Court Opinion

ID: 9895712
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-08 16:01:23.198637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:27.617016
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-10892         Document: 00516959887             Page: 1      Date Filed: 11/07/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit                                              United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                               Fifth Circuit
                                      ____________                                           FILED
                                                                                      November 7, 2023
                                       No. 22-10892
                                      ____________                                      Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                                             Clerk
   United States of America,

                                                                      Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                             versus

   Davaudrick Antron EtchisonBrown,

                                               Defendant—Appellant.
                      ______________________________

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                          for the Northern District of Texas
                               USDC No. 3:19-CR-612-1
                      ______________________________

   Before Wiener, Willett, and Douglas, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam:*
          Davaudrick Antron EtchisonBrown pleaded guilty to possession of a
   firearm after a felony conviction, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and
   924(a)(2). He was sentenced to 85 months of imprisonment and three years
   of supervised release. EtchisonBrown argues that § 922(g)(1) is
   unconstitutional, that the district court erred by enhancing his base offense
   by concluding his prior conviction for Texas robbery qualifies as a crime of

          _____________________
          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 22-10892        Document: 00516959887             Page: 2      Date Filed: 11/07/2023

                                         No. 22-10892

   violence, and that the district court erred by not giving him a reduction for
   acceptance of responsibility. We AFFIRM.
                                               I
           In August 2019, EtchisonBrown was driving in Irving, Texas. He
   attempted to move into the middle lane, almost hit a passing vehicle, and
   swerved to avoid the collision. He then pulled alongside the vehicle, pointed
   a gun out his window, and shot. The vehicle was later found to have been hit
   thirteen times—one of the bullets even grazed the driver’s head.
   EtchisonBrown fled the scene.
           Officers detained him a few days later through a traffic stop. He
   consented to a search of his vehicle, and the officers recovered a Glock,
   Model 17, 9-millimeter pistol from under the driver’s seat that was loaded
   with a 50 round drum magazine. EtchisonBrown confirmed that the firearm
   belonged to him, and shell casings recovered from the shot-at vehicle
   matched the firearm found in EtchisonBrown’s vehicle.1
           A federal grand jury charged EtchisonBrown with possession of a
   firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and
   924(a)(2).2
           EtchisonBrown was granted pretrial release. The conditions included
   that he must: (1) “not violate federal, state, or local law while on release;”
   (2) “not use or unlawfully possess a narcotic drug or other controlled
   substance defined in 21 U.S.C. § 802, unless prescribed to [him] by a licensed

           _____________________
           1
             The Glock was determined not to have been manufactured in the state of Texas,
   to have traveled in interstate or foreign commerce to be present in Texas, and not to have
   been stolen.
           2
              EtchisonBrown has one previous felony conviction for robbery from 2013 for
   stealing a woman’s cell phone and assaulting her with three accomplices.

                                                   2
Case: 22-10892        Document: 00516959887              Page: 3      Date Filed: 11/07/2023

                                         No. 22-10892

   medical practitioner;” and (3) “submit to testing for a prohibited substance
   if required by the pretrial services office or supervising officer.” Throughout
   2020, EtchisonBrown repeatedly violated the above conditions by failing to
   submit drug tests, missing drug treatment, and testing positive for
   marijuana.3 This conduct ultimately led the court to revoke his pretrial
   release and to remand him to custody in January 2021.
           In July 2021, EtchisonBrown pleaded guilty to being a felon in
   possession of a firearm with no plea agreement. The district court accepted
   his plea.
           The presentence report (PSR) recommended a base offense level of
   22 under U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(a)(3) because EtchisonBrown was “in possession
   of a semiautomatic firearm that can accept a large capacity magazine, and the
   defendant was convicted of Robbery, a crime of violence, on March 1, 2013.”
   The PSR did not recommend giving EtchisonBrown a reduction for
   acceptance of responsibility under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1(a) because “he
   continued to engage in criminal conduct while on pretrial release.”
           EtchisonBrown objected to the PSR, arguing that he “entered his
   plea of guilty after the revocation of his pretrial release, knowing that
   Probation would most likely suggest a denial of the reduction for acceptance

           _____________________
           3
             He failed to submit a urine specimen on June 19, July 17, and July 20, and tested
   positive for marijuana on June 22, 2020. He tested positive for marijuana again on August
   5 and August 11. In response to these violations, the court modified his conditions to
   include participation in outpatient substance abuse therapy and counseling.
   EtchisonBrown then tested positive for marijuana again on September 17. He was
   permitted to remain on pretrial release after this violation. But on September 30, after
   testing positive for marijuana, he was referred to substance abuse treatment. On October 7,
   he was arrested for pending state warrants, and while he was incarcerated, he missed drug
   treatment sessions. Once he was released, EtchisonBrown failed to report for treatment
   sessions on November 4 and 18 and December 2 and 16. And on November 20,
   EtchisonBrown failed to submit a drug test.

