Opinion ID: 344984
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: interpretations of other courts as to congressional intent.

Text: 49 As the problems raised by the case at bar are not wholly novel ones, it is necessary to review the pronouncements of courts in other circuits that are arguably relevant here. At this stage in our analysis, we confine our consideration to those opinions which make reference to the matter of Congressional intent. 50 Two circuits have considered, in contexts that might be perceived to be somewhat related to the present one, whether Congress desired to prohibit felons from firearms use before their convictions are overturned. 35 Cursorily, both declarations as to intent might seem to be contrary to our position. In Dameron v. United States, the Fifth Circuit stated that it need not 51 look further than the statute to determine legislative intent. The statute should explicitly set forth application to unconstitutional convictions, if it is so intended. We read the statute to prohibit the interstate transportation of firearms by those who have been constitutionally convicted of a felony. 36 52 Subsequently, in a footnote in United States v. Cody, the Eighth Circuit, relying on Dameron, said that the broad interpretation applied to the word 'convicted' does not extend to defendants whose prior convictions are invalid for error of the sixth amendment right to counsel. 37 53 Graves avers that Dameron and Cody indicate that Congress did not anticipate the use of an outstanding, though assertedly unconstitutional, conviction in a firearms prosecution, even where the defendant has neglected to invalidate the prior conviction or to procure administrative relief from the weapons disability. We do not so read these two opinions. 54 Significantly, Dameron concerned a factual setting markedly different from that at hand. In Dameron, the felony conviction which had preceded the firearms violation later was held unconstitutional by a state court. Following that determination, the Fifth Circuit granted Dameron's motion to set aside the gun conviction. By contrast, in the present controversy, there has been no adjudication by any tribunal that Graves' larceny conviction suffers from a constitutional malady. Nor has he ever attempted to excise the weapons disability through administrative means. It has not been established that the defendant's conviction was obtained in an unconstitutional manner. As a result, it is highly questionable whether the statements in Dameron concerning Congressional intent deal with the questions with which we are concerned. 38 55 Cody it appears is also inapplicable. The statement in Cody, as to intent, constitutes dictum, since that case did not involve an antecedent conviction that was unconstitutional, or even asserted to be so tainted. Rather, Cody focused on an attempt to overturn a firearms conviction when the prior criminal judgment was annulled on purely technical, nonconstitutional grounds. 39 The Eighth Circuit refused to upset the weapons violation. Moreover, the intent issue under scrutiny here really had no bearing on the outcome of Cody, thereby undermining Graves' attempted reliance on that case. 56 Even assuming as does Graves, that Dameron and Cody stand for the proposition that Congress did not intend that outstanding convictions maintained to be defective on constitutional grounds could lead to liability under the firearms statutes, we still would be disinclined to accede to such an interpretation as to the application of the Gun Control Act. 57 In our view, the keystone of a judicial evaluation of the design of Congress lies in painstaking examination of the Act, including the statutory framework within which it is contained, as well as the legislative history. Yet Dameron and Cody do not appear to have utilized these basic interpretative aids. Instead, each of the two opinions immediately turned to the possible constitutional impediments to such a statutory arrangement. Only after concluding that the Constitution may bar such a legislative program did the Fifth and Eighth Circuits declare that Congress could not have intended to require expungement of unconstitutional convictions as a precondition to lawful access to firearms. As Dameron and Cody delved into the constitutional concerns before grappling with the question of legislative intent, a procedure that may have been in reverse from an analytical standpoint, we decline to follow such an approach, even assuming that Graves' evaluation of those cases is correct. 40 58 For these reasons, the declarations as to legislative purpose rendered in Dameron and Cody lend little support to Graves' thesis. 59 We are more amenable to the asseverations of other courts concerning Congress' intent in related situations. Of these, the most noteworthy is the opinion of the Ninth Circuit in United States v. Liles. 41 There the Court dealt with the question whether Congress sought to impose liability under Title VII on a felon who purchased a gun pending an appeal which ultimately overturned his conviction. Liles thus found himself in the anomalous position of going to prison for a § 1202 violation, even though the prior crime was, in fact, annulled before his trial on the firearms charge. 60