### The Honorab le Russell G. Clark, United States District Judge 1 

### for the Western District of Missouri. ___________ No. 95-3587

___________ United States of America, * * Appellee, * * Appeal from the United States v. * District Court for the * Western District of Missouri. Vincent L. Lomax, * * Appellant. *

___________ Submitted: April 9, 1996 Filed: July 3, 1996

___________ Before RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Chief Judge, WOLLMAN and HANSEN, Circuit Judges.

___________ WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge. Vincent Lomax appeals his convictionfor being a felon in possession of a f irearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), arguing that th e district c ourt erred in refusing to allow him to present evidence t o 1 supp ort either a justification or a legal ignorance defense and tha t prejudicial error was committed when a bench conference was overheard by the jury. We affirm.
I. Facts and Background

On Jul y 9, 1994, Lomax was pulled over for speeding. When th e officer ra n the check necessary to issue Lomax a speeding ticket, th e computer indicated that the car Lomax was driving had been

### Lomax was driving a rental car. Apparent ly, the car had been 2 

### reported stolen because Lomax had rented it with a check drawn on insuff icient funds and had failed to return it for a month. Th e car was returned after Lomax's arrest, and he was not prosecute d for its theft. -2- stolen. During a search of the vehicle's trunk, the arresting office r

2 discovereda loaded Colt .45 semiautomatic pistol and a clip filled with bullets. After a computer check revealed that Lomax was a convicted felon , he was arrested for possession of the firearm.

Lomax did not deny that he was in possession of the firearm at th e time of h is arrest. Instead, he attempted to present evidence that hi s posse ssionwas justified because he believed that he was in danger an d neededthe gun for protection and that he also believed his civil rights had been restored at the time he possessed the gun, thus making th e possession legal.
II. The Justification Defense

Lomax's j ustification defense is based on his claim that he ha d purchased the gun because he perceived that he w as in imminent danger. He asserts that he had received various threats of physical harm from several different individuals. These alleged threats stemmed from his relationshi p with the ex-wife of one of his antagonists and t he fact that his relatives appar entlyowed money to several other people who hoped to procure th e money by threatening Lomax.
Althoughseveral other circuits have recognized a defense of lega l justificationto a violation of section 922(g), we have not done so, and on the facts of this case and for the reasons discussed below, we decline to do so now. In general, to establish a justification defense a defendant

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must sh ow that: 1) he was under an unlawful and present, imminent, an d impending threat of such a nature as to induce a well-grounded apprehensio n of death or serious bodily injury; 2) that he had not recklessly o r negligently placed himself in a situation in whi ch it was probable that he would b e forced to commit a criminal act; 3) that he had no reasonable , legal alt ernative to violating the law; and 4) that a direct causa l relationship may be reasonably anticipated between the commission of the criminal act and the avoidance of the threatened harm. United States v. Blankenship , 67 F.3d 673, 677 (8th Cir. 1995) (l aying out the elements but declining to determin e whether the defense is available in section 922(g) cases).
Those circuits which have recognized justification as a defense t o a section 922(g) charge have construed the defense narrowly. See United States v. Perrin , 45 F.3d 869, 874-75 (4th Cir.) (construing the defense
narr owlyand citing other circuits that have done so as well), cert . denied , 115 S. Ct. 22 87 (1995). Moreover, those cases which have allowed evidence of the defen se have involved facts significantly more compelling than the generalized fear of harm experienced by Lomax. See , e.g. , United States v. Gomez , 81 F .3d 846, 850-54 (9th Cir. 1996) (recognizing defense for def endant who had received repeated death threats after acting a s government informant against drug conspirator in murder-for-hire indictmen t and who had unsuccess fully sought protection from police, from government offi cials whom he had assisted, and from churches); United States v
. Newcomb , 6 F.3d 1129, 1135-38 (6th Cir. 1993) (recognizing defense where defendant took gun from his girlfriend's son who had history of violence andwas threatening to shoot third person, and where defendant possessed gun only long enough to unload and pocket the shells); United States v
. Paolello , 951 F.2d 53 7, 542-43 (3d Cir. 1991) (recognizing defense where, during bar altercation, defendant knocked gun from attacker's hand t o prevent him from shooting third person and then picked up the gun from the floor to prevent attacker from retrieving it); and

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United States v. Panter , 688 F.2d 268, 269-72 (5 th Cir. 1982) (recognizing defense where defendant, pinned to the floor after being stabbed in th e abdomen by convicted murderer, reached under the bar for a club and instea d retrieved a pistol). Moreover, a defendant cannot claim j ustification as a defense for an illegal a ction that he chose to pursue in the face of other potentiall y effective, but legal, options. See United States v. Kabat , 797 F.2d 580, 591 (8th Cir. 1986), cert. denied , 481 U.S. 1030 (1987). Lomax implicitly argu es that possession of a handgun was the only effective course o f conduct available to thwart the potential physical danger he faced. W e reject this argument, for although Lomax states that he attempted to obtai n a restraining order against one of his antagonists and filed a complaint again st another, he appears to have exerted only minimal effort to ac t within the law to remedy his problems. Because Lomax's proferred evidence w as insufficient to establish the first an d third elements of the justification defense, we need no t determine whether (although we doubt that it did ) it established the other two elements. On the facts of this case, then, the district court did not err in refusing to allow Lomax to present evidence in support of a justification defense.
III. Ignorance Defense Lomax next contends that the district court should have permitt ed him to pres ent evidence to the jury of his belief that his civil rights ha d been resto red and that his conduct was, therefore, lawful. In Unite d States v. Farrell , 69 F.3d 891, 893 (8th Cir. 1995), cert. denied , 116 S. Ct. 1283 (1996), we held that the "knowingly" element of section 922(g ) applies only to the defendant's underlying conduct, not to his knowledge of the illegality of his actions. Thus, Lomax's claim that he believed hi s possession to be lawful is irrelevant to the mens rea of the

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offense, and the district court therefore proper ly excluded such evidence.
IV. The Sidebar Conference
Finally, Lomax requests that we remand his case to the district court for a hearing to determine whether the jury over heard a sidebar conference and, if so, whether he was prejudiced by this occurrence. The sideba r conf erence at issue involved a discussion of evidence that Lomax ha d written a bad check t o pay for the rental car that he was driving when he was arrested. This evidence was ultimately excluded.

Because Lomax failed to raise this claim in the district court, w e review for plain error. United States v. Jenkin s , 78 F.3d 1283, 1288 (8th Cir. 1996 ). We should exercise our discretion to correct a plain erro r only w hen it "`seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or publi c reputation of judicia l proceedings.'" United States v. Olano , 113 S. Ct. 1770, 1779 (1993) (alteration in original) (citation omitted). We find that, even if the alleged er ror occurred, it did not rise to the level of plain error, and it was not of the type to seriously influenc e the fairne ss of Lomax's trial. We assume, as we must, that the jur y followed the judge's instruction directing it to consider only the evidenc e presentedat trial. See United States v. Koskela , No. 95-2829, slip op. at 2 (8th Cir. June 10, 1996). Hence, if member s of the jury did overhear improper information, we assume that they disregarded the information in compliance with the judge's instructions. Moreover, we cannot see ho w eviden ce that Lomax had written a bad check for his rental car coul d possiblyhave influenced the outcome of the trial in light of the strong evidence of guilt and the fact that the jurors heard evidence of Lomax's past convictions for forgery, burglary, and issu ing checks on insufficient funds.

### -6- The judgment is affirmed.
A true copy.

Attest:
CLERK, U. S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.