United States of America v. Richard Shawn Owens

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 25-4270
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
RICHARD SHAWN OWENS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, at
Beckley. Frank W. Volk, Chief District Judge. (5:23-cr-00146-1)
Submitted: September 4, 2025 Decided: October 3, 2025
Before HEYTENS, Circuit Judge, and TRAXLER and KEENAN, Senior Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ON BRIEF: Shawn R. McDermott, THE CRIMINAL LAW CENTER, Martinsburg,
West Virginia, for Appellant. Lisa G. Johnston, Acting United States Attorney, Jennifer
Rada Herrald, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES
ATTORNEY, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
A federal grand jury indicted Richard Shawn Owens for possession of firearms by
a person convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 922(g)(9). Owens moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that § 922(g)(9) violates the
Second Amendment on its face following New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen,
597 U.S. 1, 17 (2022) (holding that firearm regulation is valid under Second Amendment
only if it “is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”). After
the district court denied the motion, Owens pled guilty, pursuant to a conditional plea
agreement, and the district court sentenced him to 15 months’ imprisonment. On appeal,
Owens argues that § 922(g)(9) is unconstitutional on its face and as applied to him. We
affirm.
We agree with the parties that Owens’s facial challenge to § 922(g)(9) is foreclosed
by our recent decision in United States v. Nutter, 137 F.4th 224 (4th Cir. 2025), petition
for cert. filed, No. 25-5339 (U.S. Aug. 13, 2025). There, we held that the statute is facially
constitutional and saved “for another case the question of whether or when as-applied
challenges to § 922(g)(9) can be made.” Id. at 229; see id. at 230-33. Owens asserts that
his case presents the opportunity to address the as-applied issue we left open in Nutter. We
disagree.
The parties dispute whether Owens waived an as-applied challenge to his conviction
by pleading guilty. We decline to resolve the waiver issue because Owens forfeited his as-
applied challenge by failing to raise it in the district court and “he is ineligible for relief
under the resulting plain-error standard.” United States v. Pittman, 125 F.4th 527, 531 (4th

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Cir. 2025). “To be eligible for relief [under that standard], [Owens] must satisfy three
threshold requirements: (1) there was error; which (2) was plain; and (3) affected
substantial rights.” Id. at 532 (cleaned up).
To establish that the district court erred, Owens submits to this court several
documents related to his 2013 domestic-violence misdemeanor conviction. The problem
is that Owens did not submit these documents to the district court, and he has not satisfied
the requirements for supplementation of the record under Federal Rule of Appellate
Procedure 10(e). Accordingly, we limit our review to the record before the district court
and conclude that the district court did not err—plainly or otherwise—in declining to
consider an as-applied challenge to Owens’s conviction.
We therefore affirm the district court’s judgment. We dispense with oral argument
because the facts and legal conclusions are adequately presented in the materials before
this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED

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