Supreme Court takes two, non-2A, gun law cases

Greer v. US, docket. Issue: Whether, when applying plain-error review based on an intervening United States Supreme Court decision, Rehaif v. United States [which held that, in a felon in possession case, the government must prove the defendant knew he’d been convicted of a felony}, a circuit court of appeals may review matters outside the trial record to determine whether the error affected a defendant’s substantial rights or impacted the fairness, integrity or public reputation of the trial.

US v. Gary, docket. Issue: Whether a defendant who pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a felon, is automatically entitled to plain-error relief if the district court did not advise him that one element of that offense is knowledge of his status as a felon, regardless of whether he can show that the district court’s error affected the outcome of the proceedings.

These are the results from Friday’s Conference, which must have been lively. Other cases then considered, with no results yet announced, include an abortion case, a church’s challenge to Covid closures that it argues favor other gatherings over religious services, two challenges to mail-in voting in Pennsylvania, the death sentence for the Boston Marathon bomber, and a case seeking to determine whether President Trump can ban people from his Twitter account (which may now be moot). Most conferences are not so lively!