[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 23-12883

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

SENCHEZE DONTAY DUNLAP, 

Defendant- Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Georgia

D.C. Docket No. 7:22-cr-00021-HL-TQL-1

____________________

USCA11 Case: 23-12883 Document: 25-1 Date Filed: 05/15/2024 Page: 1 of 6
2 Opinion of the Court 23-12883

Before BRASHER, ABUDU, and DUBINA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Appellant Sencheze Dunlap, proceeding with counsel, appeals his conviction for possessing a firearm as a felon, in violation 

of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). On appeal, he challenges the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1), both facially and as applied to him. Having read 

the parties’ briefs and reviewed the record, we affirm Dunlap’s conviction.

I.

We generally review de novo the constitutionality of a statute 

but review for plain error only where a defendant raises his constitutional challenge to his statute of conviction for the first time on 

appeal. United States v. Valois, 915 F.3d 717, 729 n.7 (11th Cir. 2019) 

(citing United States v. Wright, 607 F.3d 708, 715 (11th Cir. 2010)). 

The Supreme Court has held that a criminal defendant’s guilty plea 

does not bar a subsequent constitutional challenge to the statute of 

conviction. Class v. United States, 583 U.S. 174, 178, 138 S. Ct. 798, 

803 (2018).

An error is plain if the legal rule is clearly established at the 

time the case is reviewed on direct appeal. United States v. Henderson, 409 F.3d 1293, 1307-08 (11th Cir. 2005). If the explicit language 

of a statute or rule does not resolve an issue, plain error lies only 

where this court’s or the Supreme Court’s precedent directly resolves it. United States v. Moore, 22 F.4th 1258, 1266 (11th Cir. 2022)

(citing United States v. Hesser, 800 F.3d 1310, 1325 (11th Cir. 2015)). 

USCA11 Case: 23-12883 Document: 25-1 Date Filed: 05/15/2024 Page: 2 of 6
23-12883 Opinion of the Court 3

Additionally, under the prior panel precedent rule, “a prior panel’s 

holding is binding on all subsequent panels unless and until it is 

overruled or undermined to the point of abrogation by the Supreme Court or by this court sitting en banc.” United States v. Archer, 

531 F.3d 1347, 1352 (11th Cir. 2008); see also Gissendaner v. Comm’r, 

Ga. Dep’t of Corr., 779 F.3d 1275, 1284 (11th Cir. 2015) (“Until the 

Supreme Court issues a decision that actually changes the law, we 

are duty-bound to apply this Court’s precedent . . . .”). “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) (quotation marks 

omitted). “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.

II.

On appeal, Dunlap argues that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) is facially unconstitutional considering Supreme Court rulings and that 

the plain text of the Second Amendment covers the possession of 

firearms by people who are not necessarily law-abiding. In the alternative, Dunlap claims that even if the statute is constitutional, it 

is unconstitutional as applied to him because there is no historical 

tradition that supports prohibiting firearm possession by persons 

with his kind of criminal history. The Second Amendment reads: 

“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free 

State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be 

infringed.” U.S. Const. amend. II. Section 922(g) of Title 18 of the 

USCA11 Case: 23-12883 Document: 25-1 Date Filed: 05/15/2024 Page: 3 of 6
4 Opinion of the Court 23-12883

United States Code prohibits anyone who has been convicted of a 

crime punishable by more than one year of imprisonment from 

possessing a firearm or ammunition. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).

In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that 

the Second Amendment right to bear arms presumptively “belongs 

to all Americans,” but is not unlimited. 554 U.S. 570, 581, 626, 128 

S. Ct. 2783, 2791, 2816 (2008). The Supreme Court stated that, 

while it “[did] not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis . . . of 

the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in [its] opinion 

should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the 

possession of firearms by felons.” Id. at 626, 128 S. Ct. at 2816-17. 

In United States v. Rozier, we relied on Heller in ruling that 

§ 922(g)(1) did not violate the Second Amendment. 598 F.3d 768,

770 (11th Cir. 2010). In concluding that § 922(g)(1) was constitutional, we recognized that prohibiting felons from possessing firearms was a “presumptively lawful longstanding prohibition.” Id.

at 771 (citation omitted).

In N.Y. State Rifle and Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 142 

S. Ct. 2111 (2022), the Supreme Court stated that a court must ask 

whether the firearm regulation at issue governs conduct that falls 

within the plain text of the Second Amendment. Id. at 17, 142 S. 

Ct. at 2126. If the regulation does govern such conduct, the court 

will uphold it if the government “affirmatively prove[s] that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the 

outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.” Id. at 19, 142 S. 

Ct. at 2127. The Supreme Court in Bruen, as it did in Heller, 

USCA11 Case: 23-12883 Document: 25-1 Date Filed: 05/15/2024 Page: 4 of 6
23-12883 Opinion of the Court 5

referenced the Second Amendment rights of “law-abiding, responsible citizens.” Id. at 9, 142 S. Ct. at 2122, Id. at 26, 142 S. Ct. at 

2131, Id. at 70, 142 S. Ct. at 2156.

After Bruen, we rejected a defendant’s Second Amendment 

challenge to § 922(g)(1). United States v. Dubois, 94 F.4th 1284, 

1291-93 (11th Cir. 2024). We noted that Bruen, like Heller, repeatedly described the right to bear arms as extending only to “lawabiding, responsible citizens.” Id. at 1292-93. We then determined 

that Bruen did not abrogate our precedent in Rozier under the prior 

panel precedent rule because the Supreme Court made it clear that 

Heller did not cast doubt on felon-in-possession prohibitions, and 

because the Supreme Court made it clear in Bruen that its holding 

was in keeping with Heller. Id. at 1293. We noted that Rozier interpreted Heller as limiting the right to “law-abiding and qualified individuals,” and as clearly excluding felons from those categories by 

referring to felon-in-possession bans as presumptively lawful. Id. 

We held that, because clearer instruction was required from the 

Supreme Court before we could reconsider § 922(g)(1)’s constitutionality, we were still bound by Rozier, and Dubois’s challenge 

based on the Second Amendment necessarily failed. Id. 

III.

The record demonstrates that the district court did not 

plainly err in convicting Dunlap under § 922(g)(1) because our 

binding precedent from Rozier, holding that § 922(g)(1) is constitutional, and Dubois, confirming the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1) 

post-Bruen, conclusively forecloses his argument. Rozier, 598 F.3d 

USCA11 Case: 23-12883 Document: 25-1 Date Filed: 05/15/2024 Page: 5 of 6
6 Opinion of the Court 23-12883

at 770-71; Dubois, 94 F.4th at 1293. Further, § 922(g)(1) is consistent 

with the text and history of the Second Amendment and is constitutionally sound. Dunlap also can cite no authority that would support an as-applied challenge to his § 922(g)(1) conviction. Accordingly, based on the aforementioned reasons, we affirm Dunlap’s

conviction.

AFFIRMED.

USCA11 Case: 23-12883 Document: 25-1 Date Filed: 05/15/2024 Page: 6 of 6