Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca11-23-11604/USCOURTS-ca11-23-11604-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Lorenzo Garod Pierre
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 23-11604

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

LORENZO GAROD PIERRE, 

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 1:22-cr-20321-JEM-1

____________________

USCA11 Case: 23-11604 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 12/10/2024 Page: 1 of 10
2 Opinion of the Court 23-11604

ON REMAND FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE 

UNITED STATES

Before NEWSOM, ABUDU, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

We previously affirmed Lorenzo Pierre’s conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), rejecting his argument that § 922(g)(1) was unconstitutional as applied to 

his case in light of N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 

(2022). United States v. Pierre, No. 23-11604, 2024 WL 1070655

(“Pierre I”), at *1 (11th Cir.) (unpublished), vacated, __U.S.__, 2024 

WL 4529801 (“Pierre II”), at *1 (Oct. 21, 2024) (mem.). In doing so, 

we concluded that Pierre’s argument was foreclosed by United 

States v. Dubois, 94 F.4th 1284, 1293 (11th Cir. 2024), which held that 

our prior precedent in United States v. Rozier, 598 F.3d 768 (11th Cir. 

2010) (upholding the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1) in all circumstances) “remain[ed] good law.” Pierre I, 2024 WL 1070655, at *1. 

In October 2024, the Supreme Court granted Pierre’s petition for a writ of certiorari, vacated our judgment, and remanded 

the case for further consideration in light of United Statesv. Rahimi, 

602 U.S. 680 (2024). Pierre II, __U.S. __, 2024 WL 4529801, at *1. 

Upon careful review, we reach the same conclusion and, again, affirm Pierre’s conviction. To explain why, we briefly detail our rulings in Rozier and Dubois and the Supreme Court’s rulings in Bruen

and Rahimi.

USCA11 Case: 23-11604 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 12/10/2024 Page: 2 of 10
23-11604 Opinion of the Court 3

In Rozier, a defendant challenged his conviction under 

§ 922(g)(1) as unconstitutional under District of Columbia v. Heller, 

554 U.S. 570 (2008). 598 F.3d at 770-71. We rejected Rozier’s challenge, however. Id. at 771. We explained that the “language [of 

Heller] suggest[ed] that statutes disqualifying felons from possessing a firearm under any and all circumstances do not offend the 

Second Amendment.” Id. (citing Heller, 554 U.S. at 626-27). We 

noted: 

[S]tatutory restrictions of firearm possession, such as 

§ 922(g)(1), are a constitutional avenue to restrict the 

Second Amendment right of certain classes of people. Rozier, by virtue of his felony conviction, falls 

within such a class. Therefore, the fact that Rozier 

may have possessed the handgun for purposes of selfdefense (in his home), is irrelevant.

Id.1

1 Both before and after Bruen, we have applied Rozier to reject Second Amendment challenges and, in doing so, have interpreted it as foreclosing as-applied 

challenges to the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1), albeit often in unpublished 

decisions. See, e.g., United States v. Cropper, 812 F. App’x 927, 931 (11th Cir. 

2020) (unpublished) (“As Cropper acknowledges, we have held that statutes 

prohibiting felons from possessing firearms do not violate the Second Amendment.” (citing Rozier, 598 F.3d at 770)) (before Bruen); United States v. JimenezShilon, 34 F.4th 1042, 1044 (11th Cir. 2022) (citing Rozier for the proposition 

that “certain groups of people . . . may be ‘disqualified from’ possessing arms 

without violating the Second Amendment” (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 635)) 

(before Bruen); United States v. Diaz, No. 21-11625, 2023 WL 8446458, at *2 

(11th Cir. 2023) (unpublished) (“Statutes disqualifying felons from possessing 

a firearm under any and all circumstances do not offend the Second 

USCA11 Case: 23-11604 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 12/10/2024 Page: 3 of 10
4 Opinion of the Court 23-11604

In Bruen, the Supreme Court addressed a challenge to New 

York’s gun-licensing regime. 597 U.S. at 10-12. New York’s statutory scheme prohibited citizens from obtaining a license to carry 

firearms outside their home unless they proved “a special need for 

self-defense.” Id. at 11. “The [Supreme] Court ruled [New York’s 

statutory] scheme unconstitutional because ‘the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.’” Dubois, 94 F.4th at 1292 

