Richard Price appealed his conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm after pleading guilty in the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas. On appeal, Price argued that the district court erred in two specific ways: first, by denying his motion to dismiss the indictment on Second Amendment grounds, and second, by calculating his base offense level incorrectly because his prior Arkansas convictions did not meet the definition of a controlled substance offense.
The Eighth Circuit, in a per curiam opinion, concluded that the district court properly denied the motion to dismiss and correctly calculated the enhanced base offense level. The court relied on binding precedent, specifically United States v. Jackson and United States v. Henderson, to foreclose Price's Second Amendment challenge to the indictment. Regarding the sentencing calculation, the court found that the prior convictions properly supported the enhancement. Furthermore, the court addressed the possibility of an as-applied challenge, citing United States v. Rahimi to note that Price's extensive criminal history, including dozens of convictions with several being violent, demonstrates that he presents a credible threat to the physical safety of others, ensuring such a challenge would fail.
The decision affirms the conviction and the enhanced sentence, reinforcing the application of circuit precedent that bars Second Amendment challenges to felon-in-possession statutes in this context. It clarifies that individuals with extensive violent criminal histories, like Price, cannot successfully argue that the statute is unconstitutional as applied to them. The case is now closed with no remand instructions.
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