United States v. John Woolsey, Jr.

759 F.3d 905, 2014 WL 3511810, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 13637
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedJuly 17, 2014
Docket13-3543
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 759 F.3d 905 (United States v. John Woolsey, Jr.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth 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. John Woolsey, Jr., 759 F.3d 905, 2014 WL 3511810, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 13637 (8th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

MELLOY, Circuit Judge.

A jury found John Harry Woolsey, Jr. guilty of two offenses: (1) being a felon in possession of a firearm, and (2) being a felon in possession of ammunition, both in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court 1 sentenced Woolsey to 84 months’ imprisonment. Woolsey appeals, arguing that his convictions are multiplici-tous and that § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. We affirm.

I.

On April 20, 2012, Deputy Michael Gav-ere found Eric Burley in Burley’s vehicle in Ardoch, North Dakota. Burley was injured from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and he later died from his injuries. During the investigation into Burley’s suicide, Deputy Gavere recovered a .22 caliber pistol and a box of ammunition from inside Burley’s vehicle. Deputy Gavere eventually learned that the gun and ammunition may have belonged to Woolsey.

Deputy Gavere contacted Woolsey, and Woolsey agreed to talk to him. Woolsey told Deputy Gavere that he purchased the gun a few years ago when he was living in Montana. He said he purchased the gun at a yard sale in Wyoming, and that at the time, he intended to use the gun to protect himself from bears because the noise could scare away a bear. Woolsey was friends with Burley, and sometimes they shot guns at targets, such as tin cans, together. Around December 2011, Woolsey gave Burley the gun with the expectation that Burley would return it once Burley acquired his own. Woolsey said he did not know what Burley intended to do with the *907 gun. At the time Woolsey gave it to Bur-ley, he also gave him a handful of bullets.

In early April 2012, Burley asked Wool-sey if he wanted to go shooting with him again. Burley asked Woolsey to bring ammunition. Burley told Woolsey he was out of bullets and did not know where to buy more. Woolsey gave him a box of ammunition that he said he bought at Wal-Mart. Roughly two weeks later, Burley killed himself using the gun and ammunition from Woolsey.

After initially speaking with Woolsey, Deputy Gavere learned that Woolsey was a convicted felon at the time Woolsey possessed the gun and ammunition. Woolsey has felony convictions for aggravated assault and resisting arrest from 2001, and a 2006 conviction for resisting arrest. Based on Deputy Gavere’s investigation, Woolsey was later indicted on two counts of being a felon in possession. Count One alleged that Woolsey unlawfully possessed a firearm “[i]n or between December 2011 and April 20, 2012, in the District of North Dakota.” Count Two alleged that Woolsey unlawfully possessed ammunition “[o]n or about April 19 and 20, 2012, in the District of North Dakota, and elsewhere.”

Prior to trial, Woolsey filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, alleging that the felon-in-possession statute violated the Second Amendment. The district court denied the motion. On August 21, 2013, a jury found Woolsey guilty of both § 922(g)(1) counts. The presentence report grouped both convictions into one group. See U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 3D1.2. The district court sentenced Woolsey to a below-guidelines sentence of 84 months’ imprisonment. The district court did not discuss at the sentencing hearing the fact that there were two counts of conviction. The district court also did not allocate the total sentence between the two counts.

II.

Woolsey appeals, arguing for the first time that the § 922(g)(1) counts are multi-plicitous and that, therefore, he should not have been convicted separately for possessing both the gun and the ammunition. He also renews his argument challenging the constitutionality of the felon-in-possession statute.

A. Multiplicitous Counts

Normally, this court would review de novo Woolsey’s claim that the counts were multiplicitous. See United States v. Platter, 514 F.3d 782, 785 (8th Cir.2008). However, Woolsey did not raise this claim before the district court, so we review for plain error only. See United States v. Pirani, 406 F.3d 543, 550 (8th Cir.2005) (en banc). For Woolsey to prevail, he “must show that the district court committed an error that is plain, ie. clear under current law, that he was prejudiced by the error, and that the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” United States v. Delgado, 653 F.3d 729, 735 (8th Cir.2011).

“The rule against multiplicitous prosecutions is based on the Fifth Amendment’s Double Jeopardy Clause, which ‘protects against multiple punishments for the same offense.’ ” United States v. Emly, 747 F.3d 974, 977 (8th Cir.2014) (citations omitted). When “an indictment includes more than one count charging the same statutory violation,” the court must determine “whether Congress intended the facts underlying each count to make up a separate unit of prosecution.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

Woolsey bases his claim on United States v. Richardson, 439 F.3d 421, 422 (8th Cir.2006) (en banc) (per curiam), which held that a defendant could not be prosecuted on separate counts for being a *908 felon in possession of a firearm and a drug user in possession of the same firearm. In Richardson, there was only one firearm, and the two counts charged the defendant with possessing the firearm on the same date. Id. The court concluded that “Congress intended the ‘allowable unit of prosecution’ to be an incident of possession regardless of whether a defendant satisfied more than one § 922(g) classification, possessed more than one firearm, or possessed a firearm and ammunition.” Id. (quoting Bell v. United States, 349 U.S. 81, 81, 75 S.Ct. 620, 99 L.Ed. 905 (1955)). The Richardson court vacated the defendant’s sentence and remanded to the district court to merge the counts of conviction into one and resentence the defendant based on only one conviction under § 922(g). Id. at 423.

Woolsey argues that plain error occurred here because he was charged, tried and convicted on two § 922(g) counts instead of one. Woolsey directs us to the fact that the dates he possessed the gun and ammunition overlapped in the indictment (December 2011 through April 20, 2012, and April 19-20, 2012, respectively). Woolsey argues the ‘multiplicitous’ indictment may have had a “psychological effect upon [the] jury by suggesting to it that [Woolsey] ha[d] committed not one but several crimes.” United States v. Sue, 586 F.2d 70, 71 (8th Cir.1978) (per curiam).

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Bluebook (online)
759 F.3d 905, 2014 WL 3511810, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 13637, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-john-woolsey-jr-ca8-2014.