United States v. Damion Giglio

In United States v. Giglio, 126 F.4th 1039 (5th Cir. 2025), the Fifth Circuit held that Giglio’s conviction under the felon-in-possession statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), was lawful because the statute was constitutional as applied to him. The court also affirmed Giglio’s 41-month prison sentence.

Holding 1: In short, the court held that “the government may disarm those who continue to serve sentences for felony convictions.” That rule, the court concluded, fit with a historical tradition wherein “convicts could be required to forfeit their weapons and were prevented from reacquiring arms until they had finished serving their sentences” (cleaned up and citation omitted). Here, the court held that the Government may properly deprive a person of their Second Amendment rights at least as long as they are serving part of a felony sentence, including a term of supervised release.

Holding 2: Any error in the district court’s Sentencing Guidelines calculations was harmless because the district court had acknowledged and considered Giglio’s objection, heard argument about it, and declared that it would impose “the same identical sentence” no matter how it ruled on the objection. The court concluded: “Giglio’s sentence would have been the same either way, so our precedent allows us to uphold it without reaching the merits of Giglio’s argument.”