Court Opinion

ID: 9927421
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-27 01:00:42.376068+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:30.943135
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-60294         Document: 00517046574             Page: 1      Date Filed: 01/26/2024

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

                                       No. 23-60294
                                                                                        FILED
                                                                                January 26, 2024
                                     Summary Calendar
                                     ____________                                 Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                                       Clerk
   United States of America,

                                                                      Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                             versus

   Ronald Harris Cuevas,

                                               Defendant—Appellant.
                      ______________________________

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Southern District of Mississippi
                               USDC No. 1:21-CR-145-1
                      ______________________________

   Before Higginbotham, Stewart, and Southwick, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
          Ronald Harris Cuevas pled guilty to one count of being a felon in
   possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). In his written
   plea agreement, Cuevas expressly waived the right to appeal his conviction
   or sentence on any grounds and reserved only the right to bring an ineffective
   assistance of counsel claim. The district court accepted Cuevas’s guilty plea

          _____________________
          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.4.
Case: 23-60294     Document: 00517046574           Page: 2    Date Filed: 01/26/2024

                                    No. 23-60294

   and sentenced him to a 120-month imprisonment term and three years of
   supervised release. Cuevas did not object to the constitutionality of Section
   922(g)(1) before the district court. The court granted Cuevas’s 28 U.S.C.
   § 2255 motion to file an out-of-time appeal. Following an extension, Cuevas
   timely filed a notice of appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(4). The
   Government subsequently filed a motion to dismiss, or alternatively for
   summary affirmance. Summary affirmance is GRANTED.
          Cuevas argues that Section 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional under the
   Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597
   U.S. 1 (2022), and our subsequent ruling in United States v. Rahimi, 61 F.4th
   443 (5th Cir.), cert. granted, 143 S. Ct. 2688 (2023). Cuevas argues Bruen and
   Rahimi render his plea agreement, including the appeal waiver,
   unenforceable under the Second Amendment. Thus, effectuating Cuevas’s
   appeal waiver would constitute a miscarriage of justice.
          Cuevas raises this constitutional challenge for the first time on appeal.
   We therefore review it for plain error. United States v. Fernandez, 559 F.3d
   303, 316 (5th Cir. 2009). An appeal waiver is considered valid “if the
   defendant indicates that he read and understood the agreement and the
   agreement contains an explicit, unambiguous waiver.” United States v. Kelly,
   915 F.3d 344, 348 (5th Cir. 2019) (quoting United States v. Keele, 755 F.3d
   752, 754 (5th Cir. 2014)). Constitutional rights can be waived as part of
   appeal waivers, United States v. Portillo-Munoz, 643 F.3d 437, 442 (5th Cir.
   2011), but the waiver will not be enforced if the language is “insufficient to
   accomplish an intelligent waiver of the right not to be prosecuted (and
   imprisoned) for conduct that does not violate the law,” United States v.
   White, 258 F.3d 374, 380 (5th Cir. 2001).
          In his plea agreement, Cuevas “expressly” waived the “right to
   appeal [his] conviction and sentence imposed in this case, or the manner in

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                                    No. 23-60294

   which that sentence was imposed, on the grounds set forth in [18 U.S.C.
   §] 3742, or on any ground whatsoever.” This waiver does not expressly bar
   or except a challenge to the constitutionality of Section 922(g)(1), but that is
   of no consequence here under plain error review because applying Bruen
   would not establish an “error, that is plain, and that affects [Cuevas’s]
   substantial rights.” Fernandez, 559 F.3d at 316.
          For a legal error to be plain, it “must be clear or obvious, rather than
   subject to reasonable debate.” Jimenez v. Wood Cnty., 660 F.3d 841, 847 (5th
   Cir. 2011) (citation omitted). A “lack of binding authority is often dispositive
   in the plain-error context.” United States v. Gonzalez, 792 F.3d 534, 538 (5th
   Cir. 2015). Further, the error must be considered “clear under current law.”
   United States v. Trejo, 610 F.3d 308, 319 (5th Cir. 2010) (citation and
   emphasis omitted). “An error is not plain under current law if a defendant’s
   theory requires the extension of precedent.” Id. (quotation marks and
   citation omitted).
          In Bruen, the Supreme Court articulated a new test for assessing the
   constitutionality of a statute under the Second Amendment. See 597 U.S. at
   17, 24–25. This court extended Bruen to a preserved Second Amendment
   challenge to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), which bans the possession of firearms by
   a person subject to a domestic violence restraining order. Rahimi, 61 F.4th at
   448. However, neither Bruen nor Rahimi dictates such a result for Section
   922(g)(1), and this lack of binding authority is dispositive. Gonzales, 792 F.3d
   at 538. Indeed, we have rejected similar unpreserved Second Amendment
   challenges to Section 922(g)(1) based on Bruen. See, e.g., United States v. Roy,
   No. 22-10677, 2023 WL 3073266 (5th Cir. Apr. 25, 2023); United States v.
   Pickett, No. 22-11006, 2023 WL 3193281 (5th Cir. May 2, 2023).
          Summary affirmance GRANTED.

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