U.S.A. v. Jackson

One of the hard things to accept is that so many inferior courts think that when a case is vacated and remanded, it isn’t for good reason.

The courts speak in polite ways. You don’t call out a judge for being an idiot. No matter how often they open their mouth to remove all doubt.

In Bianchi, the Supreme Court granted cert, vacated the Fourth Circuit’s judgement, and remanded it back to the Fourth Circuit for a do-over.

If my boss comes to me and tells me that I got it wrong, here is the documentation, read the documentation and do it over, right. I’m going to read that documentation.

If that documentation suggests that I’m right, I know that is the zebra in the herd of horses. Why? Because my boss told me to do it over.

If I read his documentation, use it to reason to the same method/result, I’m making a mistake.

Unfortunately, our court system doesn’t allow an easy method for an inferior court to say, “I’m too stupid to understand what you said, what does this line mean?”

One of the cases that was before the Supreme Court before Rahimi was U.S.A. v Jackson. It was not granted cert until after Rahimi was decided. At that point, the case was granted cert, the Eighth Circuit’s opinion was vacated, and the case was remanded back to the inferior court with instructions to “do it over, follow the documentation in Rahimi”

Edell Jackson is a non-violent felon. The documents don’t say exactly what he did, apart from he was convicted of selling a controlled substance in the second degree. He served time for this.

The convictions were for more than a year, thus triggering 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(1). Felon in possession.

In 2021, he was arrested after fleeing from the police. During the chase, he ditched his jacket. The police recovered the jacket and found a handgun in it.

Being of outstanding mental acuity, Jackson argued that his rights had been restored because his probation officer told him so when he finished probation.

There is text in the documents confirming this statement. It also has text that references §922(g)(1).

In other words, if Jackson had read the documents, he would have known he could vote but not possess a gun.

Regardless, the state said he was a felon in possession. The jury convicted him.

Either at trial or on appeal, Jackson challenged his conviction on constitutional grounds. His was one of a dozen or more that were making challenges regarding §922(g), or parts of it.

A merits panel of the Eighth Circuit issued a judgement on June 2nd, 2023. That judgement affirmed the conviction.

The Supreme Court GVRed the case on July 2nd, 2024.

On August 8th, they issued their opinion, finding that they were right all along.

Here the court picked out the zebras in the herd. These are the very few places in Heller, McDonald, and Bruen where the Court gave any sort of chance of infringements standing.

Rahimi was decided on an “as applied” challenge. While the challenge was both facial and as applied, the Court found that there were circumstances where §922(g)(8) could be constitutional.

Those particular instances were if a Domestic Violence Restraining order was issued after the accused found to be a threat of physical violence to others in a court of law. In addition, the accused had to be present and properly represented.

Rahimi was present for the hearing. He was found to be a credible threat of violence to others. The DVRO was issued.

The Supreme Court found that Rahimi could be disarmed under §922(g)(8) because of all the proper legal loops that the state had gone through.

The key in Rahimi was that he was violent, he was found to be violent, he was found to be a threat to others.

Jackson was convicted of a second degree sale of a controlled substance. There was no finding of violence. There was no finding of threat to others. Jackson is not Rahimi.

Worse, the Eight Circuit has closed out all further challenges to §922(g)(1). They say that being a felon is enough. There is no violence or threat requirement.

But here is the actual reason:

The Eight Circuit says that §922(g)(1) can’t be unconstitutional as applied to non-violent felons because then more than 80% of state felons would not be banned and 95% of federal felons would not be banned.

According to the Eight Circuit, they can’t do as applied to felons because too many would get the protection of their right to keep and bear arms restored.