Court Opinion

ID: 9959817
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-12 18:00:47.750941+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:55.144182
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-40098      Document: 78-1     Page: 1    Date Filed: 04/12/2024

        United States Court of Appeals
             for the Fifth Circuit
                            ____________                          United States Court of Appeals
                                                                           Fifth Circuit

                             No. 23-40098                                FILED
                                                                     April 12, 2024
                            ____________
                                                                    Lyle W. Cayce
United States of America,                                                Clerk

                                                       Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                  versus

Elden Don Brannan,

                                        Defendant—Appellant.
               ______________________________

              Appeal from the United States District Court
                  for the Southern District of Texas
                       USDC No. 2:22-CR-184-1
              ______________________________

Before Elrod, Willett, and Duncan, Circuit Judges.
Stuart Kyle Duncan, Circuit Judge:
      A federal jury found Elden Don Brannan guilty of possessing an
unregistered “destructive device” in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d). On
appeal, Brannan contends the evidence failed to support his conviction
because the Government did not prove that the device—a sealed metal pipe
containing pyrotechnic material harvested from fireworks—was “designed
for use as a weapon.” See id. § 5845(f). We disagree. Under our binding
precedent, this exception to § 5861(d) is an affirmative defense, not an
element of the crime. We therefore affirm Brannan’s conviction.
Case: 23-40098        Document: 78-1         Page: 2    Date Filed: 04/12/2024

                                  No. 23-40098

                                        I.
       Brannan lived with his sister and her three children in Corpus Christi,
Texas. In 2022, Brannan’s sister called 911 to report that Brannan had
assaulted her boyfriend and was threatening suicide. When police arrived,
she told them Brannan had a “pipe bomb” in his bedroom closet. A bomb
squad came and removed the device. Brannan was arrested and later indicted
by a grand jury for possessing an unregistered “destructive device” in
violation of 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d).
       His sister testified at trial that, weeks before the 911 call, Brannan built
the device at their kitchen table from disassembled fireworks. Various Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) personnel testified
about the device’s features. 1 It was a fused metal pipe wrapped in tape, six
inches long and one inch in diameter. Its top was sealed with a cardboard and
clay plug; its bottom with a waxy material, five dimes, and a plastic bottle cap.
Inside was another clay plug along with a powder containing pyrotechnic
stars harvested from fireworks, a common feature of pipe bombs. Once the
fuse was lit, the powder would burn, generate gas, and—because the pipe was
sealed—eventually explode. Metal pieces and the dimes would fly out as
shrapnel. Given these characteristics, ATF Agent and Explosive
Enforcement Officer Scott McCullough “determined it was an explosive or
improvised explosive bomb.”
       Brannan’s defense was that the device was not an explosive but rather
a “makeshift roman-candle or fountain firework” that was “designed to emit
a pyrotechnic display.” His expert witness, Michael Hefti, testified the
device would not have exploded because its non-metallic plugs could not

       _____________________
       1
         There was testimony from two ATF agents, an ATF chemist, and an ATF
explosives officer.

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                                     No. 23-40098

have contained the expanding gas. 2 At the same time, Hefti admitted the
device’s metal structure was “not typical” of improvised fireworks. He also
repeatedly admitted he did not know what purpose the dimes served,
hypothesizing they might have helped seal the bottom of the pipe.
        Brannan moved for acquittal after the Government’s case, after his
case, and again at the close of all evidence. He argued the evidence was
insufficient to show he had designed the device as a weapon. Those motions
were all denied. Brannan also asked the court to instruct the jury that, to
convict him under 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d), it had to find he had intentionally
designed the device for use as a weapon. The court rejected this proposed
instruction, too. It reasoned that, under United States v. Beason, 690 F.2d 439,
445 (5th Cir. 1982), Brannan’s intent to design the device as a weapon was
not an element of the offense but an affirmative defense. Brannan declined to
assert that affirmative defense, however.
        Adopting the Fifth Circuit pattern instructions, the district court
instructed the jury that, to convict Brannan, it had to find the following:
        First: That [Brannan] knowingly possessed a destructive
        device.
        Second: That this destructive device was an explosive bomb.
        Third: That [Brannan] knew the characteristics of the
        destructive device, an explosive bomb.
        Fourth: That the destructive device was in operating condition
        or could readily have been put in operating condition; and

        _____________________
        2
         Hefti is an attorney with a military background in explosive ordinance disposal
and post-blast investigations. Brannan himself did not testify.

