USCA11 Case: 24-10693    Document: 35-1     Date Filed: 08/14/2024   Page: 1 of 8




                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 24-10693
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiff-Appellee,
       versus
       TORRENCE DENARD WHITAKER,


                                                  Defendant-Appellant.


                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Southern District of Florida
                   D.C. Docket No. 9:22-cr-80196-KAM-1
                          ____________________
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                  24-10693


       Before ROSENBAUM, NEWSOM, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Torrence Whitaker appeals his conviction for possession of
       a firearm and ammunition as a convicted felon, arguing that
       

(g)(1) violates the Second Amendment and the
       Commerce Clause, both facially and as applied to him. The gov-
       ernment responds by moving for summary affirmance, arguing
       that § 922(g)(1) is constitutional under the Second Amendment and
       the Commerce Clause, both facially and as applied to Whitaker,
       under our binding precedent and that this precedent has not been
       overruled or undermined to the point of abrogation by the Su-
       preme Court or by this Court sitting en banc.
               Summary disposition is appropriate either where time is of
       the essence, such as “situations where important public policy is-
       sues are involved or those where rights delayed are rights denied,”
       or where “the position of one of the parties is clearly right as a mat-
       ter of law so that there can be no substantial question as to the out-
       come of the case, or where, as is more frequently the case, the ap-
       peal is frivolous.” Groendyke Transp., Inc. v. Davis, 

,
       1162 (5th Cir. 1969).
               We review the constitutionality of a statute de novo. United
       States v. Wright, 

 (11th Cir. 2010).
               A criminal defendant’s guilty plea does not bar a subsequent
       constitutional challenge to the statute of conviction. Class v. United
       States, 

, 178 (2018).
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       24-10693               Opinion of the Court                          3

              The prior precedent rule requires us to follow a prior bind-
       ing precedent unless it is overruled by this Court en banc or by the
       Supreme Court. United States v. White, 

 (11th
       Cir. 2016). “To constitute an overruling for the purposes of this
       prior panel precedent rule, the Supreme Court decision must be
       clearly on point.” United States v. Kaley, 

 (11th
       Cir. 2009) (quotation marks omitted). “In addition to being
       squarely on point, the doctrine of adherence to prior precedent also
       mandates that the intervening Supreme Court case actually abro-
       gate or directly conflict with, as opposed to merely weaken, the
       holding of the prior panel.” 

 “The prior panel precedent rule
       applies regardless of whether the later panel believes the prior
       panel’s opinion to be correct, and there is no exception to the rule
       where the prior panel failed to consider arguments raised before a
       later panel.” United States v. Gillis, 

, 1198 (11th Cir.
       2019).
             Section 922(g) of Title 18 of the United States Code prohibits
       anyone who has been convicted of a crime punishable by more
       than one year of imprisonment from possessing a firearm or am-
       munition. 

(g)(1).
               The Commerce Clause reads: “The Congress shall have
       Power . . . To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and
       among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” U.S. Const.
       art. I, § 8, cl. 3. We have “clearly held that 

(g) is
       constitutional under the Commerce Clause.” United States v. Lon-
       goria, 

 (11th Cir. 2017), abrogated on other grounds
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                  24-10693

       by Erlinger v. United States, 

 (2024). We have also
       rejected as-applied challenges to 

(g), holding that
       the government proves a “minimal nexus” to interstate commerce
       where it demonstrates that the firearms were manufactured out-
       side of the state where the offense took place and, thus, necessarily
       traveled in interstate commerce. Wright, 

. In
       United States v. McAllister, we explicitly rejected the argument that
       United States v. Lopez, 

 (1995), rendered § 922(g)(1) un-
       constitutional as applied to the appellant, holding that § 922(g)(1)’s
       statutory requirement of a connection to interstate commerce was
       sufficient to satisfy the “minimal nexus” requirement that re-
       mained in binding precedent. 

 (11th Cir. 1996).
       Similarly, in United States v. Scott, we held that United States v. Mor-
       rison, 

 (2000), did not abrogate McAllister because
       § 922(g)(1) contained an explicit statutory jurisdictional require-
       ment that “immunizes § 922(g)(1) from Scott’s facial constitutional
       attack,” and Morrison did not compel a different conclusion than
       reached in McAllister. 

 (11th Cir. 2001).
              The Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia,
       being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the peo-
       ple to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” U.S. Const.
       amend. II. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held
       that the Second Amendment right to bear arms presumptively “be-
       longs to all Americans,” but is not unlimited. 

 (2008). The Supreme Court noted in Heller that, while it “[did]
       not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis . . . of the full scope
       of the Second Amendment, nothing in [the Heller] opinion should
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       24-10693               Opinion of the Court                         5

       be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the posses-
       sion of firearms by felons.” 

. Courts of appeals
       adopted a “two-step” framework for assessing Second Amendment
       challenges following Heller: (1) determine whether the law in ques-
       tion regulates activity within the scope of the right to bear arms
       based on its original historical meaning; and (2) if so, apply means-
       end scrutiny to test the law’s validity. New York State Rifle & Pistol
       Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 

, 18-19 (2022).
              In United States v. Rozier, we relied on Heller in holding that
       § 922(g)(1) did not violate the Second Amendment, “even if a felon
       possesses a firearm purely for self-defense.” 

