Section 922(g)(9), Hayes maintained, applies only to persons previously convicted of an offense that has as an element a domestic relationship between aggressor and victim. 2Īsserting that his 1994 West Virginia battery conviction did not qualify as a predicate offense under §922(g)(9), Hayes moved to dismiss the indictment. 1 The victim of that battery, the indictment alleged, was Hayes’s then-wife-a person who “shared a child in common” with Hayes and “who was cohabitating with. The indictment identified Hayes’s predicate misdemeanor crime of domestic violence as a 1994 conviction for battery in violation of West Virginia law. Based on this evidence, a federal grand jury returned an indictment in 2005, charging Hayes, under §§922(g)(9) and 924(a)(2), with three counts of possessing firearms after having been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.
Further investigation revealed that Hayes had recently possessed several other firearms as well. Hayes consented to a search of his home, and the officers discovered a rifle. In 2004, law enforcement officers in Marion County, West Virginia, came to the home of Randy Edward Hayes in response to a 911 call reporting domestic violence. Does that term cover a misdemeanor battery whenever the battered victim was in fact the offender’s spouse (or other relation specified in §921(a)(33)(A))? Or, to trigger the possession ban, must the predicate misdemeanor identify as an element of the crime a domestic relationship between aggressor and victim? We hold that the domestic relationship, although it must be established beyond a reasonable doubt in a §922(g)(9) firearms possession prosecution, need not be a defining element of the predicate offense. The definition of “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,” contained in §921(a)(33)(A), is at issue in this case. In 1996, Congress extended the prohibition to include persons convicted of “a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.” §922(g)(9). §921 et seq., has long prohibited possession of a firearm by any person convicted of a felony. Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court.* *ġ8 U.
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