Court Opinion

ID: 9484129
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:41:35.381368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:02.413655
License: Public Domain

McMILLIAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority opinion’s affirming the district court’s admission of *1051evidence of the controlled buy. However, as discussed below, I cannot agree that Jones used a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime, specifically possession with intent to distribute. For that reason, I would affirm the drug counts but would reverse the firearm count.
Jones was charged with two counts of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and one count of use of a firearm in connection with drug trafficking in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). Because possession with intent to subsequently distribute is a passive crime, I find it difficult analytically to determine how one can actually use a gun in relation to that crime. As stated in United States v. Bruce, 939 F.2d 1053, 1055 (D.C.Cir.1991) (Bruce), “Congress did not make it a crime to possess a gun with the intent to use it in relation to a drug trafficking crime. Instead, § 924(c) only makes it a crime to use a gun in relation to a drug trafficking crime.”
This court has visited this issue a number of times, and correctly has held that more than mere possession of a firearm is required for a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). See, e.g., United States v. Lyman, 892 F.2d 751, 753 (8th Cir.1989). This court also has stated that the government need not show the defendant was in actual physical possession of the firearm, or that he or she brandished or discharged it. See, e.g., United States v. Matra, 841 F.2d 837, 843 (8th Cir.1988). We have held that § 924(c) may reach the possession of a firearm which facilitates the execution of a felony involving drug trafficking, see, e.g., United States v. LaGuardia, 774 F.2d 317, 321 (8th Cir.1985), and we have employed various “armed fortress” analogies to support “use” convictions pursuant to § 924(c). See, e.g., United States v. Matra, 841 F.2d at 842.
The factual circumstances of each case are critical to a § 924(c) conviction. Courts consider several factors to decide whether defendants used firearms during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime under § 924(c). See, e.g., United States v. Morris, 977 F.2d 617, 621-22 (D.C.Cir.1992). Possession of the firearm is one factor. Id. Another is the accessibility of the gun to the defendant. Id. The proximity of the gun to the drugs is a third factor and, finally, whether the gun is loaded. Id. at 622. Considering this case against this backdrop, I cannot agree that Jones used his firearm in relation to drug trafficking.
In the present case a loaded firearm was found inside a shoe hanging on a shoe rack on the back of Jones’ bedroom door. Bullets for the gun were found in a dresser drawer in the bedroom. The drugs were found in a locked metal box in the floor of the bedroom closet. The proximity of the gun to the drugs depends on the layout of the bedroom. I would argue that evidence showing the gun was merely stored near the drugs was insufficient to support a “use” conviction within the meaning of § 924(c). Bruce, 939 F.2d at 1056. Regardless of the proximity of the firearm to the drugs, however, I cannot agree that these facts establish “use” of the firearm in relation to drug trafficking because the underlying drug trafficking crime was possession with intent to distribute. In my view, the evidence in the present case showed only that Jones possessed a gun which, it may be inferred, he intended to use in some future distribution of drugs. I am afraid the majority opinion has slipped on the slippery slope about which Judgé-Silberman warned in United States v. Morris, 977 F.2d 617, 623 (D.C.Cir.1992), and is sliding into uncharted territory.