Petitioner Hamid Rehaif entered the United States on a nonimmigrant student visa to attend university. After he received poor grades, the university dismissed him and told him that his "'immigration status'" would be terminated unless he transferred to a different university or left the country. Rehaif did neither. Rehaif subsequently visited a firing range, where he shot two firearms. The Government learned about his target practice and prosecuted him for possessing firearms as an alien unlawfully in the United States, in violation of §922(g) and §924(a)(2). At the close of Rehaif's trial, the judge instructed the jury (over Rehaif's objection) that the "United States is not required to prove" that Rehaif "knew that he was illegally or unlawfully in the United States. The jury returned a guilty verdict, and Rehaif was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment.

Rehaif appealed. He argued that the judge erred in instructing the jury that it did not need to find that he knew he was in the country unlawfully. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, however, concluded that the jury instruction was correct, and it affirmed Rehaif's conviction. The Court of Appeals believed that the criminal law generally does not require a defendant to know his own status, and further observed that no court of appeals had required the Government to establish a defendant's knowledge of his status in the analogous context of felon-in-possession prosecutions. Id., at 1145-1146.

We granted certiorari to consider whether, in prosecutions under §922(g) and §924(a)(2), the Government must prove that a defendant knows of his status as a person barred from possessing a firearm.

We conclude that in a prosecution under 18 U. S. C. §922(g) and §924(a)(2), the Government must prove both that the defendant knew he possessed a firearm and that he knew he belonged to the relevant category of persons barred from possessing a firearm. We express no view, however, about what precisely the Government must prove to establish a defendant's knowledge of status in respect to other §922(g) provisions not at issue here. We accordingly reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

In order to convict an unauthorized immigrant for gun possession, a federal prosecutor must prove not only that the defendant knew he possessed the gun but also that he knew he was out of immigration status, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 on Friday in Rehaif v. United States. The decision will almost certainly lead to collateral attacks on convictions under a much more commonly invoked provision criminalizing gun possession by convicted felons.

n a vehement dissent, Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, protested that the decision will lead to a flood of challenges by people currently incarcerated under Section 922(g), most of them in the felon-in-possession category. Noting that 6,032 people were convicted in fiscal year 2017 alone under Section 922(g), with an average sentence of 64 months, Alito warned of a coming flood of litigation. Those whose direct appeals are not yet exhausted will “likely be entitled to a new trial,” said Alito, and others will move to have their convictions vacated under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.

BREYER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and GINSBURG, SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, GORSUCH, and KAVANAUGH, JJ., joined. ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS, J., joined

YankeeTarheel wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 6:15 pm Strange days with the decisions coming out of this court. Only the eminent domain case, so far, has been the expected 5 conservatives vs 4 liberals.
In this one, the Liberals were joined by Roberts, and Trump's two appointees. I'm more surprised Gorsuch joined the majority than Kavanaugh--who just wrote the racial jury profiling decision.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in their closed-door sessions! Apparently, even the NSA and Mueller's team don't match it for secrecy!

Eris wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 10:15 pm This ruling says "ignorance of the law IS an excuse, actually."

The Supreme Court says prosecutors must prove that people charged with violating federal gun laws knew they were not allowed to have a weapon. The government says the decision could affect thousands of prosecutions of convicted criminals who are barred from having a firearm.

The statute at issue in Davis imposes longer sentences on criminal defendants who use a firearm in a crime that “by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense.” As Gorsuch explains in his opinion, this law runs afoul of a longstanding rule that vague criminal statutes are unconstitutional.

Among other things, what on Earth does it mean that a statute “by its nature” is likely to result in physical force? And how are juries supposed to make this determination? This task is especially difficult because the statute applies solely to crimes involving firearms — a tool that exists for the sole purpose of using “physical force against the person or property of another” — yet it applies to only some gun crimes and not others. As Gorsuch explains in a portion of the opinion shooting down the Justice Department’s attempt to defend this law,

The government says, for example, that “selling counterfeit handbags” while carrying a gun wouldn’t be a crime of violence under its approach. But why not? Because the counterfeit handbag trade is so inherently peaceful that there’s no substantial risk of a violent confrontation with dissatisfied customers, territorial competitors, or dogged police officers? And how are jurors supposed to determine that? The defendant presumably knew the risks of his trade, and he chose to arm himself.

