United States v. Gerard Beasley

USCA11 Case: 24-12004 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/07/2026 Page: 1 of 14 NOT FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 24-12004 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus GERARD ERIC BEASLEY, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 8:23-cr-00140-KKM-AAS-1 ____________________ Before LAGOA, ANDERSON, and WILSON, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Gerard Eric Beasley appeals his conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. On appeal, Beasley first argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence USCA11 Case: 24-12004 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/07/2026 Page: 2 of 14 2 Opinion of the Court 24-12004 of his second confession because that confession was involuntary, and the Miranda 1 warning he received before that second confes- sion did not cleanse the taint from his first involuntary confession, which the court had suppressed. Second, Beasley argues that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional under the Second Amend- ment both facially and as applied to him. I. We review the district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence under a mixed standard, reviewing the district court’s factfinding for clear error and the district court’s application of the law to the facts de novo. United States v. Lewis, 674 F.3d 1298, 1302- 03 (11th Cir. 2012). We grant substantial deference to both the ex- plicit and implicit credibility determinations of the district court acting as factfinder, construing all facts in the light most favorable to the prevailing party below. Id. at 1303. We must accept the version of events adopted by the district court “unless it is contrary to the laws of nature, or is so inconsistent or improbable on its face that no reasonable factfinder could accept it.” United States v. Ramirez-Chilel, 289 F.3d 744, 749 (11th Cir. 2002) (quotation marks omitted). We review de novo whether a statement was voluntary, giv- ing deference to the district court’s factual findings. United States v. Lall, 607 F.3d 1277, 1285 (11th Cir. 2010). The government must establish voluntariness by a preponderance of the evidence. Id. 1 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). USCA11 Case: 24-12004 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/07/2026 Page: 3 of 14 24-12004 Opinion of the Court 3 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), protects a defendant’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by requiring that law enforcement officers advise the “person subject to custodial inter- rogation of certain rights and to respect the person’s invocation of those rights.” United States v. Bernal-Benitez, 594 F.3d 1303, 1318 (11th Cir. 2010). The admission of evidence obtained in violation of Miranda is subject to harmless-error analysis. Lall, 607 F.3d at 1292. “An error is harmless unless there is a reasonable likelihood that it af- fected the defendant’s substantial rights.” United States v. Hands, 184 F.3d 1322, 1329 (11th Cir. 1999) (quotation marks omitted and al- terations adopted). There is no need to reverse if any error did not substantially influence the outcome of the case and “sufficient evi- dence uninfected by error supports the verdict.” Id. “The ques- tion . . . is whether there is a reasonable possibility that the evi- dence complained of might have contributed to the conviction.” United States v. Khoury, 901 F.2d 948, 960 (11th Cir. 1990) (quotation marks omitted). Reversal is warranted only where an error had “substantial and injurious effect or influence” on the verdict, and overwhelming evidence of guilt may be considered in finding harmless error. United States v. Phanikone, 605 F.3d 1099, 1109 (11th Cir. 2010) (quotation marks omitted). When reviewing a trial court’s denial of a suppression motion, we may consider any evi- dence presented at the trial of the case, and we are not limited to the evidence introduced at the hearing on the motion. United States v. Villabona-Garnica, 63 F.3d 1051, 1056 (11th Cir. 1995). USCA11 Case: 24-12004 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/07/2026 Page: 4 of 14 4 Opinion of the Court 24-12004 The Fifth Amendment provides that “[n]o person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” U.S. Const. amend. V. To protect a person’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, before the start of a custodial interrogation, an individual must be warned “that he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and that if he cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires.” Miranda, 384 U.S. at 478-79. A defendant may waive these rights, but only if “the waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently.” Id. at 444. To determine whether a defendant’s waiver of his Miranda rights was voluntary, a two-part inquiry is required: (1) “the relin- quishment of the right must have been voluntary in the sense that it was the product of a free and deliberate choice rather than intim- idation, coercion, or deception,” and (2) “the waiver must have been made with a full awareness of both the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it.” Bernal-Benitez, 594 F.3d at 1318 (quoting Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 421 (1986)). A waiver is effective where the “totality of the circumstances surrounding the interrogation reveal both an un- coerced choice and the requisite level of comprehension.” Id. (quo- tation marks omitted). We consider whether a Miranda waiver was voluntary under the totality of the circumstances, including the details of the inter- rogation and the defendant’s characteristics. United States v. USCA11 Case: 24-12004 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/07/2026 Page: 5 of 14 24-12004 Opinion of the Court 5 Ransfer, 749 F.3d 914, 935 (11th Cir. 2014). Factors considered in- clude “the defendant’s lack of education or low intelligence, failure to appraise the defendant of his rights, the length of detention, the repeated and prolonged nature of the questioning, and the use of physical punishment such as the deprivation of food or sleep.