Background
Missouri police found Eric Gaten with a firearm once in 2020 and twice in 2022. The government charged him with three counts of violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), which prohibits firearm possession by a person convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year of imprisonment.
Gaten moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that § 922(g)(1) violated the Second Amendment under New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen. He also argued that the statute violated the Fifth Amendment’s equal-protection guarantee because the underlying offense used to determine felon status may be classified differently across jurisdictions. The district court denied the motion, and Gaten pleaded guilty before appealing.
The Court’s Holding
The Eighth Circuit affirmed. It held that circuit precedent foreclosed Gaten’s Second Amendment challenge. United States v. Jackson rejected as-applied challenges requiring felony-by-felony analysis, while United States v. Cunningham upheld § 922(g)(1)’s longstanding prohibition on firearm possession by felons against a facial challenge.
The court also rejected Gaten’s Fifth Amendment argument. His guilty plea barred an as-applied equal-protection challenge, although his facial challenge survived the plea. That facial challenge failed because Gaten did not show that § 922(g)(1) was unconstitutional in every application. His theory concerned only offenses classified as felonies in some states but misdemeanors in others, while his own predicate conviction—selling cocaine base—was a felony in every state. Because the statute was constitutional as applied to Gaten, it survived his facial challenge.
Key Takeaways
- Eighth Circuit precedent forecloses both facial and felony-specific as-applied Second Amendment challenges to § 922(g)(1).
- A guilty plea bars an as-applied Fifth Amendment challenge to the statute but does not bar a facial challenge.
- A facial challenge fails when the statute has at least one constitutional application, including its application to the challenger’s own conduct.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the Eighth Circuit’s position that the federal felon-in-possession prohibition remains constitutional after Bruen and does not require individualized litigation based on the nature of each predicate felony.
It also illustrates the demanding standard for facial constitutional challenges: hypothetical disparities among state criminal classifications cannot invalidate § 922(g)(1) when the statute operates constitutionally in other circumstances, including the defendant’s own case.