Often, Congress writes laws that impose ambiguous obligations on individuals, then delegates to federal agencies the task of clarifying the specifics of those obligations.

Among other things, this approach allows agencies to update which technology polluters must use to reduce emissions as green tech improves. It also allows agencies to update certain labor laws as economic realities change. The idea is that Congress can set a broad policy, but delegate to agencies the task of updating the specific rules that implement that policy as the facts on the ground change.

Gorsuch hates the fact that agencies have this power. Indeed, just last week, he handed down a deeply radical opinion suggesting that the Supreme Court will soon drastically curtail agencies’ ability to regulate. Among other things, Gorsuch’s opinion in Gundy v. United States also warns against vague laws — “any challenge to a legislative delegation can be reframed as a vagueness complaint: A statute that does not contain ‘sufficiently definite and precise’ standards ‘to enable Congress, the courts, and the public to ascertain’ whether Congress’s guidance has been followed at once presents a delegation problem and provides impermissibly vague guidance to affected citizens.”

In fairness, other parts of Gorsuch’s Davis opinion correctly state the rule that vague criminal laws must be treated with special scrutiny. But it’s not hard to see why Gorsuch crossed over to vote with his liberal colleagues in this case. Gorsuch’s plans to expand the vagueness doctrine are part-and-parcel with his efforts to dismantle the administrative state. And he’s happy to benefit criminal defendants if it means that he can advance a broader project of disassemble much of the federal government.

featureless wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 2:40 pm Laws should, necessarily, be clear and well defined. Otherwise, they are a catchall.

In our constitutional order, a vague law is no law at all. Only the people’s elected representatives in Congress have the power to write new federal criminal laws. And when Congress exercises that power, it has to write statutes that give ordinary people fair warning about what the law demands of them. Vague laws transgress both of those constitutional requirements. They hand off the legislature’s responsibility for defining criminal behavior to unelected prosecutors and judges, and they leave people with no sure way to know what consequences will attach
to their conduct. When Congress passes a vague law, the role of courts under our Constitution is not to fashion a new, clearer law to take its place, but to treat the law as a nullity and invite Congress to try again.

shinzen wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 12:14 pm An interesting case from the Supreme Court. I wonder if it will have any repercussions with regards to state law, as the flurry of gun laws from my state of CA can and absolutely have had folks run afoul of the legal system due to changing laws rather than malicious intent. It will also really ramp up the need to notify when a DV restraining order is issued.

The Supreme Court says prosecutors must prove that people charged with violating federal gun laws knew they were not allowed to have a weapon. The government says the decision could affect thousands of prosecutions of convicted criminals who are barred from having a firearm.

In this specific case, the defendant was potentially unaware of his PP status due to a lapsed visa.


https://apnews.com/aa9d3576f01a47108d15ee1efd63a708

shinzen wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 12:46 pm Yeah. From the ruling, my interpretation is that the important bit is not realizing that the law applied to you due to a change in status- and unlike the Everytown folks, I'm not as concerned about the DV angle, as people are issued restraining orders and if they are done properly, it should also include in that order a notice to relinquish their firearms, which provides notice of both their changed status AND the requirement to turn them in.

More interesting to me is the "grandfathering" assumption that folks have in states like California. Although this is state law and not federal, there is an argument to be made that folks who bought something when it was legal, even knowing that it was subsequently made illegal, may not realize that the law applies to them. To the convoluted and unreasonable discussion.

"In our constitutional order, a vague law is no law at all," Gorsuch wrote. "Only the people's elected representatives in Congress have the power to write new federal criminal laws. And when Congress exercises that power, it has to write statutes that give ordinary people fair warning about what the law demands of them."

The case presented to the Supreme Court involved two men -- Maurice Davis and Andre Glover -- who were convicted of several robbery charges and another federal statute that required increased mandatory minimum sentences for a "crime of violence."

Under the law, they would have faced a mandatory sentence of five years, with the possibility to increase it to seven years if a gun was brandished and 10 years if a gun was fired.

firearms — a tool that exists for the sole purpose of using “physical force against the person or property of another” —