                                                    3
Case: 22-10892        Document: 00516959887        Page: 4    Date Filed: 11/07/2023

                                    No. 22-10892

   of responsibility,” and that “[t]his is significant evidence that [he] has shown
   remorse for both the offense of conviction and for violating conditions of
   pretrial release.” Thus, he said he should receive the § 3E1.1(a) reduction.
   He also made a policy argument that to not give the acceptance-of-
   responsibility reduction “is to simply encourage those who have not
   succeed[ed] at pretrial release to go to trial” because they lose their only
   benefit “outside of the moral importance and self-value of accepting
   responsibility.”
          At sentencing he raised this same argument. The district court
   acknowledged the argument, but “after digging through the case law and
   getting to the bottom of it,” concluded that “if there is a violation for some
   other commission of a crime, while on pretrial release, then that does
   constitute a lack of acceptance of responsibility.” The district court viewed
   “the conduct that caused his revocation from pretrial release to amount to a
   lack of acceptance of responsibility” and overruled the objection.
          The district court adopted the findings and conclusions from the PSR
   and concluded the total offense level was 26. The guideline range for
   imprisonment was accordingly 70 to 87 months. The district court imposed
   a sentence of 85 months and a three-year term of supervised release. It
   explained that the length of the sentence was mainly driven by the serious
   nature and     circumstances     of   EtchisonBrown’s      offense   but   that
   EtchisonBrown’s good performance in custody, his supportive family, and
   his troubled background persuaded it not to vary upward.
          EtchisonBrown timely appealed.
                                         II
          EtchisonBrown raises four issues on appeal. He argues that 18 U.S.C.
   § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional because (1) it exceeds Congress’s enumerated
   powers under the Commerce Clause, and (2) it violates the Second

                                              4
Case: 22-10892      Document: 00516959887            Page: 5    Date Filed: 11/07/2023

                                      No. 22-10892

   Amendment, (3) that his 85-month sentence was reversible error
   because Texas robbery by causing injury is not a “crime of violence” under
   U.S.S.G. § 5B1.2, and (4) he should have been granted a reduction for
   acceptance of responsibility under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1. We address the
   constitutional challenges first.
                                           A
          Because EtchisonBrown did not raise either constitutional challenge
   to § 922(g)(1) before the district court, we review only for plain error. United
   States v. Howard, 766 F.3d 414, 419 (5th Cir. 2014). He must therefore show
   that the error is clear or obvious and that it affects his substantial rights.
   Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 135 (2009). If he makes those showings,
   we have discretion to the correct the error if it “seriously affects the fairness,
   integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id. (alteration
   adopted) (quoting United States v. Atkinson, 297 U.S. 157, 160 (1936)).
          EtchisonBrown maintains that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) exceeds
   Congress’s enumerated powers under United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549
   (1995). He acknowledges that we have consistently upheld the
   constitutionality of § 922(g)(1) under the Commerce Clause. See United
   States v. Alcantar, 733 F.3d 143, 145 (5th Cir. 2013) (collecting cases); see also
   United States v. Perryman, 965 F.3d 424, 426 (5th Cir. 2020). And he makes
   no argument that there has been an intervening change in the law that permits
   a subsequent panel to reconsider the issue. Accordingly, we are bound by our
   prior precedents and conclude that this argument is foreclosed. See Jacobs v.
   Nat’l Drug Intel. Ctr., 548 F.3d 375, 378 (5th Cir. 2008).
          EtchisonBrown also argues that the Supreme Court’s recent decision
   in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc v. Bruen suggests that § 922(g)(1)
   is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. See 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022).
   In Bruen, the Supreme Court established a new test for assessing the