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                                      No. 23-40098

        Fifth: That this destructive device was not registered to
        [Brannan] in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer
        Record. 3
See Fifth Circuit Pattern Jury Instruction (Criminal) § 2.102
(2019).
        The jury found Brannan guilty. The court subsequently sentenced
him to 24 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
        Brannan timely appealed his conviction. As he did in the district court,
he argues that the evidence was insufficient to convict him and that the jury
instruction omitted an element of the offense.
                                           II.
        We review Brannan’s properly preserved challenge to the sufficiency
of the evidence de novo. See United States v. Scott, 70 F.4th 846, 854 (5th Cir.
2023). Nonetheless, “[a] defendant seeking reversal on the basis of
insufficient evidence swims upstream.” United States v. Sanders, 952 F.3d
263, 273 (5th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted). We review the evidence “in the
light most favorable to the verdict to determine whether a rational trier of fact
could have found that the evidence established the essential elements of the
offense beyond a reasonable doubt.” United States v. Shum, 496 F.3d 390, 391
(5th Cir. 2007).
        Challenges to jury instructions, though typically reviewed for abuse of
discretion, are reviewed de novo when, as here, “the objection is based on
statutory interpretation.” United States v. Stanford, 823 F.3d 814, 828 (5th
Cir. 2016). But it is well-settled “that a district court does not err by giving a
charge that tracks this Circuit’s pattern jury instructions and that is a correct
        _____________________
        3
          The instructions also explained that it did not matter whether Brannan knew that
the firearm was registered or had to be registered.

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                                 No. 23-40098

statement of the law.” United States v. Richardson, 676 F.3d 491, 507 (5th Cir.
2012) (citation omitted).
                                     III.
       It is a federal crime for a person to “receive or possess a firearm which
is not registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer
Record.” 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d). The term “firearm” embraces “a destructive
device,” see id. § 5845(a)(8), whose definition in turn includes “any
explosive . . . bomb,” id. § 5845(f). Excluded from the latter definition,
however, is “any device which is neither designed nor redesigned for use as
a weapon.” Id. § 5845(f). To convict a defendant under § 5861(d), the
Government must prove the defendant “knew of the features” of the
destructive device that bring it under the law’s prohibition. See Staples v.
United States, 511 U.S. 600, 619 (1994); United States v. Reyna, 130 F.3d 104,
108 (5th Cir. 1997).
       Brannan’s arguments focus on the exception in § 5845(f) for a device
not “designed for use as a weapon.” He argues that the Government must
affirmatively prove the device was designed as a weapon and that the
Government failed to do so. Likewise, Brannan argues the jury instructions
were inadequate because they did not include this purported element. We
disagree with both arguments.
       Our precedent forecloses Brannan’s first argument. Decades ago, we
held in Beason that § 5845(f)’s exceptions are affirmative defenses, not
offense elements. 690 F.2d at 445. As we explained, “[e]xceptions to
statutory definitions are generally matters for affirmative defenses, especially
where the elements constituting the offense may be defined accurately
without any reference to the exceptions.” Ibid. That applied here, we
continued, because § 5861(d) defines a “destructive device” to include
“explosive bombs,” meaning its elements can be defined accurately without

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                                        No. 23-40098

referring to the exceptions. Ibid.; see also United States v. Wise, 221 F.3d 140,
148 (5th Cir. 2000) (noting the “well-established rule of criminal statutory
construction that an exception set forth in a distinct clause or provision
should be construed as an affirmative defense and not as an essential element
of the crime” (citation omitted)). 4 Because we are bound by Beason, we reject
Brannan’s contention that the Government must affirmatively prove
§ 5845(f)’s “not designed as a weapon” exception as an element of the
crime.
         Brannan’s attempts to get around Beason are unavailing. First, he
suggests that Beason ran afoul of United States v. Ross, 458 F.2d 1144 (5th Cir.
1972), and that, as the earlier decision, Ross controls. See, e.g., GlobeRanger
Corp. v. Software AG U.S. of Am., Inc., 836 F.3d 477, 497 (5th Cir. 2016)
(explaining “the earlier case controls” if two decisions conflict). Beason and
Ross do not conflict, however. In Ross’s “brief discussion” of whether
§ 5845(f) is unconstitutionally vague, the panel merely noted that § 5845(f)
“contains the crucial limitation that a destructive device does not include any
device not designed or redesigned for use as a weapon,” and that the Molotov
cocktail at issue there “ha[d] no use other than as a weapon.” Ross, 458 F.2d
at 1145. But Ross did not address whether this “crucial limitation” is an

