United States of America v. Mani Panoam Deng
No. 23-3545
United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit
Submitted: May 7, 2024 Filed: June 20, 2024
Before SMITH, KELLY, and KOBES, Circuit Judges.
KOBES, Circuit Judge.
The Government charged Mani Panoam Deng with being an unlawful drug user in possession of a firearm,
I.
We start with the Second Amendment. Deng argues that
Deng‘s as-applied challenge fails too because he waived it by pleading guilty unconditionally. United States v. Seay, 620 F.3d 919, 922 n.3 (8th Cir. 2010). A “knowing and intelligent guilty plea” generally “forecloses independent claims relating to the deprivation of constitutional rights that occurred before the entry of the guilty plea.” United States v. Morgan, 230 F.3d 1067, 1071 (8th Cir. 2000) (cleaned up) (citation omitted). There is a narrow exception for “jurisdictional” claims, or those that attack the “State‘s power to bring any indictment at all.” Seay, 620 F.3d at 921 (citation omitted); see also United States v. Nunez-Hernandez, 43 F.4th 857, 860 (8th Cir. 2022) (noting “jurisdiction” in this context has “nothing to do with subject-matter jurisdiction” and is instead shorthand for the “limited class of defenses that survive a guilty plea“). Facial constitutional challenges fit the bill, Morgan, 230 F.3d at 1071; as-applied challenges to
Deng points out that he pleaded guilty without a plea agreement and so did not agree to an appeal waiver. But it is his guilty plea itself that “waives all non-jurisdictional defects and defenses,” independent of any appeal waiver. See United States v. Limley, 510 F.3d 825, 827 (8th Cir. 2007). A defendant may, of course, enter a conditional guilty plea, preserving his right to appeal an issue. See id. (citing
Now to Deng‘s vagueness challenge. A criminal statute is void for vagueness under the Fifth Amendment‘s Due Process Clause “if it fails to give ordinary people fair notice of the conduct it punishes or is so standardless that it invites arbitrary enforcement.” United States v. Turner, 842 F.3d 602, 604 (8th Cir. 2016) (cleaned up) (quoting Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591, 595 (2015)). To win a facial challenge, the only type available after his guilty plea, Deng “need not prove that
Section 922(g)(3) prohibits anyone “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from possessing firearms. Because the term “unlawful user” “runs the risk of being unconstitutionally vague,” we interpret it to “require a temporal nexus” between the gun possession
Because he has failed to show that
Nor can Deng prevail under the rule of lenity.2 This canon of statutory construction is a “junior version of the vagueness doctrine” that “ensures fair warning by... resolving ambiguity in a criminal statute as to apply it only to conduct clearly covered.” United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 266 (1997) (citation omitted). But the canon “only applies” when a “grievous ambiguity” remains after we have used the normal tools of statutory interpretation. United States v. Castleman, 572 U.S. 157, 172-73 (2014) (citation omitted). Because
One final issue. Deng argues that the district court erred by deferring a ruling on his vagueness and as-applied Second Amendment challenges. But he waived this claim too by pleading guilty. See Limley, 510 F.3d at 828 (unconditional guilty plea waived right to appeal denial of motion for a Franks hearing).
II.
We affirm the district court‘s judgment.
KOBES
Circuit Judge