USCA11 Case: 20-11630 Date Filed: 01/24/2022 Page: 1 of 4
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 20-11630
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
CEFALO LEWIS,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Respondent-Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cv-24278-PCH
____________________
USCA11 Case: 20-11630 Date Filed: 01/24/2022 Page: 2 of 4
2 Opinion of the Court 20-11630
Before ROSENBAUM, NEWSOM, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Cefalo Lewis, a federal prisoner, appeals the district court’s
denial of his
28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to vacate, set aside, or correct
his sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation
of
18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(e)(1). Previously, Lewis pleaded
guilty to this offense and was sentenced under the Armed Career
Criminal Act. Lewis directly appealed his sentence to no avail.
Following Rehaif v. United States,
139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019),
Lewis filed the motion that underlies this appeal. In Rehaif, the
Supreme Court held that § 922(g) requires that the defendant know
both (1) that he possessed a firearm and (2) that he belonged to a
category of persons barred from possessing a firearm. Id. at 2200.
Lewis contended that his conviction must be vacated because the
government never proved that he knew he was a felon who was
barred from possessing a firearm. He also argued that his guilty-
plea colloquy was deficient because it didn’t apprise him that the
government must prove that he knew his status as a felon. The
district court denied Lewis’s motion because “the evidence that he
knew that he was a felon [was] overwhelming.” We granted a
COA to determine whether Lewis was actually innocent of his
USCA11 Case: 20-11630 Date Filed: 01/24/2022 Page: 3 of 4
20-11630 Opinion of the Court 3
§ 922(g)(1) conviction in light of Rehaif and whether Lewis’s plea
colloquy was deficient. 1
To prevail on his § 2255 motion, Lewis had to show that the
purported errors had a “substantial and injurious effect or influ-
ence” on the outcome of the proceeding. Brecht v. Abrahamson,
507 U.S. 619, 623 (1993) (quotation omitted); Ross v. United States,
289 F.3d 677, 682 (11th Cir. 2002) (per curiam) (applying Brecht’s
“harmlessness” standard in a § 2255 case). Section 922(g)(1) pro-
vides that it is unlawful for any person who has been convicted of
“a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one
year” to possess a firearm.
18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). To obtain a
§ 922(g)(1) conviction post-Rehaif, the government had to prove
that Lewis knew he possessed a firearm and that he knew he was
the type of felon described in § 922(g)(1) who is barred from pos-
sessing a firearm. Rehaif,
139 S. Ct. at 2200. Here, the government
proved only the former and not the latter.
Regardless, no substantial and injurious effect occurred to
Lewis because ample record evidence indicates that he knew he
was a felon. In his factual proffer, Lewis had admitted to prior con-
victions for at least five felonies, including armed robbery and pos-
session of a firearm by a convicted felon under Florida law. Be-
cause Lewis had been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for
1 When reviewing a district court’s denial of a § 2255 motion to vacate, we
review legal conclusions de novo and findings of fact for clear error. Stoufflet
v. United States,
757 F.3d 1236, 1239 (11th Cir. 2014).
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4 Opinion of the Court 20-11630
each of those two convictions—and he served at least one of those
sentences in full—he clearly knew that he was someone who had
been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term
exceeding one year, i.e., a felon. Given these facts, the government
could have easily proved that Lewis knew he was a felon at the
time that he possessed a firearm. And it is highly improbable that
Lewis would have changed his decision to plead guilty even if he
had known that the government would have had to prove that he
knew he was a felon. Accordingly, any errors that may have oc-
curred in Lewis’s indictment and plea colloquy were harmless.
AFFIRMED.
