Whether a district court satisfies Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(b)(1)(G)'s requirement to inform a defendant of the nature of the charges by merely allowing the defendant to review the indictment before a plea hearing, or whether the court must personally interrogate the defendant during the Rule 11 colloquy to ensure understanding of the elements the government must prove, particularly when the law governing those elements changes after indictment but before sentencing

No question identified. : APPLICATION FOR AN EXTENSION OF TIME Pursuant to Rule 13.5 of the Rules of this Court, Applicant Jong Whan Kim respectfully requests a 30-day extension of time within which to file a petition for a writ of certiorari, up to and including Wednesday, October 18, 2023. The Fourth Circuit entered its judgment on June 20, 2023. Unless extended, the time for filing a petition for a writ of certiorari will expire on September 18, 2023. JUDGMENT FOR WHICH REVIEW IS SOUGHT The judgment for which review is sought is United States v. Kim, 71 F.4th 155 (4th Cir. 2023) (attached as Exhibit 1). JURISDICTION This Court will have jurisdiction over any timely filed petition for a writ of certiorariin this case pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1). Under Rules 13.1, 13.3, and 30.1 of the Rules of this Court, a petition for a writ of certiorari is due on or before September 18, 2023. In accordance with Rule 13.5, this application is filed at least 10 days in advance of the filing date for the petition. REASONS JUSTIFYING AN EXTENSION OF TIME 1. This case concerns the federal district courts’ compliance with the requirement in Rule 11(b)(1)(G) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that, during a plea hearing, before a district court accepts a plea of guilty, it must first “inform the defendant of, and determine that the defendant understands .. . the nature of each charge to which the defendant is pleading.” 2. As this Court explained in McCarthy v. United States, the purpose of Rule 11 is to “expose” the defendant’s state of mind on the record through personal interrogation,” to facilitate the court’s “own determination of the guilty plea’s voluntariness” and to “facilitate that determination in any subsequent postconviction proceeding based upon a claim that the plea was involuntary. 394 U.S. 459, 467 (1969). 3. The applicant, Jong Whan Kim, is a 76 year old immigrant from South Korea who attended medical school in the United States when he was in his forties. See Op. 3. In December 2018, Mr. Kim was indicted for issuing several prescriptions for opioid medications to a confidential informant, from October 2017 to June 2018, that were outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Op. 6. In December 2021—-after his retained trial counsel had prepared the case for trial, including disclosing an expert witness who would testify in Mr. Kim’s defense, and a first change-of-plea hearing at which Mr. Kim expressed reservations about whether he had the mens rea required to convict him—-Mr. Kim pleaded guilty to six violations of section 841(a)(1) and a related conspiracy count. See Op. 6-8. A. At the time Mr. Kim was indicted, and at the time he entered his pleas, Fourth Circuit law did not require the government to prove that Mr. Kim knowingly and intentionally acted outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose. See United States v. Hurwitz, 459 F.3d 4638, 475 (4th Cir. 2006) (isting the elements the government had to prove to convict a doctor for a violation of section 841). 5. The second superseding indictment charged, in the conjunctive, that Mr. Kim was “acting and intending to act” outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose.” Op. 11; see Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 420 (1970) (discussing the general rule that, “when a jury returns a guilty verdict on an indictment charging several acts in the conjunctive ... the verdict stands if the evidence is sufficient with respect to any one of the acts charged”). The plea agreement, however, did not include this allegation when listing the elements of the offenses to which Mr. Kim was pleading guilty. Nor was this allegation discussed by the district court during the Rule 11 colloquy at either of Mr. Kim’s change-of-plea hearings. During his sentencing allocution, Mr. Kim maintained that he di