Copyright time
How will the Court rule? It’s unclear how the Supreme Court will rule in the case, according to experts. Ruben points to a split among federal courts over the historical analogue test. In the rulings thus far in Hemani, lower courts have found the federal statute unconstitutional in this particular case, in which the defendant was not actively intoxicated but does habitually use marijuana. But various courts have made different determinations in other cases, Ruben notes, pointing to United States v. Yancy, a 2010 case that also concerned a marijuana user in which a federal court upheld the federal statute as lawful. “This case is going to present an opportunity to expound on how loose an analogy can be in order to shore up the constitutionality of the modern law,” says Ruben. A recent decision from the nation’s highest court may provide some insight into how the justices might rule. Last year, the Supreme Court upheld a law banning individuals with domestic violence restraining orders from owning guns. “Interestingly, one of the things that they relied on, or that they emphasized, was the fact that it was a temporary restriction, that he was only restricted from gun possession during the pendency of the restraining order,” says Ruben. “In that regard, I think that temporal limitation is going to feature in this case as well, in ways in favor of upholding the law.”