 (11th
       Cir. 2010). We recognized that prohibiting felons from possessing
       firearms was a “presumptively lawful longstanding prohibition.”
       

 (quotation marks omitted). We stated that Heller sug-
       gested that “statutes disqualifying felons from possessing a firearm
       under any and all circumstances do not offend the Second Amend-
       ment.” 

 We concluded that Rozier’s purpose for possessing a
       firearm, and the fact that the firearm was constrained to his home,
       was immaterial because felons as a class could be excluded from
       firearm possession. 

              In Bruen, the Supreme Court held that Heller does not sup-
       port applying means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment con-
       text. 597 U.S. at 19. Instead, a court must ask whether the firearm
       regulation at issue governs conduct that falls within the plain text
       of the Second Amendment. Id. at 17. If the regulation does govern
       such conduct, the court will uphold it so long as the government
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       6                       Opinion of the Court                  24-10693

       “affirmatively prove[s] that its firearms regulation is part of the his-
       torical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep
       and bear arms.” Id. at 19. The Supreme Court in Bruen, as it did in
       Heller, referenced the Second Amendment rights of “law-abiding,
       responsible citizens.” Id. at 26, 38 n.9, 70; Heller, 

.
               In United States v. Dubois, we rejected a defendant’s Second
       Amendment challenge to § 922(g)(1). 

, 1291-93 (11th
       Cir. 2024). We noted that Bruen, like Heller, repeatedly described
       the right to bear arms as extending only to “law-abiding, responsi-
       ble citizens.” 

. We then determined that Bruen did
       not abrogate our precedent in Rozier under the prior-panel-prece-
       dent rule because the Supreme Court made it clear that Heller did
       not cast doubt on felon-in-possession prohibitions and that its hold-
       ing in Bruen was consistent with Heller. 

. We noted that
       Rozier interpreted Heller as limiting the right to “law-abiding and
       qualified individuals,” and as clearly excluding felons from those
       categories by referring to felon-in-possession bans as presump-
       tively lawful. 

 (quotation marks omitted). We held that, because
       clearer instruction was required from the Supreme Court before
       we could reconsider § 922(g)(1)’s constitutionality, we were still
       bound by Rozier, and Dubois’s challenge based on the Second
       Amendment therefore failed. Id.
              In United States v. Rahimi, the Supreme Court held that
       § 922(g)(8), which prohibits the possession of firearms by individu-
       als subject to a domestic violence restraining order, did not facially
       violate the Second Amendment because regulations prohibiting
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       24-10693               Opinion of the Court                         7

       individuals who pose a credible threat of harm to others from mis-
       using firearms are part of this country’s historical tradition. 

, 1889, 1896, 1898, 1902 (2024). The Supreme Court noted
       that courts have “misunderstood” the Bruen methodology and
       stated that the Second Amendment permitted not just regulations
       identical to those in existence in 1791, but also those regulations
       that are “consistent with the principles that underpin our regula-
       tory tradition” and are “relevantly similar to laws that our tradition
       is understood to permit.” 

 (quotation marks omitted).
       The Supreme Court noted that the right to bear arms “was never
       thought to sweep indiscriminately” and extensively detailed the
       historical tradition of firearm regulations, including the prohibition
       of classes of individuals from firearm ownership. 

. The Supreme Court held that § 922(g)(8) was constitu-
       tional as applied to Rahimi because the restraining order to which
       Rahimi was subject included a finding that he posed “a credible
       threat to the physical safety” of another, and the government pro-
       vided “ample evidence” that the Second Amendment permitted
       “the disarmament of individuals who pose a credible threat to the
       physical safety of others.” Id. at 1896-98. The Supreme Court
       noted that, “like surety bonds of limited duration,” the restriction
       imposed on Rahimi’s rights by § 922(g)(8) was temporary because
       it applied only while Rahimi was subject to a restraining order. Id.
       at 1902. The Supreme Court also rejected the government’s prop-
       osition, in response to Rahimi’s as-applied challenge, that citizens
       who are not “responsible” may be disarmed as a class, noting that
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       8                       Opinion of the Court                  24-10693

       the term “responsible” is too vague to act as a rule and did not de-
       rive from caselaw. Id. at 1903.
              Here, we grant the government’s motion for summary affir-
       mance because it is clearly right as a matter of law that Whitaker’s
       challenges to the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1) are foreclosed by
       our binding precedents. See Groendyke Transp., 406 F.2d at 1162;
       McAllister, 

. As Whitaker has conceded, his Com-
       merce Clause arguments are foreclosed under White, McAllister,
       and Scott. See White, 

; Kaley, 

; Gillis,
       938 F.3d at 1198; McAllister, 

; Scott, 

.
       Our binding precedents in Dubois and Rozier similarly foreclose his
       Second Amendment Arguments. See Rozier, 

; Du-
       bois, 94 F.4th at 1293. Neither Bruen nor Rahimi abrogated Rozier
       or Dubois. Accordingly, we affirm.
              AFFIRMED.