Supreme Court Sides With Feds in Felon-in-Possession Appeal

(CN) — In a ruling that clarifies procedures around illegal gun possession appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 8-1 on Monday to uphold a 10-year sentence for a Florida man who claimed he didn’t know his status as a five-time felon made it illegal for him to get a gun. 

The ruling puts to rest questions raised by the high court’s 2019 decision in Rehaif v. United States. The Rehaif opinion found that an individual is guilty of a felon-in-possession charge only if he both knows he has a gun and that his gun possession is illegal.  

In an 11-page opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied Gregory Greer’s petition challenging his gun charge. In the same ruling, the high court also overturned a Fourth Circuit decision vacating Michael Andrew Gary’s guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a gun.  

The opinion points out that both Greer and Gary had been convicted of multiple felonies prior to their felon-in-possession offenses and therefore knew that they were felons.  

“Importantly, on appeal, neither Greer nor Gary has argued or made a representation that they would have presented evidence at trial that they did not in fact know they were felons when they possessed firearms,” Kavanaugh wrote on behalf of the majority. 

The opinion states that a Rehaif error “is not a basis for plain-error relief unless the defendant first makes a sufficient argument or representation on appeal that he would have presented evidence at trial that he did not in fact know he was a felon.” 

Gary and Greer were separately convicted of their crimes before Rehaif was decided. 

The 11th Circuit rejected Greer’s request for a new trial based on the district court’s failure to instruct the jury that he had to know he was a felon when he possessed the gun to be found guilty.  

But the Fourth Circuit agreed with Gary that his guilty plea should be vacated based on a lower court’s failure to advise him that a jury would have to find that he also knew he was a felon when he possessed the guns. 

“Here, Greer and Gary have not carried the burden of showing that the Rehaif errors in their respective cases affected their substantial rights,” Kavanaugh wrote, adding that neither man ever disputed his prior felony convictions.  

The majority opinion acknowledges that defendants in felon-in-possession cases face “an uphill climb” in trying to show that they did not know they were felons. 

“The reason is simple: If a person is a felon, he ordinarily knows he is a felon,” the ruling states.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor disagreed with that reasoning in a seven-page opinion partially dissenting from the majority. 

Sotomayor warned that the majority's decision “should not be read to create a legal presumption that every individual convicted of a felony understands he is a felon.” 

“A defendant may not understand that a conviction in juvenile court or a misdemeanor under state law can be a felony for purposes of federal law. Or he likewise might not understand that pretrial detention was included in his ultimate sentence. Confusion along these lines becomes more likely as time passes,” she explained. 

Although Sotomayor agreed that Greer failed to show a reasonable probability that a correctly instructed jury would have doubted he knew he was a felon, she dissented from the majority's judgment with regard to Gary’s case. 

“As to Gary, I agree with the court that the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit erred in holding that the district court’s failure to inform Gary of the knowledge-of-status element automatically entitled him to relief on plain-error review. Unlike this court, I would not decide in the first instance whether Gary can make a case-specific showing that the error affected his substantial rights. I would instead vacate the judgment below and remand for the Fourth Circuit to address that question,” Sotomayor wrote.

Jeffrey Fisher, an attorney representing Gary, expressed disappointment in the decision, “both from the standpoint of Mr. Gary and others in his situation.” 

The majority also rejected Greer’s arguments that the 11th Circuit unfairly considered his prior felonies and a pre-sentencing report that had not been introduced at trial when it upheld his conviction. 

During oral arguments on April 20, an attorney for Greer argued that the “pertinent record” with respect to his appellate claim of legal error was limited to the evidence introduced at trial.   

Greer's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.  

Follow @KaylaGoggin_CNS

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