The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in two cases involving one of its own precedents regarding felony firearms possession.

The issues in both cases involves the federal law that prohibits felons from possessing firearms, 18 USC §922(g). Two years ago in Rehaif v. United States the Court held that in order to convict someone under the statute, the government must prove both that a defendant knew he possessed a firearm and that he knew he belonged to a category of persons prohibited from possessing firearms.

Gregory Greer was convicted in the first case under §922(g) and sentenced to prison, but after the Rehaif decision, he appealed that conviction. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals looked at the whole record, including evidence that was not presented at trial, and decided that, despite the plain error that the jury was not instructed that the government needed to prove Greer’s knowledge of his felon status to obtain the conviction, it would not have made any difference.

The justices pushed Solicitor General Benjamin Snyder on what kinds of evidence an appellate court can use, and how far outside the trial court record they can go. Snyder asserted that an appellate court can “always look outside the trial record,” but did admit that it could only look to evidence that would ordinarily be admissible .

The second case involved Michael Gary, who pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. However, after Rehaif the Fourth Circuit held that the government had committed a structural error when it failed to inform Gary that they were obliged to prove that Gary knew he was a felon at the time of the offense, and vacated his conviction; the government appealed.

Jeffrey Fisher, Mr. Gary’s lawyer, argued that his client’s autonomy was violated when the government neglected to tell him an entire element of the case they would have to prove when Gary entered into the plea agreement. “Failing to advise a defendant of the complete charge against him necessarily deprives him of the ability to make that grave choice knowingly and intelligently,” Fisher told the Court.

Decisions in both cases should come this summer.