The opinion
USCA11 Case: 24-10732 Document: 26-1 Date Filed: 12/13/2024 Page: 1 of 6
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 24-10732
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
DERRICK FITZGERALD DIAL,
Defendant-Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Alabama
D.C. Docket No. 1:23-cr-00146-JB-N-1
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 24-10732
Before JILL PRYOR, BRANCH, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Derrick Dial appeals his conviction for possessing a firearm
and ammunition as a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). He
challenges the constitutionality of the prohibition on felons pos-
sessing firearms and ammunition. After careful consideration, we
affirm.
I.
When police officers observed a vehicle driven by Dial com-
mit a traffic violation, they initiated a traffic stop. During the traffic
stop, the officers smelled marijuana. They searched the vehicle and
found a firearm and ammunition.
Dial, who had previous felony convictions, was charged
with being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of
18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). He moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing
that the statutory ban on the possession of firearms by felons vio-
lated the Second Amendment. After the district court denied the
motion to dismiss, Dial pleaded guilty. The court imposed a sen-
tence of 77 months’ imprisonment. This is Dial’s appeal.
II.
Ordinarily, when a defendant enters a valid guilty plea, he
waives any non-jurisdictional defects in the proceedings. United
States v. Brown, 752 F.3d 1344, 1347 (11th Cir. 2014). But Dial’s
guilty plea did not waive his constitutional challenge to the
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24-10732 Opinion of the Court 3
statutory prohibition on felons’ possession of firearms. See Class v.
United States, 583 U.S. 174, 181 (2018) (holding that a defendant
who pleaded guilty did not waive his Second Amendment chal-
lenge to a statute of conviction when the claim did not “contradict
the terms of the indictment or the written plea agreement”).
We review de novo the constitutionality of a statute. United
States v. Gruezo, 66 F.4th 1284, 1292 (11th Cir. 2023).
III.
Dial challenges the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1),
which generally prohibits individuals with felony convictions from
possessing firearms or ammunition. He argues that this prohibition
runs afoul of the Second Amendment, which states that: “A well
regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the
right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
U.S. Const. amend. II.
To assess the constitutionality of the prohibition on felons
possessing firearms, we begin with the Supreme Court’s decision
in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). In Heller, the
Court considered a Second Amendment challenge to a District of
Columbia law that barred the private possession of handguns in
homes. Id. at 635. After considering both the text and history of the
Second Amendment, the Court concluded that it conferred on an
individual a right to keep and bear arms. Id. at 595. The Court held
that the ban on handgun possession in the home violated the Sec-
ond Amendment. Id. at 635. But the Court acknowledged that the
Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was “not
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4 Opinion of the Court 24-10732
unlimited,” emphasizing that “nothing in [its] opinion should be
taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession
of firearms by felons and the mentally ill.” Id. at 626. Indeed, the
Court labeled such restrictions as “presumptively lawful.” Id. at 627
n.26.
After Heller, we considered a constitutional challenge to
§ 922(g)(1)’s prohibition on felons’ possession of firearms. See
United States v. Rozier, 598 F.3d 768, 770 (11th Cir. 2010). We held
that “statutes disqualifying felons from possessing a firearm under
any and all circumstances do not offend the Second Amendment.”
Id. at 771.
Several years later, the Supreme Court considered a Second
Amendment challenge to New York’s gun-licensing regime that
limited when a law-abiding citizen could obtain a license to carry a
firearm outside the home. See N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen,
597 U.S. 1, 11 (2022). The Court recognized that “the Second and
Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a
handgun for self-defense outside the home.” Id. at 10. The Court
explained that to determine whether a restriction on firearms was
constitutional, a court must begin by asking whether the firearm
regulation at issue governs conduct that falls within the plain text
of the Second Amendment. Id. at 17. If the regulation does cover
such conduct, the court may uphold it only if the government “af-
firmatively prove[s] that its firearms regulation is part of the histor-
ical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and
bear arms.” Id. at 19. Bruen emphasized that Heller established the
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correct test for determining the constitutionality of gun re-
strictions. See id. at 26. And, like Heller, Bruen described Second
Amendment rights as extending only to “law-abiding, responsible
citizens.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
Based on Bruen, Dial argues that § 922(g)(1)’s prohibition on
felons’ possession of firearms is unconstitutional because the stat-
ute “flunks Bruen’s text-and-history test.” Appellant’s Br. 8. His ar-
gument is foreclosed by precedent.
After Bruen, we considered another Second Amendment
challenge to § 922(g)(1). See United States v. Dubois, 94 F.4th 1284,
1289 (11th Cir. 2024). We held that the challenge was foreclosed by
Rozier, which “interpreted Heller as limiting the [Second Amend-
ment] right to law-abiding and qualified individuals and as clearly
excluding felons from those categories by referring to felon-in-pos-
session bans as presumptively lawful.” Id. at 1293 (internal quota-
tion marks omitted). We concluded that Bruen did not abrogate our
decision in Rozier, observing that even in Bruen the Supreme Court
continued to describe the right to bear arms as extending only to
“law-abiding, responsible citizens.” Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted).
The Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v.
Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024), does not change our analysis. In
Rahimi, the Court considered a Second Amendment challenge to
the federal statute that prohibits an individual who is subject to a
domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm
when the order includes a finding that he represents a credible
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6 Opinion of the Court 24-10732
threat to the safety of an intimate partner or a child of that partner
or individual. See id. at 693 (citing 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8)). The Court
held that this firearm restriction was constitutional. Id. And it once
again declared that the prohibition on “the possession of firearms
by ‘felons’ . . . [is] ‘presumptively lawful.’” Id. at 699 (quoting Heller,
554 U.S. at 626, 627 n.26).
Rahimi does not displace our holding in Dubois that Bruen did
not abrogate Rozier. Under our prior panel precedent rule, an “in-
tervening Supreme Court decision abrogates our precedent only if
the intervening decision is both clearly on point and clearly con-
trary to our earlier decision.” Dubois, 94 F.4th at 1293 (internal quo-
tation marks omitted). “If the Supreme Court never discussed our
precedent and did not otherwise comment on the precise issue be-
fore the prior panel, our precedent remains binding.” Id. (alteration
adopted) (internal quotation marks omitted). Rahimi did not in-
volve § 922(g)(1) nor did it otherwise comment on the precise issue
before us in Rozier. Moreover, in Rahimi, the Supreme Court once
again reiterated, albeit in dicta, that the prohibition “on the posses-
sion of firearms by felons . . . [is] presumptively lawful.” 602 U.S. at
699 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Under our precedent, Dial’s Second Amendment challenge
to § 922(g)(1) fails. We affirm his conviction.
AFFIRMED.