         _____________________
         4
           Our sister circuits mostly agree. See, e.g., United States v. Musso, 914 F.3d 26, 28
(1st Cir. 2019); United States v. Posnjak, 457 F.2d 1110, 1116 (2d Cir. 1972); United States v.
Dalpiaz, 527 F.2d 548, 552 (6th Cir. 1975); United States v. Johnson, 152 F.3d 618, 623 (7th
Cir. 1998); United States v. Ballinger, 951 F.2d 362 (9th Cir. 1991) (unpublished); United
States v. Basnett, 735 F.3d 1255, 1257 (10th Cir. 2013). So far, the only circuit to have
diverged is the Eleventh. See United States v. Hammond, 371 F.3d 776, 780 (11th Cir. 2004)
(holding that the “[s]tatutory coverage depends upon proof that a device is an explosive
plus proof that it was designed as a weapon”); see also United States v. Neil, 138 F. App’x
418, 420–21 n.3 (3d Cir. 2005) (noting conflict between Beason and Hammond without
resolving the issue).

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                                 No. 23-40098

element or an affirmative defense. See ibid. In Beason, we clarified that it is
the latter. 690 F.2d at 445.
       Brannan next points to United States v. Harbarger, 46 F.4th 287 (5th
Cir. 2022). There, we reversed Harbarger’s § 5861(d) conviction for
insufficient evidence. Id. at 292. The device at issue was a small, sealed
bamboo stick filled with pyrodex (a combustible powder) that Harbarger
claimed he used only to “scare beavers and destroy their dams.” Id. at 291,
288 & n.4. We reversed because the Government’s only evidence rebutting
Harbarger’s claim was “conclusional testimony” by an ATF expert that the
device could “fragment” and “destroy property.” Id. at 291. That alone was
not enough to overcome Harbarger’s testimony that the device had no
nefarious purpose. Id. at 292. “[B]reaking up a beaver dam,” we explained,
“cannot alone sustain a finding that a flimsy explosive device is designed as a
weapon.” Id. at 291.
       Harbarger does not help Brannan for multiple reasons. To begin,
Harbarger does not address whether the § 5845(f) exception is an affirmative
defense or an element of the offense. That is unsurprising, since no one raised
that issue. And Harbarger could not contradict Beason, which has been circuit
precedent since 1982.
       Furthermore, Harbarger does not help Brannan on its own terms. The
issue in Harbarger was the bamboo stick’s destructive potential—something
the Government utterly failed to prove. See ibid. (noting the Government
merely burned off some of the pyrodex but did not “provide any other
meaningful evidence from which the design to create weaponry could be
inferred”). By contrast, the issue here is whether the pipe was meant to
explode and fragment or only, as Brannan claimed, to “emit a pyrotechnic
display” from one end. The Government provided ample evidence
contradicting Brannan’s claim and showing the device would explode and

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                                      No. 23-40098

produce dangerous metal shrapnel. 5 Cf. ibid. (observing that any fragments
from the bamboo stick “do not resemble in dangerousness the relevant
fragmentation in other cases”). Presented with this evidence on both sides,
the jury convicted Brannan. We are not at liberty to disturb its verdict. See,
e.g., United States v. Velasquez, 881 F.3d 314, 328 (5th Cir. 2018) (per curiam)
(“The jury retains the sole authority to weigh any conflicting evidence and
to evaluate the credibility of the witnesses.” (citation omitted)).
        Finally, for all the foregoing reasons, we also conclude that the district
court did not err by following our circuit’s pattern instructions and declining
to add “designed as a weapon” as an element of § 5861(d). See Richardson,
676 F.3d at 507 (explaining “[i]t is well-settled . . . that a district court does
not err by giving a charge that tracks this Circuit’s pattern jury instructions
and that is a correct statement of the law” (citation omitted)).
                                                                         AFFIRMED.

        _____________________
        5
          For instance, Agent McCullough explained how the pipe’s sealed ends would
confine the expanding gas and cause the pipe to explode. He also noted that the placement
of the fuse and lift charge in Brannan’s device differed from those in fireworks. Indeed,
Hefti himself noted that the device’s metal structure and dimes were not typical of
fireworks. And Brannan’s sister testified that he had never previously constructed
fireworks.
         Moreover, Harbarger also suggested that, given their inherent dangerousness,
“metal pipe[s] containing explosives” are “per se weapons under the NFA.” 46 F.4th at
289 n.5. Indeed, we have repeatedly determined that pipe bombs are “destructive devices”
within the meaning of § 5845(f). See, e.g., United States v. Charles, 883 F.2d 355, 357 (5th
Cir. 1989); United States v. Hunn, 344 F. App’x 920, 921 (5th Cir. 2009) (per curiam);
United States v. Waits, 581 F. App’x 432, 434 (5th Cir. 2014) (per curiam); United States v.
Rosa, 499 F. App’x 358 (5th Cir. 2012) (per curiam).

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