(quoting Bruen, 597 U.S. at 10). Bruen also rejected the second step 

of “a two-step test that then prevailed in most circuits” for analyzing Second Amendment challenges. Id. (citing Bruen, 597 U.S. at 

15-25).2 Instead, the Supreme Court explained, the proper standard 

for assessing whether a challenged firearm regulation is:

When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an 

individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively 

protects that conduct. The government must then 

justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only then may a court conclude that 

Amendment.” (quoting Rozier, 598 F.3d at 771) (alteration adopted)) (after 

Bruen); United States v. Hyde, No. 22-10332, 2024 WL 726909, at *3 (11th Cir. 

2024) (unpublished) (“Our conclusion in Rozier that § 922(g)(1) is a constitutional restriction on a defendant’s Second Amendment rights is still binding 

precedent, and we are bound to follow that panel’s decision.” (citing Rozier, 

598 F.3d at 772)) (after Bruen).

2 We had “never actually applied the second, means-end-scrutiny step” of this 

now-overruled two-step test. See Dubois, 94 F.4th at 1292 (citing Jimenez-Shilon, 34 F.4th at 1052-53 (Newsom, J., concurring)). 

USCA11 Case: 23-11604 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 12/10/2024 Page: 4 of 10
23-11604 Opinion of the Court 5

the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second 

Amendment’s “unqualified command.”

Bruen, 597 U.S. at 24 (quoting Konigsberg v. State Bar of Cal., 366 U.S. 

36, 50 n.10 (1961)).

After Bruen, we rejected a defendant’s facial and as-applied

challenges to the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1) in Dubois, a case

where the defendant argued that Bruen had abrogated Rozier. 

94 F.4th at 1291-93. After summarizing Heller, Bruen, and Rozier, 

we explained that the Supreme Court’s opinion in Bruen “left no 

doubt that it viewed its decision as a faithful application of Heller, 

not a departure from it.” Id. at 1292. We also noted that “Bruen, 

like Heller, [had] repeatedly described the [Second Amendment] 

right as extending only to ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens.’” Id.

(quoting Bruen, 597 U.S. at 26). We then explained:

Bruen did not abrogate Rozier. Because the Supreme 

Court made it clear in Heller that its holding did not 

cast doubt on felon-in-possession prohibitions, and 

because the Court made it clear in Bruen that its holding was in keeping with Heller, Bruen could not have 

clearly abrogated [Rozier]. Indeed, the Bruen majority 

did not mention felons or section 922(g)(1). Dubois 

argues that we may depart from Rozier because Bruen

abrogated all prior precedent relying on the two-step 

analysis. But Rozier upheld section 922(g)(1) on the 

threshold ground that felons are categorically disqualified from exercising their Second Amendment right 

under Heller. We interpreted Heller as limiting the 

right to law-abiding and qualified individuals and as 

USCA11 Case: 23-11604 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 12/10/2024 Page: 5 of 10
6 Opinion of the Court 23-11604

clearly excluding felons from those categories by referring to felon-in-possession bans as presumptively 

lawful. And far from demolishing or eviscerating 

Rozier’s reliance on Heller, Bruen repeatedly stated that 

its decision was faithful to Heller. We require clearer 

instruction from the Supreme Court before we may 

reconsider the constitutionality of section 922(g)(1). 

Because Rozier binds us, Dubois’s challenge based on 

the Second Amendment necessarily fails.

Id. at 1293 (alterations adopted, internal citations and quotation 

marks omitted).3

In Rahimi, decided after Dubois and Pierre’s initial appeal, the 

Supreme Court held that § 922(g)(8)—which prohibits firearm possession by individuals subject to a domestic violence restraining order—was constitutional because the provision comported with the 

principles underlying the Second Amendment. 602 U.S. at 692-700. 

