Court Opinion

ID: 9495894
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:12:53.853792+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:45.209353
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent with respect to Section II of the majority opinion and would reverse the judgment of the district court denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment on the ground that his civil rights had been restored within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(33)(B)(ii).
Today, the majority decides that 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(33)(B)(n) should be read literally, over-literally I contend, with respect to the word “restored,” and decides that the restoration exception does not apply to the defendant because his misdemeanor conviction did not result in a term of imprisonment. In making this determination, however, the majority fails to give effect to the parenthetical language in the statute. It is this language that has brought about the various views of the circuits as to Congress’s intention regarding gun possession. Furthermore, it is this language that divides me from the majority’s position today.
Section 921(a)(33)(B)(ii) reads, in pertinent part: “A person shall not be considered to have been convicted of such an offense ... if the conviction ... is an offense for which the person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored (if the law of the applicable jurisdiction provides for the loss of civil rights under such an offense)....” 18 U.S.C. *277§ 921(a)(33)(B)(ii) (emphasis added). I agree with the majority that by this language Congress intended to “look to state law to define the restoration exception” and was keenly aware that it would create a disparity in application of the federal law among the States. See 271-274, citing United States v. Smith, 171 F.3d 617, 625 (8th Cir.1999). See also United States v. Wegrzyn, 305 F.3d 593, 595 (6th Cir.2002) (“Congress chose to allow the states themselves to dictate the parameters of the statutory exception by recognizing the differences among state laws concerned with loss of civil rights upon conviction for certain offenses.”). While it is clear that Congress elected to defer to state law, it is not patent that Congress desired to recognize both a disparity among States, and also within an individual State, as the majority decision would require.
Upon first glance, it might seem that the majority’s reading is correct: construing the word “restored” over-literally, the defendant’s civil rights were never revoked, therefore, there was nothing to restore and the restoration exception is inapplicable as it pertains to him. But this is like the offer of “more” tea to Alice who yet had had none. See Alice in Wonderland, Carroll, Grossett & Dunlop, 1980, p. 79. Applying this reading ignores the directive contained in the parenthetical section of the statute (if the law of the applicable jurisdiction provides for the loss of civil rights), which is as much a part of the statute as any other part. In constructing this statute, Congress intended the restoration exception to differentiate between those jurisdictions in which misdemean-ants may lose their civil rights and those jurisdictions that do not provide for such a loss. The majority’s reading, mistakenly, I believe, assumes that Congress also intended to differentiate among individual misdemeanants and allow only some people within an applicable jurisdiction to benefit from the exception. While it does seem that Congress knew it would create anomalous results from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, I suggest that nothing in the statute indicates that Congress intended the results of today’s decision. Indeed, under the majority’s reading, within the State of South Carolina,’ a defendant, as here, would be unable to possess a firearm because his underlying crime did not warrant incarceration, but another offender in that same State whose crime justified imprisonment would qualify for the section 921(a)(33) exception. See Wegrzyn, 305 F.3d at 595 (noting that in Michigan someone who “committed a more egregious offense justifying incarceration would nevertheless be allowed — upon completion of a jail sentence — to possess a firearm, while another misdemeanant whose transgression did not merit such severe punishment would be treated more harshly at the conclusion of a more lenient punishment”).
