Background
Stephen Zapata was prosecuted in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota for unlawful possession of a firearm while an unlawful user of a controlled substance, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3). Zapata pled guilty to the charge and was sentenced to 27 months in prison by the district court.
On appeal, Zapata challenged the constitutionality of the statute itself, arguing that § 922(g)(3) violates the Second Amendment on its face. He sought reversal based on a motion to dismiss the indictment on constitutional grounds, contending that the statute impermissibly restricts firearm ownership.
The Court’s Holding
The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Zapata’s motion and upheld his conviction. The court held that Zapata’s Second Amendment challenge was foreclosed by binding circuit precedent, specifically United States v. Veasley, 98 F.4th 906 (8th Cir. 2024), which had already addressed and rejected identical constitutional challenges to § 922(g)(3).
The court noted that although the U.S. Supreme Court decided United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024), during the pendency of this case, Rahimi did not undermine the Eighth Circuit’s existing precedent. The court further cited United States v. Deng, 142 F.4th 1075 (8th Cir. 2025), which explicitly rejected a post-Rahimi request to reconsider the Veasley precedent, confirming that circuit precedent remains controlling.
Key Takeaways
- Circuit precedent bars Second Amendment facial challenges to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) in the Eighth Circuit, and this precedent survives post-Rahimi scrutiny.
- The Supreme Court’s recent decisions on the Second Amendment do not automatically overturn established lower-court precedent without explicit contradiction.
- Defendants in the Eighth Circuit cannot relitigate constitutional questions that prior panels have already resolved.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the stability of the Eighth Circuit’s interpretation of federal firearm restrictions as applied to drug users, even in the wake of the Supreme Court’s more expansive Second Amendment jurisprudence in Rahimi. While Rahimi signaled heightened scrutiny for certain firearm regulations, the Eighth Circuit’s holding demonstrates that courts remain bound by their own precedent absent explicit Supreme Court reversal, limiting the immediate impact of that decision on established statutory interpretations.
For prosecutors and defense practitioners in the Eighth Circuit, this case confirms that § 922(g)(3) remains viable against constitutional attack, and appellants cannot bypass settled circuit precedent through citation to more recent Supreme Court decisions. The ruling exemplifies how intermediate appellate courts manage the tension between new constitutional developments and the doctrine of stare decisis.