UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

┐ DOMINIQUE CORDELL WALLACE, │ Petitioner-Appellant, │ > No. 20-5764 v. │ │ │ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, │ Respondent-Appellee. │ ┘

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville. Nos. 3:15-cr-00098-1; 3:19-cv-01122—Aleta Arthur Trauger, District Judge.

Argued: June 8, 2022

Decided and Filed: August 5, 2022

Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; KETHLEDGE and MURPHY, Circuit Judges. _________________

COUNSEL ARGUED: Kolya D. Glick, ARNOLD & PORTER KAYE SCHOLER, LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Cecil W. VanDevender, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Kolya D. Glick, John P. Elwood, Allon Kedem, Andrew T. Tutt, ARNOLD & PORTER KAYE SCHOLER, LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Cecil W. VanDevender, Philip H. Wehby, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee. _________________

OPINION _________________

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. Dominique Wallace tried to rob a convenience store just weeks after his release on probation from a three-year detention for attempted murder. This crime left an accomplice dead and a victim terribly disabled. Wallace pleaded guilty to, among No. 20-5764 Wallace v. United States Page 2

other things, discharging a firearm during a “crime of violence” that resulted in death, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(j), and illegally possessing a firearm as a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). In this collateral challenge, Wallace asserts that we should vacate these convictions because of a pair of decisions that the Supreme Court issued after he pleaded guilty.

Wallace is right with respect to his crime-of-violence conviction under § 924(j). In United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019), the Court found part of § 924’s definition of “crime of violence” to be unconstitutionally vague. Id. at 2336. Given Davis, Wallace did not violate § 924(j) because his attempted robbery does not qualify as a “crime of violence” under the constitutional part of § 924’s definition. Despite his specific crime’s violent nature, his offense falls outside § 924 under the “categorical approach” to answering this crime-of-violence question.

But Wallace is wrong with respect to his felon-in-possession conviction under § 922(g)(1). In Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), the Court held that defendants do not violate § 922(g)(1) unless they know that they have been convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison when they possess firearms. Id. at 2196. Citing Rehaif, Wallace argues that the district court erred by not informing him during his plea hearings that the government must prove that he knew his prior offense (attempted murder) was punishable by more than a year in prison. Yet Wallace procedurally defaulted this claim because he did not raise it in his criminal proceedings, and he has offered no valid reason for us to excuse this default.