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). A waiver may be considered voluntary if the record is devoid of any suggestion that police resorted to physical or psychological pressure to elicit the defendant’s state- ments. United States v. Phillips, 812 F.2d 1355, 1362 (11th Cir. 1987). Further, the use of deception to obtain a confession is an important factor when considering the totality of the circumstances. Lall, 607 F.3d at 1285. While misrepresentations of facts are not enough to render a suspect’s subsequent confession involuntary or to under- mine a suspect’s Miranda waiver, misrepresentations of law are more likely to render a confession involuntary. Id. Moreover, we have held that law enforcement’s promise that nothing the defend- ant said would be used to prosecute him rendered the defendant’s subsequent confession involuntary because it completely under- mined the previously administered Miranda warning’s prophylactic effect. Id. at 1287. When the police do not have probable cause to arrest the accused, and the initial seizure is illegal, any confession subse- quently acquired by the police must be excluded “unless interven- ing events break the causal connection between the illegal arrest and the confession so that the confession is sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint.” Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U.S. 687, 690 (1982) (quotation marks omitted). When considering USCA11 Case: 24-12004 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/07/2026 Page: 6 of 14 6 Opinion of the Court 24-12004 whether such intervening events occurred, we consider the totality of the circumstances, including: (1) the “temporal proximity of the arrest and the confession;” (2) whether any intervening circum- stances occurred and the significance of those circumstances; and (3) “particularly, the purpose and flagrancy” of the initial miscon- duct. Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 603-04 (1975). Whether Mi- randa warnings were administered prior to the confession is rele- vant, but not determinative. Id. at 604. However, this exclusionary rule is subject to an exception. Under the inevitable discovery exception, if the pros- ecution can establish by a preponderance of the evi- dence that the information would have ultimately been recovered by lawful means, the evidence will be admissible. Nix [v. Williams], 467 U.S. [431] at 434, 104 S. Ct. at 2509. However, the mere assertion by law enforcement that the information would have been inevitably discovered is not enough. United States v. Brookins, 614 F.2d 1037, 1048 (5th Cir. 1980). This cir- cuit also requires the prosecution to show that “the lawful means which made discovery inevitable were being actively pursued prior to the occurrence of the illegal conduct.” Jefferson [v. Fountain], 382 F.3d [1286] at 1296 [(11th Cir. 2004)] (emphasis added). United States v. Virden, 488 F.3d 1317, 1322 (11th Cir. 2007). USCA11 Case: 24-12004 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/07/2026 Page: 7 of 14 24-12004 Opinion of the Court 7 In this case, we need not decide whether the district court correctly held that the taint from the illegality of Beasley’s first con- fession2 was purged, because we affirm the district court’s alterna- tive holding that the discovery of the firearm in Beasley’s posses- sion was inevitable. The record evidence demonstrated that— prior to any of Beasley’s statements about the firearm—Officer Cincotta had decided to initiate the vehicle search based upon the smell of marijuana and Beasley’s acknowledgment that he did not have a medical marijuana card. Thus, in this case, the means which made discovery inevitable were already being actively pursued prior to the occurrence of the allegedly illegal conduct. Before the bench trial, Beasley stipulated that law enforcement discovered the firearm in the search of the vehicle Beasley was driving, and that, at the time he was found in possession of the firearm, Beasley knew that he had been convicted of at least one felony. Accordingly, even if the district court did err in admitting Beasley’s second confession—an issue we do not decide—the error was harmless. Hands, 184 F.3d at 1329. II. We review the constitutionality of a statute de novo. United States v. Wright, 607 F.3d 708, 715 (11th Cir. 2010). “A party aban- dons an issue when he makes only passing references to it or raises 2 Nor need we decide whether the district court correctly held that the first confession was illegal, a decision the district court characterized as very close. USCA11 Case: 24-12004 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/07/2026 Page: 8 of 14 8 