Background
Randy Price was indicted for possessing a firearm with a removed, altered, or obliterated serial number, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(k), and possessing a firearm as a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). After the Supreme Court decided New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, Price moved to dismiss both charges on Second Amendment grounds. The district court dismissed the § 922(k) charge but allowed the § 922(g)(1) charge to proceed.
On the government’s first appeal, the en banc Fourth Circuit reinstated the § 922(k) charge, holding that the statute’s regulation of firearms with obliterated serial numbers did not violate the Second Amendment. On remand, Price pleaded guilty to both charges and received a total sentence of 97 months’ imprisonment. He appealed, challenging the constitutionality of both convictions while acknowledging that existing circuit precedent had resolved the issues against him.
The Court’s Holding
The Fourth Circuit affirmed Price’s criminal judgment in an unpublished per curiam opinion. The court held that its en banc decision in Price’s earlier appeal foreclosed his challenge to § 922(k). A circuit panel cannot overturn controlling circuit precedent absent contrary intervening authority from the en banc court or the Supreme Court.
The court also held that binding Fourth Circuit decisions foreclosed Price’s challenge to § 922(g)(1). United States v. Canada established that the felon-in-possession statute is facially constitutional, while United States v. Hunt rejected as-applied Second Amendment challenges to that statute. The panel therefore upheld both convictions without oral argument.
Key Takeaways
- The Fourth Circuit’s prior en banc ruling in Price’s own case controlled his renewed challenge to the federal ban on possessing firearms with obliterated serial numbers.
- Existing circuit precedent foreclosed both facial and as-applied Second Amendment challenges to the federal felon-in-possession statute.
- A three-judge panel remains bound by circuit precedent unless an intervening en banc or Supreme Court decision supplies contrary law.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces that, within the Fourth Circuit, Bruen-based challenges to 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(k) and 922(g)(1) cannot succeed before a panel when controlling circuit decisions have already upheld those provisions. Although unpublished and nonprecedential, the opinion illustrates how prior-precedent rules can dispose of renewed constitutional challenges without revisiting the historical analysis underlying the earlier decisions.
The panel also declined supplemental briefing based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Wolford v. Lopez, leaving the Fourth Circuit’s en banc ruling in Price undisturbed for purposes of this appeal.