Whether the government must prove the defendant's knowledge of the specific elements of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence in a prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9)

QUESTION PRESENTED In Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), this Court clarified 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.” Id. at 2200. This Court, however, expressly left open the question “what precisely the Government must prove to establish a defendant’s knowledge of status in respect to other § 922(g) provisions,” such as in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9), which prohibits anyone knowingly convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence from possessing a firearm. Id. This petition thus presents a question expressly left open in Rehaif, on which the circuits are now split. The question presented is: Whether, to support Rehaifs knowledge-of-status element in a prosecution for unlawful possession of a firearm by a person convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9), the government must prove that the defendant knew that he had: (1) been convicted of an offense that has “as an element, the use or attempted use of physical force” and thus qualifies as a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence as defined under federal law; or (2) merely engaged in conduct that constitutes “physical force” as defined in United States v. Castleman, 572 U.S. 157, 163 (2014), whether or not the defendant knew how Castleman defines the term. i