USCA1 Opinion

      [NOT FOR PUBLICATION--NOT TO BE CITED AS PRECEDENT]

                 United States Court of Appeals

                     For the First Circuit











No. 98-1800



                          UNITED STATES,



                            Appellee,



                                v.



                        THOMAS E. WILSON,



                      Defendant, Appellant.







           APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT



                FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS



       [Hon. Frank H. Freedman, Senior U.S. District Judge]







                              Before



                      Selya, Circuit Judge,

                 Bownes, Senior Circuit Judge,

                   and Stahl, Circuit Judge.

                                

                                





     Lori H. Levinson and Cain, Hibbard, Myers & Cook, P.C. on

brief for appellant.

     Donald K. Stern, United States Attorney, Ariane D. Vuono,

Assistant U.S. Attorney, on Motion for Summary Disposition for

appellee.







                                

                                

                         March 4, 1999

                                

                                

                                

                                

                                

                                               Per Curiam.  Thomas E. Wilson appeals from an

    enhanced sentence that was imposed in 1994, pursuant to the

    Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C.  924(e), following his

    guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm, in

    violation of  922(g)(1).  The district court, having failed to

    advise Wilson of his right to appeal at sentencing, later

    granted (in part) Wilson's  2255 motion and reinstated his

    right to appeal his sentence.  This appeal represents Wilson's

    exercise of that reinstated right.

              Wilson challenges his conviction and enhanced

    sentence on the ground that his prior Massachusetts convictions

    did not qualify as predicate offenses because his civil rights

    had been restored with respect to those convictions.  He relies

    upon 18 U.S.C.  921(a)(20), which provides, in relevant part,

    that a conviction "shall not be considered" as a predicate

    offense where

              a person . . . has had civil rights

              restored . . . , unless such . . .

              restoration of civil rights expressly

              provides that the person may not ship,

              transport, possess or receive firearms.

    

    The parties agree that Massachusetts law has restored Wilson's

    civil rights.  The focus of this appeal is the interpretation

    to be given to the "unless clause" of  921(a)(20).

              "Massachusetts materially restricts an ex-felon's

    right to carry and traffic in firearms regardless of the

    passage of time." United States v. Alston, 112 F.3d 32, 37 (1st

    Cir. 1997); see United States v. Estrella, 104 F.3d 3, 7 (1st

                                 -2-

    Cir. 1997)(listing Massachusetts statutory restrictions). 

    Despite the absence of a total prohibition of the right to

    possess firearms, Massachusetts' "patchwork of restrictions"

    triggers the "unless clause" such that  921(a)(20) does not

    protect the ex-felon. Estrella, 104 F.3d at 8 (holding that

    Estrella was not excepted from the felon-in-possession

    statute).  The holding in Estrella has also been applied to

    affirm sentencing enhancements under  924(e). See United

    States v. Blodgett, 130 F.3d 1, 3-4 (1st Cir. 1997); Alston,

    112 F.3d at 37-38.

              The Supreme Court recently resolved a division among

    various circuits over the interpretation to be given to the

    "unless clause" and endorsed the approach taken by this circuit

    in Estrella, supra. See Caron v. United States, 118 S.Ct. 2007

    (1998).  The court interpreted the "unless clause" to apply

    when the state forbids one or more types of firearms, adopting

    the following reasoning:

    

              a state weapons limitation on an offender

              activates the uniform federal ban on

              possessing any firearms at all.  This is

              so even if the guns the offender possessed

              were ones the State permitted him to have. 

              The State has singled out the offender as

              more dangerous than law-abiding citizens,

              and federal law uses this determination to

              impose its own broader stricture.

              

    Id. at 2011-12.  The Court affirmed this court's judgment

    ordering that Caron be sentenced as an armed career criminal

    under  924(e). Id. at 2012.

              Wilson's argument that the Supreme Court's Carondecision does not apply to him because it had not yet been

    decided when he became aware of his right to appeal in August

    1997, is unavailing.  The Supreme Court's Caron decision

    affirmed a judgment of this court applying the approach taken

    in Estrella, supra.  Therefore, it makes no difference to the

    outcome of this appeal whether we apply the Supreme Court's

    Caron decision or (as Wilson urges us to do) the law of this

    circuit as it existed in August 1997.  The district court did

    not err in treating the prior Massachusetts convictions as

    predicate offenses for purposes of  922(g)(1) and 924(e). 

    Nor did Wilson receive ineffective assistance of counsel

    because his attorney did not challenge the use of the predicate

    offenses.

              The government's motion for summary affirmance is

    granted.  See Loc.R. 27.1.