Opinion of the Court 24-12004 it in a perfunctory manner without supporting arguments and au- thority.” United States v. Harding, 104 F.4th 1291, 1300 (11th Cir. 2024) (quotation marks and citation omitted). We are bound to adhere to our prior panel precedent unless that precedent has been abrogated by this Court sitting en banc or by the Supreme Court. United States v. White, 837 F.3d 1225, 1228 (11th Cir. 2016). “To constitute an overruling for the purposes of th[e] prior panel precedent rule, the Supreme Court decision must be clearly on point.” United States v. Kaley, 579 F.3d 1246, 1255 (11th Cir. 2009) (quotation marks and citation omitted). To abrogate a prior panel precedent, the Supreme Court must also “demolish and eviscerate each of its fundamental props.” United States v. Dubois, 139 F.4th 887, 893 (11th Cir. 2025) (“Dubois II”) (quotation marks and citation omitted). 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. Section 922(g) of Title 18 of the U.S. 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. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). To obtain a conviction under § 922(g)(1), the government must prove “both that the defendant knew he possessed a firearm and that he knew he belonged to the relevant category of persons barred from possessing a firearm.” Re- haif v. United States, 588 U.S. 225. 237 (2019). USCA11 Case: 24-12004 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/07/2026 Page: 9 of 14 24-12004 Opinion of the Court 9 In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court consid- ered a Second Amendment challenge to a District of Columbia law that barred the private possession of handguns in homes. 554 U.S. 570, 574-75 (2008). After considering both the text and history of the Second Amendment, the Court concluded that it granted an individual a right to keep and bear arms. Id. at 595. The Supreme Court ultimately held that the ban on handgun possession in the home violated the Second Amendment. Id. at 635. However, the Court acknowledged that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was “not unlimited,” emphasizing that “nothing in [its] opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohi- bitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill.” Id. at 626. The Supreme Court labeled these restrictions as “pre- sumptively lawful.” Id. at 627 n.26. It specifically ruled that the District of Columbia had to allow Heller to carry his handgun in his home “[a]ssuming that Heller [was] not disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights[.]” Id. at 635. After Heller, we considered, and rejected, a constitutional challenge to § 922(g)(1)’s prohibition on felons possessing firearms. See United States v. Rozier, 598 F.3d 768, 770-71 (11th Cir. 2010). “[T]he first question to be asked” under Heller, we explained, was “whether one is qualified to possess a firearm.” Id. at 770 (emphasis in original). We observed that Heller’s clarification that it should not be read to cast doubt on prohibitions on possession of firearms by felons “suggest[ed] that statutes disqualifying felons from pos- sessing a firearm under any and all circumstances do not offend the USCA11 Case: 24-12004 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/07/2026 Page: 10 of 14 10 Opinion of the Court 24-12004 Second Amendment.” Id. at 771. We also noted that Heller recog- nized that prohibiting felons from possessing firearms was a “pre- sumptively lawful longstanding prohibition.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). Therefore, we held that § 922(g)(1) was a constitutional avenue to restrict the Second Amendment rights of convicted fel- ons as a class of people disqualified from possessing firearms. Id. In a footnote, we rejected Rozier’s argument that the state- ment from Heller that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of fire- arms by felons” was merely dicta and should not be afforded au- thoritative weight. Id. at 771 n.6. We reasoned that (1) to the ex- tent that the statement “limit[ed] the Court’s opinion to possession of firearms by law-abiding and qualified individuals,” it was neces- sary to the decision reached; and (2) even if the statement were su- perfluous to Heller’s central holding, we would still afford it “con- siderable weight,” as dicta from the Supreme Court is not to be lightly ignored. Id. Ultimately, we concluded that Rozier’s pur- pose for possessing a firearm and the fact that the firearm was con- strained to his home were immaterial because felons as a class could be excluded from firearm possession. Id. at 771. Several years later, the Supreme Court in New York States Ri- fle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), considered a Sec- ond Amendment challenge to New York’s gun-licensing regime that limited when a law-abiding citizen could obtain a license to carry a firearm outside the home. The Court recognized that “the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right USCA11 Case: 24-12004 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/07/2026 Page: 11 of 14 24-12004 Opinion of the Court 11 to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.” Id. at 10. The Court explained that, to determine whether a restriction on firearms was constitutional, courts must begin by asking 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 cover such conduct, the court may uphold it only if the gov- ernment “affirmatively