Rehaif claim cannot be brought in second or successive § 2255 motion because the decision involved statutory interpretation and did not render a “constitutional” rule as required by AEDPA’s gatekeeping provision.

In Mata v. United States, 2d Cir. No. 20-1875, a panel of the Court (Park, Nardini, and Menashi) held in a per curiam opinion that federal prisoners cannot rely on the Supreme Court’s decision in Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct 2191 (2019), to challenge their underlying conviction or sentence in a second or successive § 2255 motion. This is so because while § 2255(h)(2) requires that a successive motion be based on (among other things) “a new rule of constitutional law,” Rehaif’s holding – that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) requires proof that the defendant knew that s/he fell within a relevant class barred from possessing a gun – was a matter of statutory interpretation and not based on the Constitution.