Xavion Watts appealed his conviction for possession of a machinegun under 18 U.S.C. § 922(o) and his sentence of ten years of imprisonment, which was imposed as an upward variance from the Sentencing Guidelines. The appeal originated from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Watts raised three primary arguments: that his sentence was procedurally and substantively unreasonable, that the federal machinegun ban was unconstitutional as applied to him following the Supreme Court's decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n, Inc. v. Bruen, and that Congress exceeded its authority under the Commerce Clause in enacting the statute.
The panel addressed the sentencing arguments first, applying the standards set forth in Gall v. United States and Rita v. United States. The court determined that the district court did not commit procedural error by failing to explicitly consider the factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) or by failing to provide a detailed explanation for the sentence, noting that the court need not consider the procedural reasonableness of the sentence as an upward departure in the alternative. Regarding substantive reasonableness, the court applied a deferential standard of review and concluded that Watts failed to demonstrate that the ten-year sentence was unreasonable. On the constitutional issues, the court applied plain error review because Watts did not preserve these arguments in the district court. The court held that his challenges to § 922(o) under the Second Amendment and the Commerce Clause failed under this standard, relying on existing Fifth Circuit precedent regarding the constitutionality of the machinegun ban.
The judgment of conviction and the ten-year sentence remain in full force and effect. This decision reinforces the Fifth Circuit's stance that appellate courts will not disturb upward variances absent a clear showing of unreasonableness and confirms that unpreserved constitutional challenges to federal firearms statutes are subject to a high bar of plain error review.
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