UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 18-4369

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

MAURICE MONTRAE PARKS,

Defendant - Appellant.

On Remand from the Supreme Court of the United States.

(S. Ct. No. 19-5330)

Submitted: August 30, 2021 Decided: September 3, 2021

Before WILKINSON, MOTZ, and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

G. Alan DuBois, Federal Public Defender, Stephen C. Gordon, Assistant Federal Public 

Defender, Jennifer C. Leisten, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE 

FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. Robert J. 

Higdon, Jr., United States Attorney, G. Norman Acker, III, Acting United States Attorney, 

Jennifer P. May-Parker, Assistant United States Attorney, Kristine L. Fritz, Assistant 

United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, 

North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

A jury convicted Maurice Montrae Parks of possession of a firearm by a convicted 

felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) and § 924(a)(2). The district court sentenced 

Parks to 90 months’ imprisonment. We previously affirmed the district court’s judgment, 

rejecting Parks’ argument that his prosecution and resulting sentence violated the Double 

Jeopardy Clause. United States v. Parks, 767 F. App’x 509, 510 (4th Cir. 2019) (No. 18-

4369). The Supreme Court granted Parks’ petition for a writ of certiorari, vacated our 

judgment, and remanded the case for further consideration in light of Rehaif v. United 

States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019). Parks v. United States, 140 S. Ct. 98 (2019). 

Following a lengthy abeyance, the parties provided supplemental briefs addressing 

the impact, if any, of Greer v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 2090 (2021), on Parks’ conviction. 

The parties now agree that, in light of Greer, Parks cannot satisfy the requirements for 

demonstrating reversible error on his unpreserved Rehaif claim. 

We find Parks’ candid concession on this issue well-taken. Parks can obtain relief 

on his Rehaif challenge only by satisfying the plain error standard. See id. at 2096. To 

establish plain error, Parks must first demonstrate the threshold requirements of (1) an error 

(2) that is plain and (3) that “affected [his] substantial rights,” which generally requires “a 

reasonable probability that, but for the error, the outcome of the proceeding would have 

been different.” See Rosales-Mireles v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1897, 1094-05 (2018) 

(internal quotation marks omitted); see also Henderson v. United States, 568 U.S. 266, 269 

(2013) (holding that error is “plain” if clear or obvious at time of appellate consideration). 
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Parks’ Rehaif challenge clearly fails the third prong. Parks stipulated at trial that he 

was a felon, and nothing in the record suggests that Parks did not understand his felon 

status at the time he committed the underlying offense conduct. To the contrary, Parks’ 

criminal record included two prior convictions for possessing a firearm as a felon. The 

jury was presented with evidence that Parks was still serving a supervised release term for 

his most recent felon-in-possession conviction, a § 922(g) conviction in federal court, when 

he committed the instant offense conduct. Thus, we easily conclude that Parks cannot meet

his “burden of showing that, if the District Court had correctly instructed the jury on the 

mens rea element of a felon-in-possession offense, there is a reasonable probability that he 

would have been acquitted.” Id. at 2097 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Accordingly, and for the reasons set forth in our original opinion, see Parks, 767 F. 

App’x at 510, we affirm the criminal judgment. We deny Parks’ motion for summary 

disposition. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are

adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the 

decisional process.

AFFIRMED