United States v. Demetrius Cortez White

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Decided: May 22, 2026
• Docket: 25-1265
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 26a0229n.06

No. 25-1265

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT May 22, 2026 KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk ) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) Plaintiff-Appellee, ) ON APPEAL FROM THE ) v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT ) COURT FOR THE WESTERN ) DEMETRIUS CORTEZ WHITE, DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN ) Defendant-Appellant. ) OPINION )

Before: BATCHELDER, GRIFFIN, and MATHIS, Circuit Judges.

ALICE M. BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge. Demetrius White pleaded guilty to being a

felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) and reserved only his right

to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss his indictment. White now exercises

that right. As he argued before the district court, White alleges that § 922(g)(1) violates the Second

Amendment as applied to him. We affirm.

In 2014, White was convicted of felony domestic violence for punching his girlfriend in

the face. White was convicted of felony domestic violence again in 2016 after he “punch[ed] [the

same woman] all over the front of her body.” In addition to his two felony convictions, White also

has three misdemeanor convictions for domestic violence and a misdemeanor conviction for

aggravated assault.

On March 4, 2024, White posted on his Facebook account a video in which he had two

firearms in his waistband and was holding a bottle of liquor. Later that same day, with White’s No. 25-1265, United States v. White

consent, law enforcement searched White’s residence and found a handgun matching the

characteristics of one of the firearms shown in his Facebook video. A federal grand jury indicted

him on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1)

and 924(a)(8). White filed a motion to dismiss his indictment and argued that § 922(g)(1) violated

the Second Amendment as applied to him. The district court denied his motion.

The Second Amendment provides White, as an American citizen, with a presumptive right

to bear arms. But that right is not absolute, and Congress may “disarm people it believes are

dangerous, so long as members of that class have an opportunity to show they aren’t.” United

States v. Williams, 113 F.4th 637, 661–62 (6th Cir. 2024). Congress has chosen to disarm felons

through 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Id. at 662. So, for White to fall outside the permissible scope of

§ 922(g)(1) and prevail on his as-applied challenge, he must “demonstrate that he is not

dangerous.” Id. at 657. And in this appeal, White appears to argue that the district court should

have made individualized factual determinations regarding his dangerousness. But it is White’s

burden to prove that he is not dangerous, not the court’s job to prove that he is. See id. at 662.

We recently classified a defendant with three misdemeanor convictions for domestic

violence as a “serial perpetrator of domestic violence” and noted that “the recidivism rate for

domestic-violence offenders is high.” United States v. Gailes, 118 F.4th 822, 823-24, 829 (6th Cir.

2024). In addition to the three domestic-violence misdemeanors White has in common with the

defendant in Gailes, White also has two felony domestic-violence convictions and another

misdemeanor conviction for aggravated assault. Accordingly, applying the framework from

Williams and the reasoning in Gailes, the district court denied White’s as-applied challenge

because he had “not met his burden to show that he does not present a danger to society in general

or to specific individuals.”

2 No. 25-1265, United States v. White

After carefully reviewing the record, the law, and the parties’ briefs on appeal, we conclude

that the district court correctly set out the law and the facts, and that it did not err in applying the

law to those facts. The issuance of a full written opinion by this Court would serve no useful

purpose. For the reasons stated in the district court’s order, we AFFIRM.