Rogers v. United States
Supreme Court of the United States · No. 19-498 · 140 S. Ct. 530
⚖️Procedural — no merits ruling
writ dismissed as improvidently granted without deciding the question presented
GunMapUSA assessment of the outcome's direction, not a statement that the court decided rightly or wrongly.
What the court held
Rogers was convicted of possessing an unregistered and unserialized silencer under 26 U.S.C. § 5861, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether a failure to instruct the jury on an element of an offense is harmless error where the defendant admitted that element at trial. A plurality read the trial court's instructions as having in fact required the jury to find that Rogers knew the device had the characteristics of a silencer, so the question was not fairly presented, and the Court dismissed the writ as improvidently granted. Justice O'Connor concurred in the result and Justice Kennedy dissented from the dismissal.
Summarized from the court's opinion.
What this case is about
whether conviction for possessing an unregistered silencer under 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d) requires proof the defendant knew the object was a silencer
GunMapUSA summary of the issue, not a quotation from the court.
Key Dates
- 2019-11-18 — Decided
Sources
- CourtListener — retrieved 2026-08-08
Summary of public court records. Not legal advice.