# United States v. James Anthony Brian Morelock

> Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit · January 10, 2025

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10778355

## Case

- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
- **Decided:** January 10, 2025
- **Precedential status:** Unpublished
- **Opinion:** Opinion
- **Nature of suit:** NEW
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10778355

## Opinion text

USCA11 Case: 22-13439 Document: 49-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2025 Page: 1 of 8

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 22-13439
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________

JAMES ANTHONY BRIAN MORELOCK,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cr-00211-AT-CMS-1
____________________
USCA11 Case: 22-13439 Document: 49-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2025 Page: 2 of 8

2 Opinion of the Court 22-13439

Before GRANT, LUCK, and WILSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
In 2019, federal agents executed a search warrant at James
Morelock’s residence and found a stockpile of firearms. All told,
agents discovered nine handguns, nine rifles, and four shotguns.
And that is to say nothing of the four sets of body armor and gun
silencer they also found. This discovery was a problem for
Morelock because, as a felon, he cannot possess a firearm. See 18
U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).
At his bench trial, Morelock admitted that he knowingly
possessed firearms at his residence. But he insisted that the statute
prohibiting him from doing so, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), is
unconstitutional. The district court disagreed and found him
guilty. It sentenced Morelock to a year and a day in prison—a fifty-
one-month downward variance from the Sentencing Guidelines—
followed by three years of supervised release.
Morelock now appeals his conviction and sentence, making
three arguments along the way. First, that § 922(g)(1) is
unconstitutional as applied to him. Second, that his prior conviction
for attempted armed bank robbery and kidnapping is not a “crime
of violence” under the Sentencing Guidelines. Third, and finally,
that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress the
evidence found at his home.
USCA11 Case: 22-13439 Document: 49-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2025 Page: 3 of 8

22-13439 Opinion of the Court 3

We are unpersuaded. Because Morelock’s first two
arguments are foreclosed by our precedents and his third is
unsupported by the record, we affirm his conviction and sentence.
I.
In the fall of 1996, James Morelock and his co-conspirators
broke into a family’s home and held them hostage at gunpoint.
Clad in military-style fatigues, combat boots, and plastic masks,
Morelock’s crew told one of the hostages that if she did not help
them rob a bank, they would kill her family. This threat was
credible given that the intruders were armed with two pistols, a
sawed-off shotgun, and (for good measure) an Uzi-style machine
gun with a silencer. Once the would-be robbers arrived at the bank,
however, they changed their mind and decided not to commit the
heist after all. For this Morelock was convicted of attempted armed
bank robbery with kidnapping. See 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a), (d), (e). He
was released from prison in late 2010.
About a decade later, an anonymous informant submitted
an online tip to the FBI warning that Morelock “might be up to
something again.” She explained that Morelock had shown her
multiple firearms and “SWAT-style” body armor.
When federal investigators followed up with the online
tipster, she denied making the tip. But she did identify a relative of
Morelock’s for investigators to question. And that relative
corroborated the online tip, telling investigators that he was
confident Morelock had body armor and several firearms in his
USCA11 Case: 22-13439 Document: 49-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2025 Page: 4 of 8

4 Opinion of the Court 22-13439

possession. The relative said that he saw Morelock “physically
possess” the guns less than four months ago.
A few weeks later, federal investigators interviewed another
one of Morelock’s relatives. This relative also corroborated the
online tip. Based on “firsthand knowledge,” he believed that
Morelock was in possession of body armor and multiple firearms
as recently as a month ago.
Two days after agents interviewed this second relative, they
executed a search warrant at Morelock’s residence. The search was
fruitful. Agents discovered (among other things) twenty-two
firearms, four sets of body armor, and a silencer. Morelock moved
to suppress this evidence, arguing that the affidavit was flawed.
The magistrate judge denied the motion.
At trial, Morelock conceded that he possessed firearms but
contended that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional. The
district court rejected that argument and found him guilty.
Morelock now appeals his conviction and sentence.
II.
Several standards of review govern this appeal. We review
the constitutionality of a statute de novo. United States v. Bolatete,
977 F.3d 1022, 1032 (11th Cir. 2020). Whether an offense qualifies
as a “crime of violence” under the Sentencing Guidelines is also a
question that we review de novo. United States v. Estrada, 777 F.3d
1318, 1321 (11th Cir. 2015) (per curiam). In evaluating the district
court’s denial of Morelock’s motion to suppress, we “review the
USCA11 Case: 22-13439 Document: 49-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2025 Page: 5 of 8

