USA v. Garrick Richardson
Split Score
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Case Summary
Disposition
Affirmed
The 12th Circuit (sitting as the D.C. Circuit) considered a Second-Amendment challenge to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) brought by Garrick D. Richardson, a felon who possessed a gun while on supervised probation. Applying the Bruen text-and-history framework, the court held that there is a long historical tradition of disarming felons who are still serving their sentences and therefore affirmed Richardson’s conviction, expressly limiting its holding to felons under ongoing criminal supervision.
Circuit Split Identified
Legal Issue
Whether § 922(g)(1)’s lifetime ban on firearm possession by felons is constitutional under the Second Amendment after NYSRPA v. Bruen, and whether the ban requires an individualized dangerousness inquiry.
Circuit Positions
§ 922(g)(1) is constitutional without an individualized dangerousness showing (full or substantial categorical upholding of the statute).
§ 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional absent an individualized determination that the specific felon is dangerous; pre-Bruen precedents are overruled.
§ 922(g)(1) is constitutional as applied to felons still serving their sentences (custodial or non-custodial supervision); constitutionality for completed sentences left open.
Conflict Summary
The Second, Eleventh, and now the 12th Circuits uphold § 922(g)(1) without requiring any individualized assessment (the 12th Circuit limits its holding to felons still serving a sentence). The Third and Sixth Circuits have ruled that, after Bruen, a lifetime felon-in-possession ban is unconstitutional unless the government shows the particular felon is dangerous, thereby rejecting pre-Bruen precedents that categorically sustained the statute.