U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez retired from the federal bench on April 2, 2026, stepping down from the Southern District of California after more than two decades of service and leaving some of the most consequential Second Amendment cases in the country without their authoring judge, Bearing Arms first reported. The Times of San Diego marked the departure in a retrospective published April 14.

Benitez — nicknamed "Saint Benitez" within the gun-rights community — earned that reputation through a string of pro-2A rulings that subjected California's gun-control statutes to rigorous textual and historical scrutiny. His most celebrated work came in two cases that defined the outer limits of California's framework. In Duncan v. Bonta, he twice struck down the state's ban on magazines holding more than ten rounds, the second ruling following remand in 2023 after he found no Founding-era historical analogue for banning commonly owned magazines. The spring 2019 window between his first injunction and the stay entered shortly after became known in gun-owner circles as "Freedom Week," during which an estimated several hundred thousand magazines were legally purchased and shipped into California, according to AmmoLand. In Miller v. Bonta, Benitez ruled California's "assault weapons" ban unconstitutional after trial, issuing a permanent injunction that the state immediately sought to stay pending appeal.

Neither case is resolved. The Ninth Circuit's en banc panel reversed his Duncan ruling in March 2025, issuing an opinion with notable dissents; as of Benitez's retirement, the Supreme Court had not yet decided whether to grant certiorari for a second time. Miller v. Bonta is working through the Ninth Circuit on a parallel track. Both cases will be administratively reassigned to a new judge in the Southern District for any remaining district-level proceedings, though the appellate record belongs to the Ninth Circuit. Born in Havana and arriving in the United States as a child after his family fled Cuba in 1960, Benitez brought a sharp originalist lens to post-Bruen litigation, and his detailed historical analyses were a template for pro-2A litigants across the circuit.

The Firearms Policy Coalition, which is a plaintiff or amicus in multiple California cases Benitez presided over, and the California Rifle and Pistol Association have not yet formally commented on how the retirement may affect ongoing litigation strategy. For gun-rights advocates, the open question is who inherits any district-court remand proceedings in Duncan and Miller — and whether that judge applies the same historical rigor. Watch the Supreme Court's certiorari calendar in the current term for a possible Duncan grant; a cert decision in either case could arrive before the Court's summer recess.

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