prove[s] that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.” Id. at 19. Bruen emphasized that Heller established the correct test for determining the constitutionality of gun restrictions. See id. at 39 (applying “Heller’s text-and-history standard” to the challenged statute). And, like Heller, Bruen de- scribed Second Amendment rights as extending to “law-abiding, re- sponsible citizens . . . for self-defense.” Id. at 26 (quotation marks omitted). After Bruen, we rejected a defendant’s Second Amendment challenge to § 922(g)(1). United States v. Dubois, 94 F.4th 1284, 1291- 93 (11th Cir. 2024) (“Dubois I”), cert. granted, judgment vacated sub nom., Dubois v. United States, 145 S. Ct. 1041 (2025), reinstated by Du- bois II, 139 F.4th 887, cert. denied, (U.S. Jan. 20, 2026) (No. 25-6281). We held that the challenge was foreclosed by Rozier, which “inter- preted Heller as limiting the [Second Amendment] right to law- abiding and qualified individuals and as clearly excluding felons from those categories by referring to felon in possession bans as presumptively lawful.” Id. at 1293 (quotation marks omitted). Alt- hough the defendant argued that Bruen abrogated Rozier, we ob- USCA11 Case: 24-12004 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/07/2026 Page: 12 of 14 12 Opinion of the Court 24-12004 served that, even in Bruen, the Supreme Court continued to de- scribe the right to bear arms as extending only to “law abiding, re- sponsible citizens.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). We also re- jected the defendant’s argument that Bruen abrogated all prior Sec- ond Amendment precedent based on a two-step, means-end scru- tiny test because Rozier was not based on that framework. Id. In- stead, Rozier was based on our understanding that Heller limited the Second Amendment’s protections “to law-abiding and qualified in- dividuals” and excluded “felons from those categories[.]” Id. (quo- tation marks omitted). Because Bruen “repeatedly stated that its decision was faithful to Heller,” we held that Bruen did not abrogate Rozier based on Rozier’s reliance on Heller. Id. We concluded that we were bound by Rozier and, because Rozier foreclosed a Second Amendment challenge to § 922(g)(1), we affirmed the defendant’s conviction. Id. In United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024), the Supreme Court considered a Second Amendment challenge to § 922(g)(8), the federal statute that prohibits an individual who is subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm when the order includes a finding that he represents a credible threat to the safety of an intimate partner, a child of that partner, or individual. The Court also held that this firearm restriction was constitutional. Id. at 693. It also, once again, declared that the pro- hibition on “the possession of firearms by ‘felons and the mentally ill’ are ‘presumptively lawful.’” Id. at 699 (quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 626-27 & n.26). The Court rejected the government’s argument USCA11 Case: 24-12004 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/07/2026 Page: 13 of 14 24-12004 Opinion of the Court 13 that a person could be disarmed because they were not “responsi- ble,” reasoning that the term was vague and was used in Heller and Bruen simply to describe the class of ordinary citizens who un- doubtedly enjoy the Second Amendment right and those cases did not define the term or say anything about the status of citizens who were not “responsible.” Id. at 701-02. On January 13, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certi- orari in Dubois I and vacated and remanded the case to us for fur- ther consideration in light of Rahimi. Dubois v. United States, 145 S. Ct. 1041 (2025). On June 2, 2025, we issued our opinion in Dubois II on remand, holding that “Rahimi—like . . . Bruen . . . —did not abrogate our holding in Rozier that section 922(g)(1) is constitu- tional under the Second Amendment.” Dubois II, 139 F.4th at 889. Accordingly, we reinstated our prior opinion and affirmed Du- bois’s convictions and sentence. Id. Thus, we reaffirmed the prec- edential authority of Rozier over Second Amendment challenges to § 922(g)(1). Id. at 893. We noted that the only time that Rahimi mentioned felons was to reiterate Heller’s conclusion that prohibit- ing felons from possessing firearms is presumptively lawful. Id. at 892-93. “This endorsement of the underlying basis for our prior holding that section 922(g)(1) does not violate the Second Amend- ment suggests that Rahimi reinforced—not undermined—Rozier.” Id. at 893. We stated that we needed “clearer instruction from the Supreme Court before we may reconsider the constitutionality of section 922(g)(1).” Id. The Supreme Court recently denied Du- bois’s petition for writ of certiorari. Dubois v. United States, (U.S. Jan. 20, 2026) (No. 25-6281). USCA11 Case: 24-12004 Document: 43-1 Date Filed: 04/07/2026 Page: 14 of 14 14 Opinion of the Court 24-12004 More recently, we held that Rozier and Dubois II continue to foreclose constitutional challenges to § 922(g)(1) as a violation of the Second Amendment pursuant to the prior-panel-precedent rule. United States v. Hicks, 166 F.4th 933, 939 (11th Cir. 2026). Here, both Beasley’s facial and as-applied challenges to the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1) under the Second Amendment are foreclosed by our precedent in Rozier. AFFIRMED.