[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________ No. 14

- 10228 Non

- Argument Calendar

________________________ D.C. Docket No. 6:13

- cr - 00094

- RBD

- GJK

- 1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff

- Appellee,

versus JONATHAN DANIEL ADLETA, Defendant

- Appellant.

________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida

________________________ ( January 29, 2015 ) Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge , MARCUS , and WILLIAM PRYOR, C ircuit Judges. PER CURIAM:

Case: 14-10228 Date Filed: 01/29/2015 Page: 1 of 42 Jonathan Adleta was charged with two counts : transporting a minor in interstate commerce for purposes of sexual activity and conspiracy to do the same.
See 18 U.S.C. § 2423 (a), ( e). A jury convicted him of both, and he now ap peals that conviction. He contends that the district court made a key evidentiary error. It admitted evidence of similar crime s under Federal Rules of Evidence 413 and 414, which allow the unfettered use of certain similar crimes evidence against defendants accused of sexual assault or child molestation. That evidence showed that Adleta had committed an uncharged sexual assault of a minor and had possessed child pornography

. Adleta does not contend that the district court violated those rules of evidence. Instead, h e argues that those rules violate his Fifth Amendment right to due process. See U.S. Const. Amend. V. The problem is that Adleta never objected on that basis in the district court. There, h e objected t hat Rules 413 and 414 did not apply to him and that the phrase “sexual activity” as used in the indictment was unconstitutionally vague

. 1 H e never suggested that Rules 413 and

1 Despite having preserved those two objections in the district court, Adleta has abandoned both on appeal by failing to brief either of them. See Access Now, Inc. v. Sw. Airlines Co. , 385 F.3d 1324, 1330 (11th Cir. 2004) (“[A] legal claim or ar gument that has not been briefed before the court is deemed abandoned and its merits will not be addressed. ”); United States v. Jernigan , 341 F.3d 1273, 1283 n.8 (11th Cir. 2003) (“[A] party seeking to raise a claim or issue on appeal must plainly and prom inently so indicate. Otherwise, the issue

— even if properly preserved at trial

— will be considered abandoned. ”) (emphasis added).

Case: 14-10228 Date Filed: 01/29/2015 Page: 2 of 43 414 might be unconstitutional. As a result, we review the ir constitutionality only for plain error. See United States v. Rodriguez , 398 F .3d 1291, 1298 (11th Cir. 2005); see also United States v. Munoz , 430 F.3d 1357, 1373

– 75 (11th Cir. 2005) (review ing the defendants’ constitutional challenge to their sentences for plain

error because they raised only evidentiary challenges before the district court ). Adleta has not shown that the district court committed plain error by fail ing to hold Rules 413 and 414 unconstitutional . To do so, he must establish four conditions: (1) there w as an error; (2) it was plain; (3) it affected his substantial rights ; and (4) it “ seriously affect[ed] the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings

. ” Rodriguez , 398 F.3d at 1298 (quoting United States v.
Cotton , 535 U.S. 625, 631, 122 S. Ct. 1781, 1785 (2002)); see also United States v. Olano , 507 U.S. 725, 736

– 37, 113 S. Ct. 1770, 1779 (1993). If Adleta were to establish those four conditions, we would still retain the discretion to correct th e
error or not. Rodriguez , 398 F.3d at 1298. We need not decide whether the district court erred by fail ing to invalidate Rules 413 and 414 because e ven assuming that it did ( a dubious assumption ), it did
not plain ly err . The district court plain ly err ed only if binding authority required it
to invalidat e Rules 413 and 414 on due process grounds. See United States v. Joseph , 709 F.3d 1082, 1096 (11th Cir. 2013) ( “ [A] t least where the explicit language of a statute or rule does not specifically resolve an issue, t here can be no

Case: 14-10228 Date Filed: 01/29/2015 Page: 3 of 44 plain error where there is no precedent from the Supreme Court or this Court directly resolving it.” ) (quotation marks omitted)

. Adleta cites no binding authority supporting his position

— neither from the Supreme Court no r from our
Court

. 2 The district court committed no plain error by failing to hold that Rules 413 and 414 violated Adleta’s right to due process under the Fifth Amendment

. AFFIRMED.

2 Adleta does not even cite out

- of

- circuit authority hold ing that Rules 413 and 414 violate a defendant’s right to due process

. The two decisions on point that he does cite both reject due process challenges to those rules. See United States v. Mound , 149 F.3d 799, 800

– 01 (8th Cir. 1998); United States v. Castill o , 140 F.3d 874, 879

– 84 (10th Cir. 1998).

Case: 14-10228 Date Filed: 01/29/2015 Page: 4 of 4