Hector Manuel Cervantes-Torres was convicted in 2014 of possessing a firearm as an alien unlawfully present in the United States, among other charges. At the time of his trial, the law did not require the jury to be instructed that the government must prove the defendant knew of his unlawful status. Five years later, the Supreme Court decided Rehaif v. United States, establishing that knowledge of one's status is a necessary element of a Section 922(g) conviction. Cervantes-Torres filed a petition for a writ of error coram nobis to vacate his conviction, arguing the lack of a Rehaif instruction was a fundamental error. The district court granted relief for a separate felon-in-possession charge but denied it for the unlawful presence charge, finding that Cervantes-Torres knew he was in the country illegally. The Ninth Circuit reviewed this denial.
The panel, writing for the majority, addressed whether the failure to give a Rehaif instruction constituted an error of the most fundamental character required for coram nobis relief. The court declined to adopt the dissent's view that such an error is per se fundamental. Instead, the court assumed that plain error review applied, meaning Cervantes-Torres had to show a reasonable probability that the jury would have reached a different result had the correct instruction been given. The court concluded that no such probability existed based on three key facts. First, Cervantes-Torres was physically deported in 2003 and warned of a ten-year bar. Second, in 2012, he received and read a letter from USCIS explicitly stating he did not have lawful permanent resident status. Third, the only documentation he possessed at the time of arrest was a green card extension sticker that had expired six months prior. The court reasoned that a reasonable jury could not have concluded he lacked knowledge of his unlawful status given this overwhelming evidence.
The decision affirms the district court's denial of relief, meaning Cervantes-Torres remains incarcerated under his firearm possession conviction. The ruling clarifies that in the Ninth Circuit, a Rehaif instructional error in a coram nobis proceeding is not automatically fundamental; courts must assess whether there was a reasonable probability of a different verdict based on the evidence. The case is remanded to the district court to enforce the existing judgment, though the petitioner's § 922(g)(1) conviction was previously vacated by the district court based on different reasoning regarding expungement.
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