USA v. Melton

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
-vs-
JESSE MELTON,
Defendant.
Case No. 1:25-CR-00042
JUDGE PAMELA A. BARKER
MEMORANDUM OPINION & ORDER
This matter is before the Court upon Defendant Jesse Melton’s (“Defendant” or “Melton”)
Motion to Dismiss Indictment for Lack of Subject-Matter Jurisdiction Under the Commerce Clause,
21 U.S.C. § 903, The Tenth Amendment, Due Process Clause, and Federal Rule of Criminal
Procedure 7 (As-Applied Challenge) filed on November 17, 2025 (“Defendant’s Motion”). 	(Doc.
No. 46.)
I. 	Background
In what he captions, “II. STATEMENT OF FACTS” Melton alleges or asserts the following.
On December 13, 2024, Euclid Police officers responded to a welfare check in Euclid Heights,
Cuyahoga County, Ohio and he was taken into custody pursuant to an outstanding federal probation
warrant. Narcotics and a firearm were recovered. Incident Report 24-06007 was forwarded to the
Euclid Police Narcotics Bureau, where [a detective] reviewed it. Evidence was processed through
the Cuyahoga County Regional Forensic Science Laboratory. 	Defendant was initially charged in
state court with Weapons Under Disability, O.R.C. § 2923.13(A)(3), and the case was bound over to
the Cuyahoga County Grand Jury. Only after these state proceedings commenced did a DEA Task
Force Officer and an ATF Agent “retroactively manufactur[e] a supposed interstate nexus based
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solely on the firearm’s manufacturer origin and by re-characterizing the narcotics evidence as a
federal CSA violation.” 	(Doc. No. 46, PageID # 247.) 	According to Defendant, “[t]his post-hoc
federalization violates Rule 7 and due process, as jurisdictional facts are not pleaded in the
indictment.” (Id.)
The record reflects that on February 4, 2025, a federal grand jury returned an indictment
charging Melton with the following offenses: 	1.) Possession with Intent to Distribute Controlled
Substances, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C) (Count 1); 2.) Felon in Possession
of a Firearm and Ammunition, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) and 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2) (Count
2); 3.) Possession of a Firearm by a Person with Domestic Violence Conviction, in violation of 18
U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) and 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2) (Count 3); and Possession of a Firearm in Furtherance
of a Drug Trafficking Offense, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i) (Count 4). (Doc. No. 1.)
Melton entered a plea of not guilty at his arraignment on February 26, 2025.
II. 	Discussion
The Court construes Defendant’s Motion, in part, as asserting that the indictment fails to state
offense(s) pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(b)(3)(B)(v).1 An indictment properly
charges a criminal offense if it “first, contains the elements of the offense charged and fairly informs
a defendant of the charge against which he must defend, and second, enables him to plead an acquittal
or conviction in bar of future prosecutions for the same offense.” Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S.
87, 117 (1974). The Court must take the indictment’s factual allegations as true and decide only
whether the indictment is “valid on its face.” Costello v. United States, 350 U.S. 359, 363 (1956); see
1 In Melton’s Argument VI – Due Process and Rule 7 Violations, he asserts that the indictment is insufficient on three
bases, each of which is the subject of Melton’s other arguments and addressed separately below by the Court. (Doc. No.
46, PageID # 249.)
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United States v. Williams, 504 U.S. 36, 54–55 (1992) (limiting pretrial review of indictments to facial
challenges). This Court has reviewed the face of the indictment and specifically, the language used
to charge Melton with four crimes and concludes that the indictment includes all of the elements of
the charged offenses and places him on notice of the charges he is facing. 	Thus, construing
Defendant’s Motion as raising any argument that the indictment fails to state any offense(s) is without
merit and rejected.
The Court construes the remainder of Defendant’s Motion as challenging this Court’s subject
matter jurisdiction. Melton makes several arguments associated therewith, all of which are without
merit and rejected.
Melton’s first argument is that the Controlled Substances Act and 21 U.S.C. § 903 limit
federal power to positively conflicting state conduct, and no such conflict exists because Ohio
criminal statutes mirror the CSA’s prohibitions, fully regulating the same field. 	Melton cites no
authority for his interpretation of these statutes; instead, he merely asserts that the Supreme Court’s
decision in Gonzales v Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005) does not undermine his argument because in Raich,
“California’s legalization created an unregulated gap threatening federal treaty compliance,” whereas
“Ohio law leaves no such gap.” 	(Doc. No. 46, PageID # 247.) The Court rejects what the Court
construes as Melton’s unsupported assertions that applying 18 U.S.C. § 841 is “unnecessary” and
“merely duplicates state enforcement violating dual-sovereignty principles.”
Melton’s second argument is that the CSA is a treaty-implementation statute, not a commerce
clause-law but he provides no valid authority for this proposition, and it is rejected. Melton’s third
argument is really a combination of his first and second arguments since he asserts that “[t]he drug
count must stand on its own; because § 841 is treaty-based, it cannot reach purely local conduct
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already regulated by Ohio.” 	(Id., PageID # 248.) 	Accordingly, Melton’s third argument is also
rejected.
Melton’s fourth argument is that “[u]nder United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), and
United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000), purely local, non-economic acts are beyond
Congress’s reach.” (Id.) In Lopez the Supreme Court held that the Gun-Free School Zones Act of
1990, which criminalized possession of a firearm within one thousand feet of a school, exceeded
Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause to regulate three categories of activity, to include
“those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, [citation omitted] i.e., those
activities that substantially affect interstate commerce [citation omitted].” Lopez, 514 U.S. at 559.
However, the Sixth Circuit has concluded the Supreme Court’s decision in Lopez “d[id] not give [it]
cause to question Congress’s power to regulate an activity as clearly commercial as drug trafficking.”
United States v. Tucker, 90 F.3d 1135, 1140 (6th Cir. 1996). Accordingly, Lopez does not support
Melton’s fourth argument and in fact, defeats it. Also, Melton’s reliance on Morrison is misplaced
because in that case, the Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of 42 U.S.C. § 13981, which
provided a civil remedy for the victims of gender-motivated violence.
Melton’s fifth argument is that “[w]hile § 922(g) includes an ‘in or affecting commerce’
clause, historical movement of the firearm does not apply jurisdiction for a drug count lacking a
commerce element.” The Court construes this argument to mean that because the elements of the
crime with which Melton is charged in Count 1 of the Indictment, i.e., a violation of 21 U.S.C. §§
841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C), does not include that the drugs crossed a state line prior to his alleged
possession with intent to distribute controlled substances, this Court does not have jurisdiction. But
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again, the Sixth Circuit has concluded that the very act of drug trafficking affects interstate commerce
or is clearly commercial such that Congress has the authority to regulate it.
Melton’s final arguments are reiterations of his prior arguments which the Court has rejected.
Accordingly, Defendant’s Motion is DENIED.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
s/Pamela A. Barker
PAMELA A. BARKER
Date: December 15, 2025 	U. S. DISTRICT JUDGE
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