United States v. Matthew England

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: October 31, 2025
• Docket: 25-4130
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

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UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 25-4130

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

MATTHEW HARRIS ENGLAND,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, at Beckley. Frank W. Volk, Chief District Judge. (5:23-cr-00093-1)

Submitted: September 25, 2025 Decided: October 31, 2025

Before QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judge, and TRAXLER and KEENAN, Senior Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ON BRIEF: Wesley P. Page, Federal Public Defender, Jonathan D. Byrne, Lex A. Coleman, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Lisa G. Johnston, Acting United States Attorney, Lesley Shamblin, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee.

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PER CURIAM:

In 2023, a federal grand jury charged Matthew Harris England with possession of a

firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(8) (Count 1),

and possession of an unregistered short-barreled shotgun, in violation of the National

Firearms Act (NFA), 26 U.S.C. §§ 5841, 5861(d), 5871 (Count 2). England moved to

dismiss the indictment, arguing that both charged counts violated the Second Amendment

in light of New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). After the

district court denied England’s motion, he pled guilty, without a plea agreement, to both

counts. The district court sentenced him to 20 months’ imprisonment, to be followed by

three years of supervised release. 1 On appeal, England reiterates his Second Amendment

challenges.

As a preliminary matter, the Government argues that by entering an unconditional

guilty plea, England waived the right to raise his as-applied constitutional challenges. “It

is the general rule that when a defendant pleads guilty, he waives all nonjurisdictional

defects in the proceedings conducted prior to entry of the plea, and thus has no non-

jurisdictional ground upon which to attack that judgment except the inadequacy of the

plea.” United States v. Lozano, 962 F.3d 773, 778 (4th Cir. 2020) (citation modified). But

in Class v. United States, 583 U.S. 174, 178 (2018), the Supreme Court made clear that a

1 England’s March 2025 release from prison does not render this appeal moot, as he is challenging his convictions—rather than his sentence—and because he still has to serve his supervised release term. See United States v. Ketter, 908 F.3d 61, 65-66 (4th Cir. 2018) (discussing applicability of mootness doctrine in criminal appeals).

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“guilty plea by itself [does not] bar[] a federal criminal defendant from challenging the

constitutionality of the statute of conviction on direct appeal.” This is so, the Court

explained, because such claims “challenge the Government’s power to criminalize [a

defendant’s] (admitted) conduct. They thereby call into question the Government’s power

to constitutionally prosecute him.” Id. at 181-82 (citation modified).

The parties disagree as to whether as-applied constitutional challenges fall within

the general rule, or within the Class exception. But because England concedes that his

claims fail on the merits, “we need not resolve that issue.” See United States v. Pittman,

125 F.4th 527, 531 (4th Cir. 2025) (observing that “it could be argued that [the defendant’s]

unconditional guilty plea . . . waived any as-applied constitutional challenges” but instead

reviewing claim—which defendant forfeited by failing to raise in the district court—under

applicable plain error standard).

Turning to the merits, “when reviewing the denial of a defendant’s motion to

dismiss an indictment, we review the district court’s legal conclusions de novo and its

factual findings for clear error.” United States v. Skinner, 70 F.4th 219, 223 (4th Cir. 2023)

(citation modified). Bruen instructs that “when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers

an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. The

government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the

Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” 597 U.S. at 24 (citation modified).

Thus, under Bruen’s two-step inquiry, the Court first “must ask whether the Second

Amendment’s plain text covers the conduct at issue. If not, that ends the inquiry: the

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Second Amendment does not apply.” United States v. Price, 111 F.4th 392, 398 (4th Cir.

2024) (en banc) (citation modified), cert. denied, 145 S. Ct. 1891 (2025).

England concedes that his challenges to Count 1 are foreclosed by United States v.

Canada, 123 F.4th 159 (4th Cir. 2024), and United States v. Hunt, 123 F.4th 697 (4th Cir.

2024). In Canada, we reaffirmed that § 922(g)(1) is facially constitutional. 123 F.4th at

160-62. In Hunt, “we conclude[d] that neither Bruen nor Rahimi[2] abrogates this Court’s

precedent foreclosing as-applied challenges to Section 922(g)(1)” and, in the alternative,

“that Section 922(g)(1) would pass constitutional muster even if we were unconstrained by

circuit precedent.” 123 F.4th at 702.

England further concedes that his challenges to Count 2 are resolved by United

States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), and Price, 111 F.4th 392. In Miller, the Supreme

Court considered a challenge to the constitutionality of § 5861(d)’s predecessor and

reasoned, “in the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a

‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some

reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we

cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an

instrument.” 307 U.S. at 178 (citation modified). The Court later interpreted this holding

in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), observing that “Miller stands . . .

for the proposition that the Second Amendment right, whatever its nature, extends only to

certain types of weapons,” id. at 623, and that “the Second Amendment does not protect

2 United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024).

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those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as

short-barreled shotguns,” id. at 625. And we are bound by Price, which affirmed that

“[n]othing in Bruen abrogated Heller’s extensive discussion of the contours of the scope

of the right enshrined in the Second Amendment.” 111 F.4th at 400.

The district court therefore properly denied England’s motion to dismiss the

indictment. Accordingly, we affirm the criminal judgment. We dispense with oral

argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials

before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED