February 04th, 2023

USA v. Rahimi

Docket: 21-11001
Opinion Date: February 2, 2023
Judge: Cory T. Wilson
Areas of Law: Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

Defendant brought a facial challenge to Section 922(g)(8). The district court and a prior panel upheld the statute, applying the Fifth Circuit’s pre-Bruen precedent. Defendant filed a petition for rehearing en banc; while the petition was pending, the Supreme Court decided Bruen. The prior panel withdrew its opinion and requested a supplemental briefing on the impact of that case on this one.
 
The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling and vacated Defendant’s conviction. The court held that Bruen requires the court to re-evaluate its Second Amendment jurisprudence and that under Bruen, Section 922(g)(8) fails to pass constitutional muster. The court explained that the Government failed to demonstrate that Section 922(g)(8)’s restriction of the Second Amendment right fits within the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The Government’s proffered analogues falter under one or both of the metrics the Supreme Court articulated in Bruen as the baseline for measuring “relevantly similar” analogues: “how and why the regulations burden a law-abiding citizen’s right to armed self-defense.” As a result, Section 922(g)(8) falls outside the class of firearm regulations countenanced by the Second Amendment.

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