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1 1 (June 21, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govbafq0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ______ **Research Service What You Don't Know Can't Hurt You: Supreme Court to Address Knowledge Requirement for Firearm Offenses Updated June 21, 2019 UPDATE: On June 21, 2019, the Supreme Court held in a 7-2 decision that the knowledge requirement for violations of 18 US. C. § 922(g) applies both to the defendant's conduct and to the defendant's status, meaning that the government must show that the defendant knew he possessed afirearm and also that he knew he had the relevant status when he possessed it in order for the defendant to be found guilty of an offense under the statute. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Breyer and joined by ChiefJustice Roberts and Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor Kagan, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, recognized that the statutory term knowingly ordinarily applies to all the subsequently listed elements of the crime. The majority saw no basis in the text of the statute, its legislative history, or the Court's precedent to interpret 'knowingly'as applying to the second § 922(g) element (possession) but not the first (status). Accordingly, the majority concluded that Congress intended to require the Government to establish that the defendant knew he violated the material elements of§ 922(g), including status. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, disagreed with the majority's textual analysis, noting that the knowledge requirement is contained in a separate statutory provision and, when imported to Section 922(g), can be read in multiple ways. As such, in the dissent's view, reading the statute in the manner favored by the majority frustrates Congress's public safety objectives, leads to anomalies that Congress is unlikely to have intended, and conflicts with the legal landscape at the time of the statute's enactment, making it much more likely that Congress intended the knowledge requirement to not apply to the offender's status. The dissent also worried that, as a practical matter, the Court's decision will make it significantly harder to convict persons falling into certain categories under Section 922(g) and create a mountain ofproblems with respect to the thousands ofprisoners currently serving terms for § 922(g) convictions. The original post from April 19, 2019, is below. Perhaps the most well-known aspect of the federal framework of firearm laws is the Gun Control Act's prohibition on the receipt or possession of guns by persons who fall into specific risk-related categories. Under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), convicted felons, fugitives from justice, aliens unlawfully present in the United States, and certain other persons are prohibited from possessing, receiving, shipping, or transporting in Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10290 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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