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Parties Involved:
Brandon Dale Hayes
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 23-10926

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

BRANDON DALE HAYES, 

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 1:22-cr-20198-KMW-1

____________________

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2 Opinion of the Court 23-10926

Before JILL PRYOR, GRANT, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Brandon Dale Hayes appeals his conviction and 100-month 

sentence for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He argues that the felon-in-possession statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), is 

unconstitutional under the Second Amendment and New York State 

Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). And he argues that 

the district court plainly erred in calculating his sentencing range 

under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. We affirm his conviction 

but vacate his sentence and remand for resentencing.

Hayes’s argument that § 922(g)(1) violates the Second 

Amendment is foreclosed by our decisions in United States v. Rozier, 

598 F.3d 768 (11th Cir. 2010), and United States v. Dubois, 94 F.4th 

1284 (11th Cir. 2024). In Rozier, we held that § 922(g)(1)’s prohibition on the possession of firearms by felons did not violate the Second Amendment. 598 F.3d at 771. And in Dubois, we held that 

Rozier remained binding precedent in this Circuit after the Supreme 

Court’s decision in Bruen. 94 F.4th at 1292–93.

The Supreme Court’s more recent decision in United States 

v. Rahimi likewise did not abrogate Dubois or Rozier, because it did 

not “demolish” or “eviscerate” the “fundamental props” of those 

precedents. Id. at 1293; see United States v. Rahimi, 144 S. Ct. 1889 

(2024). Rahimi did not discuss § 922(g)(1) at all, nor did it undermine our prior decisions relying on District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 

U.S. 570, 626 (2008). To the contrary, Rahimi reiterated that 

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23-10926 Opinion of the Court 3

prohibitions “like those on the possession of firearms by ‘felons and 

the mentally ill,’ are ‘presumptively lawful.’” Rahimi, 144 S. Ct. at 

1902 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 626). Because we remain bound 

by our prior precedents, we reject Hayes’s Second Amendment 

challenge and AFFIRM his conviction. See Dubois, 94 F.4th at 1293.

But we agree with both parties that the district court plainly 

erred in calculating Hayes’s Sentencing Guidelines range. Specifically, the district court erred by adding three criminal history points 

for Hayes’s 2009 Massachusetts conviction for possession of marijuana for distribution. Under the Guidelines in effect at the time of 

sentencing, the court should not have added any criminal history 

points for the 2009 conviction because Hayes’s sentence for that 

offense did not exceed one year and one month, and the sentence 

was imposed more than ten years before Hayes committed the instant offense. U.S.S.G. §§ 4A1.1(a); 4A1.2(e)(2)–(3) (2021). This 

mistake in tallying Hayes’s criminal history points led to a miscalculation of his Guidelines sentencing range, so that the district 

court considered an incorrect, substantially higher Guidelines 

range when determining his sentence.

We will exercise our discretion to correct this unpreserved 

error because (1) the error was plain, (2) there is a reasonable probability that the error led to the imposition of a higher sentence than 

Hayes otherwise would have received, and (3) the error “seriously 

affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Molina-Martinez v. United States, 578 U.S. 189, 194, 200–

01 (2016) (quotation omitted); see Rosales-Mireles v. United States, 

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4 Opinion of the Court 23-10926

585 U.S. 129, 139–40 (2018). We therefore VACATE Hayes’s sentence and REMAND for resentencing.

AFFIRMED IN PART AND VACATED AND 

REMANDED IN PART.

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