Federal Firearm Conviction Vacated Because Drug Use Alone Did Not Prove Dangerousness

A federal district court in Tennessee vacated Jessica Garner’s conviction for possessing a firearm as an unlawful user of marijuana, holding that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) was unconstitutional as applied to her because the government could not show that she was dangerous. The court relied heavily on the Supreme Court’s 2026 decision in United States v. Hemani, which rejected the idea that habitual marijuana users can automatically be treated as dangerous and stripped of their Second Amendment rights.

In Garner v. United States, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 187636 (W.D. Tenn. Aug. 20, 2026), the court granted Garner’s motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 and vacated both her conviction and sentence. Garner had admitted that she regularly used marijuana and possessed the firearm. The key issue was no longer whether she fit the statutory definition of an unlawful drug user. After Hemani, the question became whether her individual circumstances showed that she posed the kind of danger that historically justified disarming her. The court found they did not.

Garner Had Admitted the Conduct

Garner’s case did not involve a factual dispute over whether she possessed the gun or used marijuana. Law enforcement recovered a Draco pistol that Garner acknowledged belonged to her. She also admitted that she had smoked marijuana daily since she was 15 and occasionally consumed promethazine with codeine. Records confirmed that she had purchased the firearm from a pawnshop and had answered “no” on the federal firearm form when asked whether she was an unlawful user of or addicted to controlled substances.

Garner pleaded guilty to violating § 922(g)(3) and received 48 months of probation, including six months of home detention. Then the law changed.

Bruen Changed the Test, But Hemani Paved the Road to Relief

Garner originally filed her § 2255 motion after New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which changed how courts evaluate firearm restrictions. Under Bruen, once the Second Amendment’s plain text covers a person’s conduct, the government must show that its firearm restriction is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

But Bruen did not itself decide whether § 922(g)(3) could constitutionally prohibit every marijuana user from possessing a gun. That is where Hemani became critical.

In United States v. Hemani, the Supreme Court considered § 922(g)(3) directly. Hemani regularly used marijuana and possessed cocaine, but the government attempted to justify disarming him simply because he belonged to the broad category of habitual drug users. The Supreme Court rejected that categorical approach.

According to the Garner court, Hemani held that the government had failed to identify a historical tradition supporting the automatic criminalization of firearm possession by every habitual drug user. Marijuana use might sometimes demonstrate that a particular person is dangerous, but the government cannot simply assume that every marijuana user is violent or dangerous.

That distinction changed everything for Garner. The constitutional question was no longer merely whether Garner regularly used marijuana while possessing a gun. She clearly did.

The question became whether Garner was the kind of dangerous person the government could historically disarm.

Hemani Made Dangerousness the Key Issue

The Sixth Circuit had already moved toward an individualized dangerousness analysis in United States v. Williams and United States v. VanOchten. Those decisions recognized that historical firearm restrictions could justify disarming people who presently pose a meaningful danger to others.

Hemani strengthened that approach in the specific context of § 922(g)(3). The Garner court read those cases together as requiring an individualized examination rather than an automatic rule that marijuana users lose their Second Amendment rights.

That mattered because Garner’s record looked nothing like the records of defendants whom courts had found dangerous.

In Williams, the defendant had convictions including aggravated robbery and attempted murder. In VanOchten, the defendant was intoxicated and under the influence of marijuana while firing a rifle toward a propane tank in a residential neighborhood.

Garner had nothing comparable. Her criminal record consisted essentially of minor driving offenses. Her Pretrial Services Report specifically stated that there were “no known factors” suggesting that she posed a danger to the community. The Presentence Investigation Report likewise contained no meaningful evidence of violence or dangerousness.

Even more importantly, Garner completed her entire 48-month term of probation without a violation.

The Government Tried to Prove Dangerousness by Association

The government nevertheless argued that Garner was dangerous because of her association with members of a group known as Redrum.