In reaching that conclusion, the Supreme Court explained that 

“some courts [had] misunderstood the methodology” of its “recent 

Second Amendment cases.” Id. at 691. It clarified that Bruen does 

not require a regulation to have existed at the founding in an identical form: instead, “[t]he law must comport with the principles underlying the Second Amendment, but it need not be a ‘dead ringer’ 

or a ‘historical twin.’” Id. at 692 (quoting Bruen, 597 U.S. at 30). 

3As noted above, shortly after we decided Dubois, we decided Pierre’s initial 

appeal, concluding that his as-applied challenge to the constitutionality of 

§ 922(g)(1) was foreclosed because we had recently determined, in Dubois, that 

Rozier was still binding precedent. Pierre I, 2024 WL 1070655, at *1. 

USCA11 Case: 23-11604 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 12/10/2024 Page: 6 of 10
23-11604 Opinion of the Court 7

The Supreme Court also reiterated that prohibitions on felons’ possession of firearms are “presumptively lawful.” Id. at 699 (quoting 

Heller, 554 U.S. at 626-27). It added that, in Heller, it had “recognized that the right [secured by the Second Amendment] was never 

thought to sweep indiscriminately.” Id. at 691. Additionally, it held

that § 922(g)(8) was constitutional as applied to Rahimi because the 

restraining order to which he was subject included a finding that 

he posed “a credible threat to the physical safety” of another, and 

the government provided “ample evidence” that the Second 

Amendment permitted “the disarmament of individuals who pose 

a credible threat to the physical safety of others.” Id. at 693-701. 

The Court added that the restriction imposed on Rahimi’s rights 

by § 922(g)(8) was temporary because it applied only while he was 

subject to a restraining order. Id. at 699.

Under the prior panel precedent rule, we are bound to follow prior binding precedent until it is overruled by the Supreme 

Court or this Court sitting en banc. United States v. White, 837 F.3d 

1225, 1228 (11th Cir. 2016); United States v. Lee, 886 F.3d 1161, 1163 

n.3 (11th Cir. 2018). “To constitute an ‘overruling’ for the purposes 

of this prior panel precedent rule, the Supreme Court decision 

‘must be clearly on point.’” United States v. Kaley, 579 F.3d 1246, 

1255 (11th Cir. 2009) (quoting Garrett v. Univ. of Ala. at Birmingham 

Bd. of Trs., 344 F.3d 1288, 1292 (11th Cir. 2003)). “In addition to 

being squarely on point, the doctrine of adherence to prior precedent also mandates that the intervening Supreme Court case actually abrogate or directly conflict with, as opposed to merely 

weaken, the holding of the prior panel.” Id. Thus, “[t]o abrogate 

USCA11 Case: 23-11604 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 12/10/2024 Page: 7 of 10
8 Opinion of the Court 23-11604

a prior-panel precedent, ‘the later Supreme Court decision must 

demolish and eviscerate each of its fundamental props.’” Dubois, 

94 F.4th at 1293 (quoting Del Castillo v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Health, 

26 F.4th 1214, 1223 (11th Cir. 2022), cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 486). 

“So, for example, if our precedent relied on ‘a line of Supreme 

Court precedents that the [Supreme] Court itself emphasizes in a 

later decision is not implicated by that later decision,’ the Supreme 

Court’s intervening decision ‘cannot have’ abrogated our precedent.” Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Del Castillo, 26 F.4th at 

1223). Of course, however, the Supreme Court does not have to 

directly cite our precedent to abrogate it. See id.; Edwards v. U.S. 

Att’y Gen., 97 F.4th 725, 743 (11th Cir. 2024), pet. for rehearing pending, (No. 19-15077). 

With these principles in mind, we conclude that Rahimi, like 

Bruen, did not overrule or abrogate our decision in Rozier.4 As we 

4 We recognize that other circuits have reached different results on whether 

challenges to § 922(g)(1) are foreclosed because of pre-Bruen caselaw. See, e.g.,

United States v. Diaz, 116 F.4th 458, 465 (5th Cir. 2024) (“Bruen constitutes . . . a 

change [in law that] render[s] our prior precedent obsolete.” (internal citation 

and quotation omitted)); Range v. Att’y Gen, 69 F.4th 96, 106 (3d Cir. 2023) 

(en banc) (“[T]he Government’s contention that Bruen does not meaningfully 

affect this Court’s precedent, is mistaken . . . .” (internal citation and quotation 

omitted)), vacated sub nom. Garland v. Range, 144 S. Ct. 2706 (2024) (mem.). Ultimately, however, it is the binding precedent of this Court and the Supreme 

Court which binds us, not the precedent of other circuits. Here, we held in 

Rozier that § 922(g)(1) is constitutional in all applications and the Supreme 

Court has not abrogated that precedent so we must apply it. See Walker v. 

