UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. RONALD COLLINS, Defendant - Appellant.
No. 19-4596
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
December 3, 2020
Before WILKINSON, MOTZ, and KING, Circuit Judges.
PUBLISHED. Argued: October 30, 2020. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, at Beckley. Irene C. Berger, District Judge. (5:18-cr-00068-1)
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Motz wrote the opinion, in which Judge Wilkinson and Judge King joined.
ARGUED: Shawn Angus Morgan, STEPTOE & JOHNSON, PLLC, Bridgeport, West Virginia, for Appellant. Louie Alexander Hamner, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Michael B. Stuart, United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES
DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge:
A jury convicted Ronald Collins of making false statements on an ATF form and possessing a firearm after being “adjudicated as a mental defective.” He challenges only his firearm conviction. Collins claims that Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), renders the indictment and jury instructions deficient, that the conviction runs afoul of the Second Amendment, and that the district court imposed an unreasonable sentence. Each contention fails. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
I.
A.
In 2013, officers in Raleigh County, West Virginia, arrested Collins for making terroristic threats to a police officer. While in custody, Collins threatened to kill a state court judge and the prosecuting attorney. At a state court hearing, the judge instructed Collins to submit to a competency evaluation. The doctor found that Collins had bipolar disorder. Following this evaluation, the court concluded that the State had proven by a preponderance of the evidence that Collins was “psychotic with paranoia in the context of irrational grandiosity” and so incompetent to stand trial. The court also found a substantial likelihood that Collins could be restored to competency following inpatient commitment. The court ordered that Collins be transported to Sharpe Hospital, where he would stay until his competency was restored. See
Collins remained at Sharpe Hospital for six months. In November 2014, the state court found he had become competent to stand trial and ordered him released from Sharpe Hospital. On September 11, 2015, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the charges against Collins.
B.
On January 6, 2018, Collins completed an ATF Form 4473 in order to purchase a 9-milimeter handgun. On the ATF form, in response to a question asking whether he had “ever been adjudicated as a mental defective” or “ever been committed to a mental institution,” Collins checked the box under “No.” After a three-day waiting period, he obtained the handgun.
A month later, the West Virginia State Police received a 911 call about a man carrying a rifle in public. Trooper John Gilkeson found Collins walking on the side of a road with what appeared to be a rifle (but turned out to be a BB gun). Trooper Gilkeson ordered Collins to put the weapon down, handcuffed him, and asked if he had any other weapons on him. Collins responded that he did, and Trooper Gilkeson found the loaded handgun in his pocket. Trooper Gilkeson performed a criminal history check, which did not turn up any convictions, and permitted Collins to leave with the handgun.
Later that day, Trooper Gilkeson learned that an ATF agent had been looking for Collins because Collins was, in fact, prohibited from possessing a gun. Trooper Gilkeson then obtained a search warrant for Collins‘s residence and recovered the handgun. Police subsequently arrested Collins.
A grand jury indicted Collins on one count of making “a false and fictitious written statement on ATF Form 4473” in violation of
II.
Collins primarily makes two challenges to his firearms conviction (Count Two) based on the Supreme Court‘s recent decision in Rehaif v. United States. In Rehaif, the Court expanded the knowledge requirement in
A.
We review the sufficiency of the indictment for plain error because Collins did not challenge it before the district court. See United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 631 (2002). Plain-error review requires that a defendant establish (1) an error; (2) that is plain; and (3) that affects his substantial rights. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993). To affect substantial rights, the error must “have been prejudicial” and have “affected the outcome of the district court proceedings.” Id. at 734. Only if a defendant establishes these three elements can we grant discretionary relief. We may do so when the defendant is “actually innocent” or the error “seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id. at 736 (citations omitted).
Here, Collins has established the first two plain-error requirements. The indictment erroneously did not instruct on the knowledge-of-status element in Count Two, as Rehaif requires. This error is “plain” because it is “clear or obvious at the time of appellate consideration.” United States v. Ramirez-Castillo, 748 F.3d 205, 215 (4th Cir. 2014) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
But Collins‘s argument fails at Olano‘s third prong because he cannot show that the error was prejudicial. The Government charged Collins with two crimes: the false statements crime in Count One and the firearms crime in Count Two. Count One alleged that Collins knowingly made a false statement that he had never been committed to a mental institution. To establish this, the Government presented ample evidence at trial that Collins knew that he had been committed to a mental institution.
Indeed, Collins himself testified that he was the subject of an order involuntarily committing him to a mental institution, Sharpe Hospital. He discussed going to Sharpe Hospital after the court hearing and acknowledged that he did not go on his “own free will.” The court order committing him to Sharpe Hospital was admitted into evidence. The Government also offered a complaint Collins previously filed against the West Virginia prosecutor in his terroristic threats case that clearly evinced Collins‘s knowledge that he had been committed to Sharpe Hospital. Collins‘s lawsuit centered on the events leading to his commitment and stated that they “resulted in me being held at William H. Sharpe[] Hospital.”