Evidence showed that she had been present at a club on a night when Redrum members became involved in a confrontation and gunfire followed outside. She was also present at the Airbnb where law enforcement arrested two men wanted for homicide.

But there was a major problem with the government’s argument: there was no evidence that Garner fired a weapon during the club incident, and the government conceded that it could not even show she was armed that night.

The court refused to turn association into dangerousness. It analogized the issue to conspiracy law, where merely associating with conspirators does not establish participation in a conspiracy. In the same way, merely spending time around dangerous people did not establish that Garner herself posed a danger sufficient to strip her of Second Amendment protection.

The court weighed the evidence and found that Garner had demonstrated she did not present a danger to the community.

Hemani Also Helped Garner Overcome Procedural Default

This may be the most important part of the decision for postconviction practitioners.

Garner never raised her Second Amendment argument during her criminal case or on direct appeal. Ordinarily, that creates procedural default. A defendant generally cannot save an issue for the first time for a § 2255 motion.

To overcome that obstacle, Garner needed to show either cause and prejudice or actual innocence. The government argued that she could not do so. It pointed out that she theoretically could have raised a Second Amendment challenge before Bruen and argued that actual innocence requires more than a later legal argument about constitutionality.

The district court rejected that position. The court relied on Sixth Circuit precedent explaining that actual innocence can exist when a later legal decision establishes that the defendant’s conduct never fell within the permissible reach of the criminal law.

The court used an earlier Sixth Circuit illustration: imagine someone pleads guilty to stealing “vegetables” after stealing apples because everyone incorrectly believes apples legally qualify as vegetables. If the Supreme Court later holds that apples are not vegetables, that person is actually innocent of stealing vegetables.

That is essentially how the court viewed Garner. After Bruen, Williams, VanOchten, and most importantly Hemani, regularly using marijuana while possessing a firearm was not enough by itself. The Constitution required an individualized examination of dangerousness.

Garner proved she was not dangerous. That meant her conduct—marijuana use plus firearm possession without dangerousness—was conduct Congress could not constitutionally criminalize under § 922(g)(3).

The court therefore concluded that Garner was actually innocent of the offense.

That finding eliminated the procedural-default problem and allowed the court to reach the merits of her § 2255 claim.

That means these cases are going to turn heavily on individual facts.

Why Hemani Matters for § 2255 Cases

The biggest lesson from Garner is that Hemani did much more than give defendants another Second Amendment case to cite. It changed the central question. Before these decisions, the government could largely rely on membership in the prohibited category: habitual drug user plus firearm possession equaled a federal crime.

After Hemani, at least under the framework applied in Garner, that categorical assumption is no longer enough. Courts must look at whether the particular person is actually dangerous.

That opens a potentially significant postconviction avenue for some people already convicted under § 922(g)(3).

The strongest cases will likely involve defendants who have little or no violent criminal history, whose firearm possession involved no threatening or reckless conduct, who performed well on pretrial release, probation, supervised release, or in prison, and whose records contain affirmative evidence showing they did not present a danger to others.

Garner shows why the procedural posture should not automatically end the inquiry either. She pleaded guilty. She did not raise the issue on direct appeal. Yet the court still vacated the conviction because subsequent constitutional decisions established that her actual conduct could not constitutionally support the offense.

The Bottom Line

Hemani paved the road that allowed Garner to get relief.

Bruen supplied the history-and-tradition framework. Williams and VanOchten developed the Sixth Circuit’s dangerousness analysis. But Hemani directly confronted § 922(g)(3) and rejected the government’s attempt to treat habitual marijuana users as automatically dangerous enough to lose their Second Amendment rights.

Once that categorical assumption disappeared, Garner’s case became an individualized inquiry. Her record showed no serious violent history. Pretrial Services found no known danger to the community. The government could not show that she participated in violent acts committed by people around her. And she successfully completed four years of probation without a violation.

The same facts that once supported a straightforward § 922(g)(3) conviction were no longer constitutionally sufficient.

The district court therefore granted her § 2255 motion and vacated both the conviction and sentence.