Alderman v. United States
The Supreme Court declined to hear the case of a convicted felon prosecuted for owning a bulletproof vest, letting stand a Ninth Circuit ruling that upheld the federal ban on felons possessing body armor.
Justice Thomas, joined in large part by Justice Scalia, dissented from the denial, warning that lower courts were using an old, narrow 1977 statutory ruling to sidestep the Court's more recent limits on Congress's commerce power.
How it got here: A Ninth Circuit panel upheld the felon body-armor ban and Alderman's conviction, the full Ninth Circuit denied rehearing, and Alderman asked the Supreme Court to review the case, which it declined to do.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Seattle police stopped Cedrick Alderman on suspicion of selling cocaine and found no drugs but discovered he was wearing a bulletproof vest. Because Alderman had a prior robbery conviction, federal prosecutors charged him under a law banning felons from possessing body armor that had ever been sold in interstate commerce, even though his possession was legal under state law and he never carried the vest across state lines.
The question before the Court
Should the Supreme Court have stepped in to decide whether a federal law banning felons from possessing body armor goes beyond Congress's power over interstate commerce?
Why it matters
Because the Court did not take the case, felons nationwide remain subject to federal prosecution for possessing body armor that ever crossed state lines, even without any interstate conduct by the person charged. The dispute over how far Congress's commerce power reaches remains unresolved, leaving lower courts to keep applying an old precedent that some judges say conflicts with newer Commerce Clause limits.
What changes now
Because the Supreme Court denied review, the Ninth Circuit's ruling upholding Alderman's conviction and the constitutionality of the felon body-armor statute stands. Alderman's 18-month sentence remains in place. The broader legal disagreement among appeals courts over how to reconcile the 1977 precedent with the Court's newer Commerce Clause limits remains unresolved and could resurface in a future case.
What this does not decide
A denial of certiorari is not a decision on the merits. The Supreme Court did not decide whether the federal felon body-armor law is constitutional, whether Congress's commerce power extends this far, or whether the 1977 precedent at issue truly conflicts with the Court's later Commerce Clause cases.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Thomas
“Today the Court tacitly accepts the nullification of our recent Commerce Clause jurisprudence.”Thomas's opening warning about the effect of denying review in this case.
Justice Thomas argued the Court should have granted certiorari to resolve tension between a 1977 decision (Scarborough) and the Court's later Commerce Clause framework from Lopez and Morrison. He contended the Ninth Circuit's approach let a decades-old statutory ruling substitute for the constitutional analysis Lopez requires, potentially letting Congress regulate almost any item that ever crossed state lines. He warned this threatened the constitutional limits on federal power and encroached on powers reserved to the states.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Supreme Court's denial of certiorari is not a ruling on the merits and does not by itself endorse or reject the lower court's reasoning; it simply means the Court chose not to hear the case at this time.
- A dissent from the denial, written by Justice Thomas, argued that the Ninth Circuit had relied on a 1977 decision about the meaning of a different gun-possession statute to avoid applying the Court's more recent three-category test for what Congress can regulate under the Commerce Clause.
- The dissent contended that treating a nationwide sale of an item at any point in the past as enough to justify federal regulation could let Congress reach almost any object, undermining the enumerated-powers limits the Court had emphasized in its recent cases.
- Because certiorari was denied, the Ninth Circuit's decision upholding the felon body-armor ban remains the governing law in that circuit, and the underlying constitutional question was left unresolved by the Supreme Court.