Because the jury found that Collins knowingly lied about whether he had been
Our recent holding in United States v. Medley, 972 F.3d 399 (4th Cir. 2020), reh‘g en banc granted, No. 19-4789 (4th Cir. Nov. 12, 2020), does not alter this conclusion. In Medley, we held that the Government‘s failure to include Rehaif‘s knowledge-of-status element in an
In contrast, Collins had notice of the accusations against him and a description of these accusations. In Count One, the indictment alleged that Collins “did in connection with the acquisition of a firearm knowingly make a false and fictitious written statement on ATF Form 4473,” referring to his false statement that he had not been committed. The allegation (and evidence) that Collins knowingly made this false statement mandates the conclusion that Collins was provided with notice of the accusations against him and a description of those allegations.
Moreover, the omission of the knowledge-of-status element in Count Two did not “seriously affect[] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Olano, 507 U.S. at 736 (internal quotation marks omitted). In the context of the false statements charge, Collins had the opportunity to — and did in fact — fully litigate whether he knew he had been involuntarily committed. At trial, Collins‘s testimony centered on whether he knowingly lied on the ATF form. He repeatedly claimed that he did not believe that he had made a false representation on the form, a claim that the jury rejected.2 But Collins never contended that he had not been committed.
Because Collins had notice of the allegations against him and has not demonstrated that the outcome of the proceedings would have been different without the indictment error, his challenge to the indictment cannot survive plain-error review.
B.
Collins also argues that the district court committed reversible error in failing to instruct the jury on Rehaif‘s
Such is the case here. With respect to Count One, the district court instructed the jury that it must find both (1) “that the written statement indicating that the defendant has never . . . been committed to a mental institution, was false” and (2) “that the defendant knew such statement was false at the time it was given.” The jury found, beyond a reasonable doubt, Collins guilty under Count One. In doing so it necessarily found that Collins knew he had been committed to a mental institution, satisfying the knowledge-of-status element in Count Two.
III.
Collins next contends that
In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms for conduct falling within its scope. 554 U.S. 570, 626–27 (2008); see also United States v. Chester, 628 F.3d 673, 680 (4th Cir. 2010) (noting that the threshold question under Heller is whether the statute regulates conduct that comes within the scope of the Second Amendment). Heller emphasized that regulations prohibiting the mentally ill from possessing firearms are “presumptively lawful.” 554 U.S. at 626–27 & n.26. When a party makes an as-applied claim to a presumptively lawful firearms regulation, he “must show that his factual circumstances remove his challenge from the realm of ordinary challenges.” Hamilton v. Pallozzi, 848 F.3d 614, 624 (4th Cir. 2017) (quoting United States v. Moore, 666 F.3d 313, 320 (4th Cir. 2012)).
Collins contends that his commitment under
We held that commitment to restore a person to competency fell “squarely within any reasonable definition of ‘committed’ as used in
IV.
Finally, Collins maintains his sentence was procedurally and substantively
Collins argues that his sentence was procedurally unreasonable because the district court failed to consider the reasons he proffered as to why he should receive a shorter sentence, like his repeated claims that he did not believe he was violating federal law by possessing a firearm. To be sure, “a district court should address the party‘s arguments and explain why [it] has rejected those arguments.” United States v. Arbaugh, 951 F.3d 167, 174 (4th Cir. 2020) (quoting United States v. Carter, 564 F.3d 325, 328 (4th Cir. 2009)). But here, the district court plainly did so. It thoroughly considered Collins‘s argument and rejected it, explaining that Collins continuously maintained that he had “the right to have a gun” and that he “did nothing wrong by lying on the firearms form in order to get that gun.” The court concluded that Collins‘s “disagreement with the law does not excuse [him] from the obligation to follow it.”
Collins argues that his sentence is substantively unreasonable because the district court deviated from the Sentencing Guidelines range and relied too much on certain factors while failing to consider others. The court imposed a 60-month sentence, significantly higher than his Guidelines range of 27 to 33 months. When a district court decides the appropriate sentence falls outside of the Guidelines’ advisory range, it “must consider the extent of the deviation and ensure that the justification is sufficiently compelling to support the degree of the variance.” United States v. Zuk, 874 F.3d 398, 409 (4th Cir. 2017) (quoting United States v. Morace, 594 F.3d 340, 346 (4th Cir. 2010)).
The court did so here. It carefully explained its reasoning, referring to the
V.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is
AFFIRMED.