United States of America v. Charles York Walker, Jr.

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 18-4110
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
CHARLES YORK WALKER, JR.,
Defendant - Appellant.
On Remand from the Supreme Court of the United States.
(S. Ct. No. 19-5333)
Submitted: July 19, 2022 Decided: July 20, 2022
Before WILKINSON, NIEMEYER, and KING, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: Jonathan D. Byrne, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER,
Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Steven Loew, OFFICE OF THE UNITED
STATES ATTORNEY, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Christian
M. Capece, Federal Public Defender, Wesley P. Page, Federal Public Defender, Lex A.
Coleman, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC
DEFENDER, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Michael B. Stuart, United States
Attorney, W. Clinton Carte, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED
STATES ATTORNEY, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee.

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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
In 2017, defendant Charles York Walker, Jr., was found guilty by a jury in the
Southern District of West Virginia of being a felon in possession of firearms, in
contravention of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Walker appealed from the resulting criminal
judgment, contesting his conviction and sentence. In April 2019, we rejected Walker’s
appellate contentions and affirmed the district court’s judgment. See United States v.
Walker, 922 F.3d 239 (4th Cir. 2019).
About two months later, in June 2019, the Supreme Court issued its decision in
Rehaif v. United States, holding that to convict a defendant of a § 922(g) offense, the
government “must show that the defendant knew he possessed a firearm and also that he
knew he had the relevant status [e.g., that he was a felon] when he possessed it.” See 139
S. Ct. 2191, 2194 (2019). In November 2019, the Supreme Court granted Walker’s petition
for writ of certiorari and vacated our judgment, remanding for further consideration in light
of Rehaif. See Walker v. United States, 140 S. Ct. 474 (2019).
In these remand proceedings, early in 2020, the parties filed supplemental briefs
addressing the impact of Rehaif, if any, on Walker’s case. We thereafter placed the case
in abeyance pending, inter alia, the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Greer,
141 S. Ct. 2090 (2021). Significantly, Greer addressed a contention — like Walker’s —
that the defendant “was entitled to a new trial [on plain-error review] because the District
Court failed to instruct the jury that he had to know he was a felon.” See 141 S. Ct. at 2096.
In so doing, Greer clarified that such “a Rehaif error is not a basis for plain-error relief
unless the defendant first makes a sufficient argument or representation on appeal that he

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would have presented evidence at trial that he did not in fact know he was a felon.” Id. at
2100. The reviewing court must then “determine whether the defendant has carried the
burden of showing a reasonable probability that [absent the Rehaif error] the outcome of
the district court proceeding would have been different,” i.e., “that he would have been
acquitted.” Id. at 2097, 2100 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Unfortunately for Walker, the record reflects that he is not one of those defendants
who “can make an adequate showing on appeal that he would have presented evidence in
the district court that he did not in fact know he was a felon when he possessed firearms.”
See Greer, 141 S. Ct. at 2097 (describing the “uphill climb” that a defendant faces in trying
to make such a showing). Among other compelling evidence that Walker knew he was a
felon at the relevant time is that he had previously been convicted under § 922(g)(1) of
being a felon in possession of a firearm. In these circumstances, there is no feasible basis
for plain-error relief under Rehaif. Accordingly, we again affirm the judgment of the
district court.
AFFIRMED

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