                                               5
Case: 22-10892      Document: 00516959887           Page: 6    Date Filed: 11/07/2023

                                     No. 22-10892

   constitutionality of firearm regulations under the Second Amendment:
   “[W]hen the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s
   conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects the conduct. . . . [T]he
   government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this
   Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Id. at 2126.
          Before Bruen, we held that § 922(g)(1) does not violate the Second
   Amendment. See, e.g., United States v. Darrington, 351 F.3d 632, 634 (5th Cir.
   2003). But the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1) after Bruen is not clear or
   obvious. In Bruen itself, Justice Kavanaugh concurred and indicated that
   “nothing in [Bruen] should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding
   prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill.”
   Bruen, 142 S. Ct. at 2162 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (alteration adopted)
   (quoting District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 626 (2008) and
   McDonald v. City of Chi., Ill., 561 U.S. 742, 786 (2010)). But the circuits that
   have already faced this question have come to different conclusions. For
   example, the Third Circuit concluded that “the [g]overnment has not shown
   that the Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation supports
   depriving [felons] of [their] Second Amendment right to possess a firearm.”
   Range v. Att’y Gen., 69 F.4th 96, 103–06 (3d Cir. 2023). However, the Eighth
   Circuit relied on Heller and McDonald, as well as Justice Kavanaugh’s Bruen
   concurrence, to reach the contrary conclusion that “[t]he longstanding
   prohibition on possession of firearms by felons is constitutional.” United
   States v. Cunningham, 70 F.4th 502, 506 (8th Cir. 2023).
          “There is no plain error if the legal landscape at the time showed the
   issue was disputed . . . .” United States v. Rodriguez-Parra, 581 F.3d 227, 230
   (5th Cir. 2009). On review for plain error, “a lack of binding authority is often
   dispositive.” United States v. McGavitt, 28 F.4th 571, 577 (5th Cir. 2022)
   (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “[E]ven where an argument
   merely requires extending existing precedent, the district court’s failure to

                                              6
Case: 22-10892        Document: 00516959887               Page: 7      Date Filed: 11/07/2023

                                         No. 22-10892

   do so cannot be plain error.” Jimenez v. Wood Cnty, Tex., 660 F.3d 841, 847
   (5th Cir. 2011) (en banc). Because the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1) after
   Bruen is far from settled and there is no controlling authority, the district
   court’s application of § 922(g)(1) to EtchisonBrown was not plain error.
                                               B
           EtchisonBrown claims that the district court erred in sentencing him
   to an 85-month term of imprisonment because it calculated his base offense
   level incorrectly by concluding that his prior Texas robbery conviction was a
   “crime of violence.” When a defendant has been previously convicted of an
   offense that qualifies as a crime of violence under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(2) and
   commits an offense that involved a semiautomatic firearm capable of
   accepting a large capacity magazine, the guidelines set a higher base offense
   level. U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(a)(3). EtchisonBrown’s base offense level was 22.
   Without the “crime of violence” finding, he contends that it should have
   been 20 under U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(a)(4)(B). Because EtchisonBrown did not
   challenge his base offense level before the district court, we review only for
   plain error. Howard, 766 F.3d at 419.
           Texas is unique in that it includes the mens rea of recklessness in its
   definition of robbery.4 EtchisonBrown admits that this court has previously
   held that Texas robbery fits within the “generic” meaning of “robbery” in
   the Sentencing Guidelines and that it qualifies as a “crime of violence” under
   a similar Sentencing Guideline. See United States v. Santiesteban-Hernandez,
   469 F.3d 376, 381 (5th Cir. 2006). He also acknowledges that this holding was

           _____________________
           4
             The Texas Penal Code states that a person commits robbery “if, in the course of
   committing theft . . . and with intent to obtain or maintain control of the property, he:
   (1) intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes bodily injury to another; or
   (2) intentionally or knowingly threatens or places another in fear of imminent bodily injury
   or death.” Tex. Penal Code § 29.02(a)(1).

                                                    7
Case: 22-10892        Document: 00516959887              Page: 8      Date Filed: 11/07/2023

                                         No. 22-10892

   recently reaffirmed in the context of U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2’s use of the term
   “crime of violence” in United States v. Adair, 16 F.4th 469, 471 (5th Cir.
   2021), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 1215 (2022).
           Even so, EtchisonBrown argues that the issue is not foreclosed. He
   characterizes Santiesteban-Hernandez as having adopted a broader definition
   of generic robbery in order to encompass Texas’s definition, and he contends
   that recent Supreme Court precedent5 reveals that Santiesteban-Hernandez is
   “likely incorrect” because generic robbery does not include recklessness.
           “[W]e follow the well-settled rule of orderliness: Three-judge panels
   abide by a prior Fifth Circuit decision until the decision is overruled,
   expressly or implicitly, by either the United States Supreme Court or by the
   Fifth Circuit sitting en banc.” Gahagan v. U.S. Citizenship & Immigr. Servs.,
   911 F.3d 298, 302 (5th Cir. 2018) (alterations adopted) (internal quotation
   marks and citation omitted). In Adair, we considered Santiesteban-Hernandez
   and affirmed that there we “recognize[d] that the ‘generic definition of
   robbery did not require a particular mens rea’” and that Texas robbery and
   generic robbery “substantially correspond,” which could not be the case if
   the two offenses “do not require the same mens rea.” Adair, 16 F.4th at 471
   (quoting United States v. Ortiz-Rojas, 575 F. App’x 494, 495 (5th Cir. 2014)
   (per curiam) (unpublished)).
           A suggestion that one of our holdings is “likely incorrect” does not
   present an occasion for us to revisit our precedent. Our consideration of the
   issue and reaffirmance of Santiesteban-Hernandez in Adair followed all of the
   cases EtchisonBrown cites. Adair, 16 F.4th at 470–71. No intervening

