United States v. Sanders

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Decided: April 20, 2026
• Docket: 24-2221-cr
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

24-2221-cr United States v. Sanders

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT'S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION "SUMMARY ORDER"). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 20th day of April, two thousand twenty-six.

PRESENT: DENNY CHIN, EUNICE C. LEE, ALISON J. NATHAN, Circuit Judges. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee,

-v- 24-2221-cr

REGINALD SANDERS, Defendant-Appellant.

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FOR APPELLEE: Dylan A. Stern, Sean M. Sherman, Assistant United States Attorneys, for Joseph Nocella, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NY. FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT: Ashok Chandran, Daniel Habib, Federal Defenders of New York, Inc., New York, NY.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of

New York (Matsumoto, J.).

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

Defendant-Appellant Reginald Sanders appeals from a judgment entered

in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Matsumoto, J.)

convicting him, following his plea of guilty, of one count of unlawful possession of a

firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court

sentenced Sanders principally to a two-year term of supervised release and no

imprisonment. On appeal, Sanders argues that § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional both

facially and as applied to him in light of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen,

597 U.S. 1 (2022). We assume the parties' familiarity with the underlying facts, the

procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal, to which we refer only as

necessary to explain our decision to affirm.

As Sanders concedes in his supplemental brief, his constitutional

challenges are foreclosed by Zherka v. Bondi, 140 F.4th 68 (2d Cir. 2025), in which we

confirmed, following Bruen, that § 922(g)(1) remains constitutional on its face, as

applied to persons with prior felony convictions, and as applied to persons whose

predicate convictions occurred, as here, twelve years prior to the present offense. See id. 2 at 90, 92-93, 96; see also United States v. Simmons, 150 F.4th 126, 133 (2d Cir. 2025)

(reasoning that Zherka "upheld the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1), even though it places

no temporal limitation on the disarmament of felons"). Zherka and Simmons are thus

dispositive of the issues Sanders presents in this appeal.

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For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

FOR THE COURT: Catherine O'Hagan Wolfe, Clerk