Mashour Howling v. Maryland

Whether in state criminal felony cases premised upon inter-state comity concerns of state statutes conflicting on the legal effect given the underlying “status” violation, the “universal” Common Law presumption requiring mens rea, first addressed by this Court in Morissette v. United States, 72 S. Ct. 240 (1952) (J. Robert Jackson), consistent with the Due Process violation described in Lambert v. California, 78 S. Ct. 240 (1957), and later adopted for Federal cases in Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), should apply.

Whether Maryland’s pattern jury instruction approved by Maryland’s High Court below, lacking any “guilty mind” scienter requirements for felony convictions with potential lengthy incarceration regardless of the circumstances, was proper, under Morissette, Lambert, and Rehaif, when the categorical “crime of violence” charged was an almost 20 year-old collateral “simple assault” conviction in Pennsylvania, with Petitioner’s home state having legislatively and factually determined previously, Petitioner was qualified to possess a firearm.