Firearm Offenses

In a Fourth Amendment case, the Tenth Circuit answered two questions: is an exterior motel walkway “curtilage,” and can an officer peek through a one-inch gap in window curtains without intruding on one’s reasonable expectation of privacy? In affirming the defendant’s conviction, the panel held that neither violated the Fourth Amendment, a holding that the dissent criticized as “expanding permissible surveillance and eroding privacy.”

The Ninth Circuit vacated a felon-in-possession sentence after holding that Oregon’s aggravated unlawful use of a weapon statute does not qualify as a “crime of violence” under the Guidelines.

This case raises the question: When does the “felon-in-possession” statute not apply to felons? The Eleventh Circuit held that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) applies only to prior felonies punishable by over one year of actual imprisonment, not probation or other consequences, and it vacated the defendant’s conviction for an Alabama Class D felony where the defendant was not subject to any actual prison time based on his specific circumstances. While the statute of conviction authorized over a year of prison for some defendants in certain cases, the panel held that courts considering a prior conviction under 922(g)(1) must apply a “defendant-specific” interpretation and not an “offense-specific” one.

The Seventh Circuit upheld Illinois’s ban on guns in public transit under Bruen, finding it consistent with a historical tradition of restricting firearms in sensitive, crowded places. The court emphasized characteristics of the ban supporting application of the “sensitive places doctrine,” such as the density of the place, the presence of vulnerable populations (namely, children), the furthering of important societal interests, and government control of the space.

The Second Circuit affirmed a conviction for receiving firearms purchased out of state, rejecting a Second Amendment challenge to 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(3), which prohibits the interstate transport of firearms. The Court held the statute regulates the mode of acquiring firearms and does not meaningfully burden the right to keep and bear arms, and, in any event, it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition under Bruen.

The Eleventh Circuit reversed the dismissal of a civil complaint brought by a group of medical marijuana users in Florida challenging 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), which prohibits firearm possession by unlawful users of controlled substances. The Court held that the Government had not established that disarming state-lawful medical marijuana users is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulations under Bruen.

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the suppression of evidence obtained pursuant to a search warrant for the defendant’s girlfriend’s home. The Court reasoned that the search warrant affidavit, which merely alleged that the defendant had brandished a gun at a Waffle House and was at his girlfriend’s apartment on another date, was “bare bones,” “rested on little more than conjecture,” and amounted to “a hunch dressed in paperwork.” Notably, the Court further held that the affidavit was so lacking in probable cause that the good faith exception did not apply.

The Tenth Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of an indictment charging a defendant with possession of a firearm as an unlawful drug user. Applying the Supreme Court’s refined standard for Second Amendment claims under Rahimi, the Court remanded for further fact-finding by the district court to determine whether non-intoxicated marijuana users, like the defendant, pose a sufficient risk of future danger so as to justify 18 USC 922(g)(3).

In a 7-2 opinion, the Supreme Court affirmed a § 924(c) conviction, holding that state murder statutes encompassing omissions or a failure to act necessarily involve the “use of physical force” within the meaning of the statute.

In a 6-3 opinion, the majority reinforced that a petitioner cannot file a second or subsequent motion to vacate a sentence under 28 USC 2255 unless they can show “newly discovered evidence” or a “new rule of constitutional law.” Even though a majority of circuits had held that the “savings clause” under 2255(e) creates an additional exception when the available options are “inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention,” the Court held that this exception did not apply to second or subsequent motions.