United States v. Basilio Amaury Bron, Jr.

709 F. App'x 551
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedSeptember 18, 2017
Docket16-11929 Non-Argument Calendar
StatusUnpublished

This text of 709 F. App'x 551 (United States v. Basilio Amaury Bron, Jr.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Basilio Amaury Bron, Jr., 709 F. App'x 551 (11th Cir. 2017).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

After a bench trial, Basilio Bron, Jr., appeals his conviction and 87-month sentence of imprisonment for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). On appeal, Bron challenges the constitutionality of his § 922(g) conviction and the sufficiency of the evidence to support it. Bron also argues that the district court erred in concluding that his Florida felony battery conviction was a crime of violence for purposes of the Sentencing Guidelines. After careful review, we affirm.

I.

Bron first argues that the district court erred in refusing to dismiss the indictment on the ground that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) exceeds Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. And based on his interpretation of what § 922(g)(1) requires, he maintains that the government failed to produce sufficient evidence to support his conviction. Bron’s arguments are foreclosed by circuit precedent.

Bron appears to concede that § 922(g)(1) is facially constitutional. Indeed, “[w]e have repeatedly held that Section 922(g)(1) is not a facially unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause because it contains an express jurisdictional requirement.” United States v. Jordan, 635 F.3d 1181, 1189 (11th Cir. 2011); see also United States v. Scott, 263 F.3d 1270, 1273-74 (11th Cir. 2001); United States v. McAllister, 77 F.3d 387, 390 (11th Cir. 1996). Specifically, § 922(g)(1) makes it unlawful for a convicted felon to, among other things, “possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition.” 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (emphasis added).

Instead, Bron maintains that § 922(g)(1), even if facially constitutional, cannot constitutionally be applied to purely intrastate possession of a firearm without a showing of a substantial effect on interstate commerce. But we rejected this same argument in McAllister following the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995). Specifically, we disagreed with a defendant’s contention that Lopez rendered § 922(g)(1) “unconstitutional as applied to him because the government did not demonstrate how his purely intrastate possession affected interstate commerce.” See McAllister, 77 F.3d at 389-90.

We explained in McAllister that § 922(g) was “an attempt to regulate guns that have a connection to interstate commerce,” in contrast to the statute at issue in Lopez, which was “not an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity, in which the regulatory scheme could be undercut unless the intrastate activity were regulated.” Id. at 390 (quoting Lopez, 514 U.S. at 561, 115 S.Ct. 1624). As a result, § 922(g) could be upheld, as the statute in Lopez could not, under case law upholding the regulation of activities connected to interstate commerce that, in the aggregate, substantially affect interstate commerce: “When viewed in the aggregate, a law prohibiting the possession of a gun by a felon stems the flow of guns in interstate commerce to criminals.” Id. And we found no basis to depart from the “minimal nexus” requirement established by the Court in Scarborough v. United States, 431 U.S. 563, 575, 97 S.Ct. 1963, 52 L.Ed.2d 582 (1977), for the predecessor statute to § 922(g). Id.

In short, McAllister held that a defendant’s § 922(g)(1) conviction is constitutionally valid so long as the firearm possessed has a “minimal nexus” to interstate commerce. Id. That interstate nexus requirement is satisfied by a showing that the gun previously “travel[]ed in interstate commerce.” Id. No individualized showing of a “substantial” effect on interstate commerce is necessary. See id.

No intervening Supreme Court decision has overruled or abrogated the holding of McAllister. See United States v. Archer, 531 F.3d 1347, 1352 (11th Cir. 2008) (stating that the holding of a prior panel is binding “unless and until it is overruled or undermined to the point of abrogation by the Supreme Court or this court sitting en band’). Bron cites the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 120 S.Ct. 1740, 146 L.Ed.2d 658 (2000), but we have rejected the argument that Morrison abrogated McAllister. Scott, 263 F.3d at 1273; United States v. Dupree, 258 F.3d 1258, 1259-60 (11th Cir. 2001). In Scott, we “reaffirm[ed] McAllisters holding that as long as the weapon in question has a ‘minimal nexus’ to interstate commerce, § 922(g)(1) is constitutional.” 263 F.3d at 1274; see also Jordan, 635 F.3d at 1189-90 (noting, in 2011, that McAllister and Scott “have not been overruled by the en banc Court or by the Supreme Court”).

Bron also relies on the Supreme Court’s decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519, 132 S.Ct. 2566, 183 L.Ed.2d 450 (2012), but Sebelius did not overrule or abrogate the holdings of McAllister and Scott. Sebelius involved, in relevant part, a challenge to the “individual mandate” portion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. No. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119 (2010). See Sebelius, 567 U.S. at 547-58, 132 S.Ct. 2566. Sebelius did not address the constitutionality of § 922(g), nor did it express an intention to overrule the precedents on which our cases relied in finding § 922(g) constitutional as applied to conduct like Bron’s. As a result, Sebelius is not “clearly on point” for purposes of the prior-precedent rule. See United States v. Kaley, 579 F.3d 1246, 1255 (11th Cir. 2009).

2042663667And we have since confirmed, in the context of a similar challenge to the application of § 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) to purely intrastate production of child pornography, that “the Supreme Court in Sebelius said nothing to abrogate its holding in [Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 125 S.Ct. 2195, 162 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005) ] to the effect that Congress has the power, as part of a comprehensive regulation of economic activity, to regulate purely local activities that are part of an economic ‘class of activities’ that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.” United States v. Parton, 749 F.3d 1329, 1331 (11th Cir. 2014).

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Related

United States v. Jackson
57 F.3d 1012 (Eleventh Circuit, 1995)
United States v. McAllister
77 F.3d 387 (Eleventh Circuit, 1996)
United States v. Myron Dupree
258 F.3d 1258 (Eleventh Circuit, 2001)
United States v. William Andrew Scott
263 F.3d 1270 (Eleventh Circuit, 2001)
United States v. Archer
531 F.3d 1347 (Eleventh Circuit, 2008)
United States v. Kaley
579 F.3d 1246 (Eleventh Circuit, 2009)
Scarborough v. United States
431 U.S. 563 (Supreme Court, 1977)
United States v. Lopez
514 U.S. 549 (Supreme Court, 1995)
United States v. Morrison
529 U.S. 598 (Supreme Court, 2000)
United States v. Palomino Garcia
606 F.3d 1317 (Eleventh Circuit, 2010)
United States v. Jordan
635 F.3d 1181 (Eleventh Circuit, 2011)
Gonzales v. Raich
545 U.S. 1 (Supreme Court, 2005)
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius
132 S. Ct. 2566 (Supreme Court, 2012)
United States v. Mario Estrella
758 F.3d 1239 (Eleventh Circuit, 2014)
United States v. Raymond Edward Braun
801 F.3d 1301 (Eleventh Circuit, 2015)
United States v. Calvin Matchett
802 F.3d 1185 (Eleventh Circuit, 2015)
United States v. Joshua Ray Parton
749 F.3d 1329 (Eleventh Circuit, 2014)
United States v. Eddy Wilmer Vail-Bailon
868 F.3d 1293 (Eleventh Circuit, 2017)
Beckles v. United States
580 U.S. 256 (Supreme Court, 2017)

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Bluebook (online)
709 F. App'x 551, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-basilio-amaury-bron-jr-ca11-2017.