UNITED STATES v. WOOD (2020)

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

In 1999, Georgia state courts sentenced Defendant Anthony Wood for several sex offense convictions. In 2006, Congress enacted the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 34 U.S.C. §§ 20901 et seq. SORNA established a comprehensive, national sex offender registration system. In SORNA, Congress gave the Attorney General the authority to determine SORNA's retroactive reach. Exercising that authority, the Attorney General concluded that SORNA should apply to all pre-Act offenders—thus requiring Defendant to comply with the new registration scheme.

Defendant failed to register. A federal grand jury indicted Defendant for failure to register in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a)(1), 2(B), and (3). [ROA Vol. I at 4–5.] Defendant filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, contending that Congress unconstitutionally delegated legislative power to the Attorney General when it authorized the Attorney General to determine SORNA's applicability to sex offenders convicted before the enactment of the statute. [Id. at 7–12.] The district court denied that motion. [Id. at 14.]. Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea and appealed the district court's denial. [Id. at 15.] Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we review de novo the district court's denial of a motion to dismiss an indictment. United States v. Wagner, 951 F.3d 1232, 1253 (10th Cir. 2020).

In this case, our inquiry is a short one. Defendant acknowledges that the Supreme Court's decision in Gundy v. United States, ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 2116, 204 L.Ed.2d 522 (2019), and our prior decision in United States v. Nichols, 775 F.3d 1225 (10th Cir. 2014), rev'd on other grounds, Nichols v. United States, ––– U.S. ––––, 136 S. Ct. 1113, 194 L.Ed.2d 324 (2016), foreclose his argument. [ROA Vol. I at 10.] Defendant concedes that he raises this argument only for the purpose of preserving it for future appeal or in the event of an intervening change in the law. [Id. at 11; see also Opening Br. at 2.] We agree with Defendant that the Supreme Court upheld Congress's SORNA delegation.¹ Gundy, 139 S. Ct. at 2130–31 (Alito, J., concurring) (plurality opinion); see also Nichols, 775 F.3d at 1232 (reaching the same conclusion as Gundy that Congress's SORNA delegation did not violate the nondelegation doctrine).

Of course, we are bound by Supreme Court decisions and cannot overrule a prior panel decision of this Court. United States v. Manzanares, 956 F.3d 1220, 1225 (10th Cir. 2020). Accordingly, we conclude—as Defendant concedes—that Defendant's argument fails.

AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

1.   We recently rejected the same argument Defendant raises here. United States v. Six, 775 F. App'x 443, 444 (10th Cir. 2019) (unpublished) (rejecting the same argument because “Gundy did not disturb our prior holding in Nichols that [SORNA] did not violate the nondelegation doctrine”); see also Gundy, 139 S. Ct. at 2128 (clarifying that SORNA does not allow the Attorney General to determine whether to apply the Act to pre-Act offenders, but only how to do so).

Joel M Carson III Circuit Judge