United States v. Arthur Minkoff Clawson

Arthur Minkoff Clawson was convicted of one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. App. § 1202(a). At the government’s request, the court imposed an enhanced penalty under § 1202(a)’s Armed Career Criminal provision. On appeal Clawson challenges: (1) the admissibility of evidence, (2) the sufficiency of proof of the interstate transportation element of the firearm offense, (3) the lawfulness of the stop of the car in which Clawson was a passenger, (4) the constitutionality of one of the prior convictions used to enhance his sentence, and (5) the constitutionality of the Armed Career Criminal Act.

On November 10, 1985, two Portland police officers, acting on an informant’s tip regarding a check forgery operation, staked out the Chumaree Motel in Portland. In the motel parking lot, detectives Larry Kochever and Carolyn Wooden-Johnson observed two cars that matched the description given by the informant of the suspects’ vehicles. When the officers suspected that the forgery suspects were attempting to leave the parking lot in one of the cars, Officer Wooden-Johnson pulled the unmarked police car up behind them. Clawson then got out of the…