United States v. Isaac

• Decision Date: 31 January 2023
• Docket Number: 5:22-cr-117-LCB-HNJ-1
• Parties: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. DONALD THEODORE ISAAC
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Alabama

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. DONALD THEODORE ISAAC

No. 5:22-cr-117-LCB-HNJ-1

United States District Court, N.D. Alabama, Northeastern Division

January 31, 2023

OPINION & ORDER

LILES C. BURKE UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Before the Court is Defendant Donald Isaac's Motion to dismiss Counts II and III of the Superseding Indictment.^[1]In sum Defendant argues that 18 U.S.C. §§ 924(c)(1)(A) and 922(g)(1) are unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court's decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 142 S.Ct. 2111 (2022). For the forthcoming reasons, the Court DENIES Defendant's Motion in full.

I. BACKGROUND

Defendant is a convicted felon.^[2] For conduct on or about December 9 2021, the three-count Superseding Indictment charges him with the following: Possession of a controlled substance with the intent to distribute, pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(B) (Count I); possession of a firearm in connection with Count I, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A) (Count II); and possession of that same firearm in light of his then- and now-existing status as a convicted felon pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (Count III). (Doc. 23 at 1-5.)

Count I is not the subject of Defendant's Motion, which instead addresses Counts II and III the firearm charges and claims they should be dismissed on Second Amendment grounds.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

Rule 12(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure permits a defendant to request pre-trial dismissal of charges where there exists “a defect in the indictment,” such as “an infirmity of law in the prosecution.” United States v. Torkington, 812 F.2d 1347, 1354 (11th Cir. 1987). “It is obvious that the primary and important question in all the cases is the constitutionality of the law; for if the law is unconstitutional none of the prosecutions can stand.” The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 8-9 (1883). If a defendant is charged with violating a law that proves unconstitutional, then the indictment is defective, and the charge must be dismissed.^[3]

A district court's review of an indictment upon motion to dismiss is not “a pre-trial determination of sufficiency of the evidence.” United States v. Critzer, 951 F.2d 306, 307 (11th Cir. 1992) (per curiam). Instead, a court looks to the face of an indictment to determine its sufficiency. Id. Accordingly, today's Order speaks nothing at all of the Government's ability to present evidence sufficient of proving its case against Defendant. The sole issue before the Court is the constitutionality of the statutes upon which Counts II and III rest.

III. DISCUSSION

Defendant contends that an unqualified prohibition on firearm possession for felons, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and a prohibition on firearm usage in connection with drug-trafficking offenses, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1), run afoul of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.^[4]In support, Defendant argues that the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in Bruen “demands a fresh look” at those statutes and that this Court must review them anew, “under Bruen's originalist framework.” (Doc. 16 at 7.) Applying that framework, Defendant contends, the Court should find the statutes unconstitutional. Needless to say, this Court does not share Defendant's fantastical reading of Bruen.

A. Section 922(g)(1) is not unconstitutional.

“[I]t has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment . . . codified a pre-existing right,” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 592 (2008), namely, the right “to keep and bear arms,” U.S. CONST. amend. II. But that right, like most others, “is not unlimited.” Heller, 554 U.S. at 626.

In Heller, “the biggest Second Amendment case ever decided,”^[5]the Supreme Court conducted extensive^[6]historical analysis and recognized, in general terms, that the right to possess a firearm for lawful purposes extends to individuals (and is not tied to militia service). Because Heller was “the Court's first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment,” the opinion was not intended to “clarify the entire field.” Id. at 626, 635. The Court did, however, illuminate the opinion's bounds by providing an illustrative list of commonplace firearm regulations that presumptively do not offend the Constitution, including “longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons.” Id. at 626 (declaring that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on” those regulations). With respect to gun-violence concerns, the Court reiterated that “[t]he Constitution leaves the [government] a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns,” again citing the aforementioned examples of constitutionally proper regulations. Id. at 636.