22-13439 Opinion of the Court 5

district court’s findings of fact under the clearly erroneous standard
and its application of law to those facts de novo.” United States v.
Morley, 99 F.4th 1328, 1336 (11th Cir. 2024). And we generally
review a district court’s denial of an evidentiary hearing for abuse
of discretion. United States v. Barsoum, 763 F.3d 1321, 1328 (11th Cir.
2014).
III.
Morelock raises three arguments on appeal. None is
persuasive.
First, Morelock argues that § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional
after the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol
Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). But we rejected this very argument
in United States v. Dubois, 94 F.4th 1284 (11th Cir. 2024). There, we
explained that our precedents upholding the constitutionality of
§ 922(g)(1) remain good law after Bruen. See Dubois, 94 F.4th at
1291–93. So Morelock cannot prevail on this ground.
Second, Morelock contends that his prior conviction for
attempted armed bank robbery with kidnapping in violation of 18
U.S.C. § 2113(a), (d), and (e) is not a “crime of violence” under the
Sentencing Guidelines. He patterns his challenge on United States
v. Taylor, which clarified that attempted Hobbs Act robbery does
not qualify as a crime of violence. See 596 U.S. 845, 851–52 (2022).
Again, our precedent forecloses this argument.
We recently explained that attempted bank robbery under
§ 2113(a) is a crime of violence because “it requires as an element
that the defendant acted ‘by force and violence, or by intimidation’
USCA11 Case: 22-13439 Document: 49-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2025 Page: 6 of 8

6 Opinion of the Court 22-13439

in committing the inchoate crime.” United States v. Armstrong, 122
F.4th 1278, 1291 (11th Cir. 2024) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a)). We
pointed out that the Hobbs Act is “structured differently” than
§ 2113(a) because it “does not require any actual or threatened
force to sustain a conviction.” Id. at 1289. While “a criminal can
commit an attempted Hobbs Act robbery without actually using
force or violence,” that is not the case for an attempted bank
robbery under § 2113(a). See id. at 1290 (citing Taylor, 596 U.S. at
851–52). That is because § 2113(a) criminalizes “only attempts that
occur ‘by force and violence, or by intimidation.’” Id.
Third, and finally, Morelock maintains that the district court
should have granted his motion to suppress the evidence obtained
from his home. He contends that the federal agent’s affidavit was
faulty, which means that the search warrant was not supported by
probable cause. Morelock also adds that, at the very least, the court
should have ordered a hearing to “assess material omissions from
the affidavit.”
Not so. Probable cause for a search warrant exists if, “given
all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit, there is a fair
probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in
a particular place.” United States v. Trader, 981 F.3d 961, 969 (11th
Cir. 2020) (alteration adopted and quotation omitted). Given the
circumstances here, the district court correctly found that the
government’s affidavit established a “fair probability” that there
were firearms at Morelock’s home. See id.
USCA11 Case: 22-13439 Document: 49-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2025 Page: 7 of 8

22-13439 Opinion of the Court 7

The government’s affidavit was supported by three separate
informants. To begin, an anonymous informant submitted a tip
through the FBI website stating that Morelock had shown her
firearms and body armor that he kept at his home. When federal
agents tried to follow up with this online informant, she denied
ever making the tip. But she did identify one of Morelock’s
relatives for agents to interview. And that relative confirmed that
he had personally seen Morelock clean three firearms in his home
within the last several months. Federal agents received further
corroboration when another one of Morelock’s relatives told them
that Morelock kept firearms and body armor in his home. This
second relative reported firsthand knowledge that there were
firearms in Morelock’s residence as recently as a month before the
statement. The two relatives offered matching descriptions of the
firearms and body armor inside the residence.
These tips provided enough detailed, verifiable information
to establish a fair probability that there were firearms in Morelock’s
home. See United States v. Martin, 297 F.3d 1308, 1314–15 (11th Cir.
2002). And the information in the tips was not stale—two firsthand
observations of Morelock possessing firearms in his home are
sufficient to establish probable cause that he would still be in
possession of those firearms a few months later. See United States
v. Anton, 546 F.3d 1355, 1358 (11th Cir. 2008).
Finally, the district court did not err in finding that Morelock
failed to make a “substantial preliminary showing” that the
government intentionally or recklessly omitted material
USCA11 Case: 22-13439 Document: 49-1 Date Filed: 01/10/2025 Page: 8 of 8

8 Opinion of the Court 22-13439

information from its affidavit. See Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154,
155–56 (1978). Morelock first argues that the affidavit should have
disclosed that “multiple people who could legally possess firearms”
lived with him at the home. It did. The affidavit stated that
Morelock resided “with his wife, children, and brother.”
Morelock adds that the affidavit should have also mentioned
that the two relatives who spoke with federal agents were, in fact,
relatives of his half-brother, and that this half-brother was locked
in a dispute with Morelock’s father over ownership of Morelock’s
residence. As a result, Morelock says, these informants had an
“obvious motive to fabricate accusations against the current
occupants of the house.” But he provides zero evidence that
federal agents knew or should have known of this family feud. And
without such knowledge, that information could not have been
intentionally or recklessly omitted from the affidavit.
* * *
We AFFIRM Morelock’s conviction and sentence.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10778355. Public record. Not legal advice.