U.S. v. Payne

Ct. of Appeals rejected defendant’s argument, raised for first time on appeal, that he should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea on charge of unlawful possession of firearm by felon where nothing in his plea colloquy revealed definitively whether he had known that he was convicted felon at time he possessed firearm as required by Rehaif, 139 S.Ct. 2191. Record showed that defendant had prior felony convictions for physical abuse of child and operating vehicle without owner’s consent, for which defendant had served 13 months in confinement on both offenses, as well as felony conviction for failure to comply with police officer, for which he served one year in confinement. Moreover, defendant failed to establish that but for failure to establish knowledge of his felon status in his guilty plea, he would not have entered guilty plea. In this respect, defendant needed to show that he had plausible ignorance defense regarding his felon status, and defendant could not make such showing, where: (1) defendant would have been aware of his felon status since he had three prior felony convictions, each of which resulted in sentence exceeding one year; and (2) dockets in all three prior convictions indicated that defendant was told during sentencing that he could not possess firearm as felon.