In Heller's wake, a variety of constitutional challenges arose in federal courts nationwide, and appellate panels were resultingly tasked with applying a newly minted jurisprudential framework to regulations unaddressed the Supreme Court's first groundbreaking Second Amendment case.^[7]Some questions, however, were left far less amenable to reasonable disagreement particularly the question of § 922(g)(1)'s viability.^[8]

In United States v. Rozier, for example, the Eleventh Circuit held that “statutes disqualifying felons from possessing a firearm under any and all circumstances do not offend the Second Amendment.” 598 F.3d 768, 770-71 (11th Cir. 2010) (per curiam) (upholding § 922(g)(1)). The decision relied substantially on Heller's statement^[9] that nothing therein “should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons.” Id. at 771 (quoting 554 U.S. at 626-27) In addition, the court reasoned that when the controversy presented in Heller was actually decided, the Supreme Court conditioned relief on the presumption that Heller was “not disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights.” Id. at 770-71 (quoting 554 U.S. at 635).

That decision binds this Court absent some convincing indication that its precedential impact has been extinguished. As is true for any published Eleventh Circuit decision, this Court is powerless to overlook Rozier's unequivocal instruction without subsequent direction from the Supreme Court (or the Eleventh Circuit en banc) either expressly overruling Rozier or undermining it to the point of abrogation. In re Lambrix, 776 F.3d 789, 794 (11th Cir. 2015) (quoting United States v. Archer, 531 F.3d 1347, 1352 (11th Cir. 2008)). To abrogate precedent without expressly doing so, a “decision must be clearly on point.” Archer, 531 F.3d at 1352 (emphasis added) (quoting Garrett v. Bd. of Trustees, 344 F.3d 1288, 1292 (11th Cir. 2003)). If the subsequent Supreme Court (or en banc) decision does not “directly conflict with, as opposed to merely weaken, the holding of the prior panel,” the panel's decision has not been abrogated. United States v. Kaley, 579 F.3d 1246, 1255 (11th Cir. 2009); see also Smith v. GTE Corp., 236 F.3d 1292, 1303 (11th Cir. 2001) (noting that no “perceived defect in the prior panel's reasoning or analysis as it relates to the law in existence at that time” is sufficient grounds for casting the holding aside).^[10]

On the abrogation front, Defendant cites New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 142 S.Ct. 2111 (2022). In sum, he alleges that Rozier is irreconcilable with Bruen and, accordingly, that the Court's constitutional review of § 922(g)(1) is unaided by Rozier. (Doc. 22 at 1, 14.) Defendant's argument is fatally flawed.

To begin, the Rozier court's post-Heller determination of § 922(g)(1)'s validity remains binding in this Circuit because Bruen is not clearly on point with respect to Rozier, so the prior panel rule renders this Court powerless to set Rozier aside. The Bruen claimant was a law-abiding citizen with grievances about the state's restriction of his ability exercise rights protected by the Second Amendment. Bruen, 142 S.Ct. at 2156 (“New York's proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary selfdefense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms.” (emphasis added)). Nothing about Congress's ability to keep firearms out of the hands of felons was decided or otherwise disturbed. id. at 2157 (Alito, J., concurring) (“[T]oday's decision therefore holds that a State may not enforce a law . . . that effectively prevents its law-abiding residents from carrying a gun for [a lawful] purpose. That is all we decide.”); see also United States v. Williams, 2022 WL 17852517, at *2 (N.D.Ga. Dec. 22, 2022) (“At issue in Bruen were the Second Amendment rights of ‘law-abiding citizens'”); United States v. Burgess, 2023 WL 179886, at *5 (6th Cir. Jan. 13, 2023) (discussing separate but related issues). In Justice Alito's words, Bruen changed “nothing about who may lawfully possess a firearm.” Id. at 2157-59 (Alito, J., concurring) (“I reiterate: All that we decide in this case is that the Second Amendment protects the right of law-abiding people to carry a gun outside the home for self-defense.” (emphasis added)). “It is axiomatic that a felon is not a law-abiding citizen,” so “the Bruen decision is not ‘clearly on point.'” Williams, 2022 WL 17852517, at *2 (“Accordingly, the Court concludes that Rozier remains controlling precedent in this circuit.”).

Other recent decisions in this Circuit have also rejected Second Amendment challenges to §922(g)(1), expressly finding that Rozier is not irreconcilably inconsistent with Bruen's subsequent instruction.^[11]And that disposition is not particularly unique: “Federal Courts nationwide have rejected similar facial constitutional challenges to the felon-in-possession statute.”^[12]

Moreover Bruen expressly sought to clarify the...