MIAMI, FL – The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has affirmed the conviction of Adam Marc Twinley, a British citizen who was found guilty of possession of a firearm by an alien unlawfully in the United States.
Twinley was convicted in the Southern District of Florida under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5)(A), case number 2:24-cr-14012-AMC-1. The case was appealed under Eleventh Circuit case number 25-11774.
Court records show that Twinley entered the country on a P-1 nonimmigrant visa in 2013 and overstayed. Although his wife’s I-130 petition was approved in 2020, he never filed an I-485 adjustment application. In 2023, while awaiting a removal hearing, Twinley used his friend’s firearms at a shooting range and was later charged.
At trial, Twinley argued that he mistakenly believed he had legal status and requested a jury instruction supporting a mistaken-status defense. The district court declined, instead instructing jurors that knowledge of unlawful status—not knowledge that firearm possession was illegal—was the legal standard. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed that decision, ruling the instructions were proper under Rehaif v. United States and that the court did not abuse its discretion.
Twinley was sentenced to two months in prison after being acquitted on a related charge involving possession of a firearm while on a nonimmigrant visa.
