Whether federal courts have jurisdiction over a criminal matter when the charging document omits an essential mens rea element of the offense

Questions Presented for Review 1. Circuit courts are split on whether federal courts have jurisdiction over a criminal matter when the charging document omits an essential mens rea element of the offense. The indictment charging Espinoza with unlawful firearm possession under 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2) failed to allege the requisite element that Espinoza necessarily knew of his relevant status as a person prohibited from possessing a firearm at the time of possession. By omitting the essential mens rea element of the offense, did the indictment fail to allege any federal offense at all, thereby depriving the federal courts of jurisdiction? 2. The indictment’s omission of the essential mens rea element deprived Espinoza of his Fifth Amendment right to indictment by grand jury and his Sixth Amendment right to notice of the charge against him. Did the Ninth Circuit run afoul of this Court’s precedent by erroneously deeming these fundamental deprivations as non-jurisdictional and antecedent constitutional defects, thereby finding Espinoza’s guilty plea waived any challenge to the violations? 3. Circuit courts are split on whether a defendant’s guilty plea to unlawful firearm possession under 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2), made without knowledge or notice of the essential mens rea element, constitutes structural error. Espinoza pleaded guilty to the single-count defective indictment without an understanding or notice of the government’s obligation to prove the uncharged mens rea element. The district court’s failure to inform him of the missing element resulted in a constitutionally invalid guilty plea, made involuntarily and unintelligently. Did the Ninth Circuit erroneously fail to analyze this fundamental flaw as structural error, which warranted automatic relief? i