Mortham, 158 F.3d 1177, 1188 (11th Cir. 1998) (“[A] decision of a prior panel 

cannot be overturned by a later panel.” (emphasis added)). 

USCA11 Case: 23-11604 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 12/10/2024 Page: 8 of 10
23-11604 Opinion of the Court 9

explained in Dubois, Rozier did not rely on the “two-step” Second 

Amendment analysis which other circuits used at that time. Dubois, 94 F.4th at 1292. Thus, the reasoning in Dubois, in this respect,

was not affected by Bruen’s overturning of this two-step procedure. 

See id. Rahimi, which upheld a challenged gun regulation as consistent with Bruen’s text-and-history test for Second Amendment 

regulations (or step-one under the previous two-step test) also did 

not “demolish and eviscerate each of [Rozier’s] fundamental 

props”; instead, it reinforces our conclusion that cases decided on 

“step one” remain binding. Dubois, 94 F.4th at 1293. That is because Rahimi essentially performed the same analysis as we did in 

Rozier by analyzing whether the challenged regulation was “consistent with the principles that underpin our regulatory tradition” 

and “‘relevantly similar’ to laws that our tradition is understood to 

permit . . . .’” Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 692 (quoting Bruen, 597 U.S. at 

29). In Rahimi, the result of that inquiry led the Supreme Court to 

conclude that certain historical laws—namely “surety and going 

armed laws”—established a “common sense” conclusion that 

“[w]hen an individual poses a clear threat of physical violence to 

another, the threatening individual may be disarmed” consistent 

with the Second Amendment. Id. at 698. In Rozier, we concluded 

that Heller’s statement that “‘nothing in our opinion should be 

taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession 

of firearms by felons’” showed that “statutes disqualifying felons 

from possessing a firearm under any and all circumstances” were 

likewise consistent with tradition and constitutional under the Second Amendment. 598 F.3d at 771 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 626).

USCA11 Case: 23-11604 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 12/10/2024 Page: 9 of 10
10 Opinion of the Court 23-11604

Rahimi—like Bruen—also reiterated this same point from 

Heller and stated that prohibitions on felons’ possession of firearms 

are “presumptively lawful.” 602 U.S. at 699 (quoting Heller, 

554 U.S. at 627 n.26). Accordingly, Rozier binds us because neither 

Bruen nor Rahimi can fairly be read to reject, abrogate, or even call 

into question the portion of Heller which we relied on in Rozier. 

Compare Heller, 554 U.S. at 626-27 (“[N]othing in our opinion should 

be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill . . . .”), with Rahimi, 

602 U.S. at 699 (similar); and Bruen, 597 U.S. at 30 (noting Heller’s 

“discussion of ‘longstanding laws’” for which the Supreme Court 

was “aware of no dispute[] regarding . . . lawfulness” under the 

Second Amendment); see also Rozier, 598 F.3d at 770-71 (citing Heller, 554 U.S. at 626-27).5 

We reiterate what we said in Dubois: “[w]e require clearer 

instruction from the Supreme Court before we may reconsider the 

constitutionality of section 922(g)(1).” Dubois, 94 F.4th at 1293. Because neither Bruen nor Rahimi overruled, or abrogated to the point 

of overruling, our caselaw that forecloses Pierre relief, we affirm. 

AFFIRMED.

5 Affirmance here also prevents us from reading a decision of the Supreme 

Court (Rahimi) that upheld one part of a statute, § 922(g)(8), as constitutional, 

to render another portion of the same statute, § 922(g)(1), to be unconstitutional. 

USCA11 Case: 23-11604 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 12/10/2024 Page: 10 of 10