Court Opinion

ID: 9490821
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:55:35.168585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:20.140818
License: Public Domain

TACHA, J.,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority opinion that finds the convictions on Counts I and II multiplieitous. I do not find in the language and structure of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) a clear Congressional intent not to impose cumulative punishment when possession of a weapon violated more than one of the subdivisions of subsection (g). Congress clearly expressed in the statutory language the intent to bar possession of a firearm by the classes of persons that Congress determined were dangerous. Nothing in the statutory language suggests that because an individual defendant may be proved to fall into several categories, Congress intended that the defendant should be punished under only one of the enumerated subdivisions. The contrary is true and, for me, dictates that the Blockburger test should apply. Clearly, each offense enumerated under the subdivisions of section 922(g) requires proof of a fact that the other subdivisions do not. The majority and the other circuits which the majority follows rely largely on a statutory organization rationale and on the about-face of the Solicitor General in United States v. Munoz-Romo, 989 F.2d 757 (5th Cir.1993). Neither of these reasons overcomes, for me, the clearly-stated statutory provisions delineating separate enhancements and requiring different proof of the elements of each to which the Blockburger test should be applied. I would follow the *1432Eighth Circuit in United States v. Peterson, 867 F.2d 1110, 1115 (8th Cir.1989) for the reasons ably stated by Judge Barksdale in the dissent in Munoz-Romo. See 989 F.2d at 760 (Barksdale, J., dissenting).