Opinion ID: 4536487
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Rehaif Claims

Text: The Supreme Court held in Rehaif that, “in a prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) . . . , 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.” 139 S. Ct. at 2200. Neither the indictment charging Smith nor the jury instructions at his trial articulated the knowledge requirement identified by the Court in Rehaif. Because Smith did not challenge this failure below, we review his claim “for plain error, considering whether (1) there is an error; (2) the error is clear or obvious . . . ; (3) the error affected the appellant’s substantial rights; and (4) 2 the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” See United States v. Miller, 954 F.3d 551, 557–58 (2d Cir. 2020) (quotation marks omitted). As to Smith’s claim that the indictment was jurisdictionally defective because it did not allege an element of the offense, we rejected this claim in United States v. Balde, 943 F.3d 73 (2d Cir. 2019). Indeed, Smith appears to have abandoned this claim in his reply brief. We held in Balde that an indictment that tracks the language of the statute is sufficient to confer jurisdiction. See id. at 89–90. The indictment here mirrors the words of the relevant statute. Thus, “the indictment’s failure to allege that [Smith] knew that he was [a felon] was not a jurisdictional defect.” Id. at 92. Smith’s claim of instructional error is similarly foreclosed by our recent decision in Miller, 954 F.3d 551. In Miller, we rejected the argument that the district court plainly erred by failing to instruct that § 922(g) requires the government to prove knowledge of felon status. Id. at 557– 60. We concluded that the defendant’s challenge failed at the fourth prong of our plain-error analysis, which allowed us to look beyond the trial record at the defendant’s presentence investigation report (“PSR”). Id. at 559–60. Relying on the PSR, we reasoned that, because the defendant had been sentenced to and served more than one year in prison for a prior felony conviction, he necessarily knew of his felon status and “would have stipulated to knowledge of his felon status to prevent the jury from hearing evidence of his actual sentence.” Id. at 560. The same is true here: Smith has multiple prior felony convictions, was sentenced to over one year in prison for two of those crimes, and served nearly seven years in prison for one prior conviction. Smith, like Miller, stipulated to the existence of a prior felony in order to prevent its details from being placed before the jury. See Miller, 954 F.3d at 558–59 & n.18. While neither stipulation specifically addressed the defendant’s knowledge of his felon status, “we have no doubt that, had 3 the Rehaif issue been foreseen by the district court, [Smith] would have stipulated to knowledge of his felon status.” Id. at 560. Thus, the erroneous instruction does not warrant vacatur of Smith’s conviction.