Not only does the majority decision require such an unreasonable result, it goes beyond what the other circuits have decided with respect to this issue. In each of the decisions on which the majority relies, the predicate convictions were not in jurisdictions that provided for the loss of civil rights for misdemeanants. See United States v. Barnes, 295 F.3d 1354, 1368 (D.C.Cir.2002) (noting that there is no law in the District of Columbia that forfeits the civil rights of misdemeanants, and finding no equal protection violation in those jurisdictions that do provide for loss of civil rights); United States v. Hancock, 231 F.3d 557, 565-66 (9th Cir.2000), cert. denied, 532 U.S. 989, 121 S.Ct. 1641, 149 L.Ed.2d 500 (2001) (stating that misde-meanants in Arizona do not lose their civil rights, and refusing to find it a violation of equal protection that felons who lose their civil rights could benefit from the restora*278tion exception while misdemeanants do not); United States v. Smith, 171 F.3d 617, 623-25 (8th Cir.1999) (noting that the federal restoration exception does not apply because Iowa law does not strip misde-meanants of their civil rights, and finding no equal protection violation in the fact that felons can qualify for an exception under 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20)); McGrath v. United States, 60 F.3d 1005 (2d Cir.1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1121, 116 S.Ct. 929, 133 L.Ed.2d 857 (1996) (addressing the restoration exception provided in § 921(a)(20) and finding that under Vermont law felons who are convicted but never incarcerated do not lose their civil rights). But cf. United States v. Meza-Corrales, 183 F.3d 1116, 1129 n. 5 (9th Cir.1999) (“McGrath has been disagreed with by a number of other circuits, including the one upon which the authors of McGrath initially relied, and including the Ninth Circuit ....”) (citations omitted). Thus, the restoration exception could not be applied to the defendants in any of those cases and the courts were not required to decide whether Congress intended anomalous results to occur within a jurisdiction. Indeed, the Eighth Circuit in United States v. Smith distinguished a contrary reading of the statute adopted by the First Circuit in United States v. Indelicato,* 97 F.3d 627 (1st Cir.1996), specifically because the Indelicato court had an applicable state law that enabled it to fit under the federal exception. The Smith court reasoned that the Indelicato court was “indulging in a fiction” in which it was not “at liberty to engage.” Smith, 171 F.3d at 623. But Indelicato concluded that such civil rights “to the extent they were never taken away, should be treated as ‘restored.’ ” 97 F.3d at 631.
More like our case, the Sixth Circuit decision in United States v. Wegrzyn, a case on facts indistinguishable from the case at hand, involved a jurisdiction in which the restoration exception was applicable because Michigan law provides for the loss of civil rights for conviction of a misdemeanor “only while confined in a correctional facility.” See Wegrzyn, 305 F.3d at 595. Facing a similar situation to the one we have here today, the Wegrzyn court determined that the defendant, while never incarcerated, should benefit from the restoration exception because it gives effect to Congress’s intention to let state law control. Wegrzyn, 305 F.3d at 595. I agree with the Wegrzyn court. Adopting our majority’s reading of the statute actually enables federal law to create disparate results within the same State, which seems to me to cut directly against providing the States with control over the parameters of individual crimes.
Additionally, finding that the restoration exception should apply to the defendant would not, I suggest, as the majority fears, “allow the restoration exception ... to swallow the rule.” Op. at 274 (citing Smith, 171 F.3d at 624). The parenthetical language dictates that only a limited number of jurisdictions will be able to apply the restoration exception, thus only those limited jurisdictions will even face this problem. Deciding that those jurisdictions in which the exception applies should have consistency with respect to *279their own offenders does not alter' Congress’s ultimate intention in enacting the statute: to differentiate between those jurisdictions that strip misdemeanants of their civil rights and those that do not in order to defer to the States as to how they define the boundaries of the crime.
Unlike the Second, Eighth, Ninth, and District of Columbia Circuits, this court must address the parenthetical language of section 921 (a)(33)(B)(ii) because South Carolina is the type of jurisdiction that Congress contemplated in enacting the statute. While it seems clear that Congress was aware (and indeed expected) that certain anomalous results that would arise from its wording of section 921(a)(33), it cannot be gleaned from the language of the statute that the exception was designed to apply as the majority has done today. Congress intended to allow the States to define the parameters of the individual crimes, and this court should allow them to do just that. The State of South Carolina has elected to strip misde-meanants of civil rights; therefore, section 921 (a)(33)(B)(ii) should be applicable to misdemeanants in that jurisdiction. To allow the federal rule to then alter the law within that jurisdiction by providing that misdemeanants whose crimes did not warrant incarceration should not be allowed to possess guns, when those who did serve time may possess guns, removes the control from the States that Congress originally intended.
For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the decision of the district court and hold that the restoration exception of 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(33)(B)(ii) exempts application of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) as to the defendant.

 Indelicato involved an analysis of 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20), which does not contain the same parenthetical language of § 921(a)(33), and reads in pertinent part:
Any conviction [of any State offense classified by the laws of the State as a misdemeanor and punishable by a term of imprisonment of two years or less] which has been expunged, or set aside or for which a person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored shall not be considered a conviction for purposes of this chapter....
18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20).