           _____________________
           5
             He cites the following Supreme Court decisions: Samuel Johnson v. United States,
   76 U.S. 591 (2015); Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions, 581 U.S. 385 (2017); Stokeling v. United
   States, 139 S. Ct. 544 (2019); and Borden v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1817 (2021).

                                                    8
Case: 22-10892      Document: 00516959887           Page: 9    Date Filed: 11/07/2023

                                     No. 22-10892

   Supreme Court decision has explicitly or implicitly overruled our holding.
   We are accordingly bound by our prior precedent. The district court’s
   selection of the base offense level was not plain error.
                                          C
          Finally, EtchisonBrown argues that the district court did not give him
   a two-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1,
   comment n.3, because it erroneously believed that he had violated the
   conditions of his pretrial release after pleading guilty, when his violations all
   occurred before he pleaded guilty. “[D]eterminations regarding whether the
   defendant is entitled to a reduction for acceptance of responsibility are
   reviewed with particular deference.” United States v. Lord, 915 F.3d 1009,
   1017 (5th Cir. 2019). We “will affirm the denial of a reduction for acceptance
   of responsibility unless it is ‘without foundation, a standard of review more
   deferential than the clearly erroneous standard.’” Id. (quoting United States
   v. Juarez-Duarte, 513 F.3d 204, 211 (5th Cir. 2008) (per curiam)).
          EtchisonBrown contends that the district court erroneously believed
   that he had violated the conditions of his pretrial release after pleading guilty
   because of two statements it made at sentencing. Specifically, the district
   court stated that “playing ball can certainly constitute criminal offensive
   behavior that happens after there has been a rearraignment,” and that it
   understood “not all judges agree with that line of thinking that post-
   rearraignment conduct that is unlawful can constitute a lack of acceptance.”
          While the district court erroneously referred to post-rearraignment
   conduct twice, context shows that the district court understood that
   EtchisonBrown violated his pretrial release conditions prior to pleading
   guilty. The district court specifically discussed the timeline and observed that
   while EtchisonBrown was on supervised release he “was skipping drug tests
   or testing positive for marijuana,” but “post-rearraignment,” his conduct

                                              9
Case: 22-10892     Document: 00516959887           Page: 10    Date Filed: 11/07/2023

                                    No. 22-10892

   was “stellar.” It also received a written objection from EtchisonBrown
   arguing that he should receive the reduction because all his violations
   occurred before he pleaded guilty and heard argument on the objection right
   before making this statement. After hearing argument on that objection at
   sentencing, the district court explained that it recognized the policy
   arguments about whether to give acceptance of responsibility to defendants
   who violate their pretrial release conditions. However, after reviewing the
   caselaw, it “came down on the line of thinking that if there is a violation for
   some other commission of a crime, while on pretrial release, then that does
   constitute a lack of acceptance of responsibility.”
          It is undisputed that EtchisonBrown repeatedly violated his pretrial
   release conditions by failing to submit drug tests, missing drug treatment, and
   testing positive for marijuana. The entry of a guilty plea before trial “does
   not entitle the defendant to a reduction as a matter of right.” United States v.
   Rickett, 89 F.3d 224, 227 (5th Cir. 1996). A district court may “consider any
   violation of the defendant’s pretrial release conditions” when deciding
   whether to grant a reduction for acceptance of responsibility and “[i]t is not
   reversible error for the district court to deny a § 3E1.1(a) reduction where the
   defendant broke the law while on bond.” United States v. Hinojosa-Almance,
   977 F.3d 407, 411 (5th Cir. 2020). Because of EtchisonBrown’s violations of
   his conditions of release, there was foundation for the district court to deny
   the acceptance of responsibility reduction. Lord, 915 F.3d at 1017.
          We AFFIRM.

                                             10