regulations. The president also signed the legislation strengthening the sentencing guidelines for the third criminal charge that his son was convicted on.

Hunter Biden’s sentencing is set to take place later this year. His father said last week that he would not pardon him or commute his sentence.