Whether a contingent conspiracy may be based on a condition outside the conspirators' control that they subjectively believed was likely to occur, even if the condition was not just unlikely but highly unlikely to ever occur?

QUESTIONS PRESENTED The decisions below sustained against a sufficiency challenge Petitioner’s conviction under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1117 & 1114 for conspiring to murder federal officers or employees, even though, under the operative government theory, the alleged conspirators did not contemplate killing anyone unless “Stalinesque” martial law, consisting of mass arrests and purges of citizens, were imposed in the United States, and the conspirators could specifically identify the individuals (whether state or federal employees) carrying out those arrests or purges. AER 266-68. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, holding that there was sufficient evidence where the conspirators’ plans were contingent upon “certain conditions that they subjectively thought were likely to occur.” Pet. App. 3a. This petition presents the following questions regarding the breadth of conspiracy liability and federal jurisdiction: 1. Whether a contingent conspiracy may be based on a condition outside the conspirators’ control that they subjectively believed was likely to occur, even if the condition was not just unlikely but highly unlikely to ever occur? 2. Whether federal jurisdiction exists for a conspiracy to murder federal employees where “the object of the intended attack [was] not identified with sufficient specificity so as to give rise to the conclusion that had the attack been carried out the victim would have been a federal [employee],” thereby falling short of the jurisdictional test articulated in Feola v. United States, 420 U.S. 671, 695-96 (1975)? i