Whether a defendant's general appeal waiver in a plea agreement can preclude challenges to a conviction based on an unconstitutionally vague statutory definition of a predicate offense

No question identified. : APPLICATION FOR EXTENSION OF TIME TO FILE A PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI To: Justice Samuel A. Alito, Circuit Justice for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit: Under this Court’s Rules 13.5 and 22, Applicant Cedric Ray Jones requests an additional sixty days to file his petition for a writ of certiorari. The petition will challenge the precedential decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Jones, 134 F.4th 831, 834 (5th Cir. 2025), a copy of which is attached. In support of this application, Jones provides the following information: 1. The Fifth Circuit issued its decision and judgment on April 21, 2025. App. 1. Jones’s timely filed petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc was denied on July 29, 2025. App. 27. Unless extended, the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari will expire on October 27, 2025. With the requested extension of sixty days, the petition would be due on December 26, 2025. This Court’s jurisdiction will be based on 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1). 2. This case is a serious candidate for review. It involves the scope of “what particular exceptions [to appeal waivers] may be required.” Garza v. Idaho, 586 U.S. 232, 238-39 & n.6 (2019). The Court granted a petition for a writ of certiorari presenting that question on October 10, 2025, in Hunter v. United States, No. 24-1063. 8. In 2015, a grand jury charged Jones in an eight-count federal indictment. App. 2. Count 1 of the indictment charged conspiracy to interfere 1 with commerce by robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C § 1951(a) (Hobbs Act robbery). CA5 ROA.215. Count 2 charged Jones with using, carrying, and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)Gi). App. 1-2. Section 924(c)’s residual clause defines the predicate “crime of violence” as a felony “that by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense.” 18 U.S.C § 924(c)(3)(B). In indicting Jones, the Government used conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery (Count 1) as the predicate crime of violence for Count 2, CA5 ROA.222, relying on Section 924(c)’s residual clause, App. 1. Jones pleaded guilty to six of the eight counts, including Counts 1 and 2. App. 2. The plea agreement included an appeal waiver that stated: Jones waives his rights, conferred by 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742, to appeal from his convictions and sentences. He further waives his right to contest his convictions and sentences in any collateral proceeding, including proceedings under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Jones, however, reserves the rights (a) to bring a direct appeal of (i) a sentence exceeding the statutory maximum punishment, or (ii) an arithmetic error at sentencing (b) to challenge the voluntariness of his pleas of guilty or this waiver, and (c) to bring a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. App. 3. Following a sentencing hearing, Jones was sentenced to 573 months’ imprisonment as follows: 189 months for each of Counts 1, 3, 5, and 7 to run concurrently, 84 months on Count 2 to run consecutively, and 300 months on Count 8 to run consecutively. CA5 ROA.141. 4, In 2018, acting under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, Jones sought vacatur in the district court of his Count 2 Section 924(c) conviction following the Fifth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Davis, 903 F.3d 483 (5th Cir. 2018) (per curiam), affd in part, vacated in part on other grounds, 588 U.S. 445 (2019). App. 2-3. Davis first held that a conspiracy charge, like the one that served as the predicate offense for Jones’s Section 924(c) conviction, could qualify as a crime of violence under only the residual clause. 903 F.3d at 485. It then held that Section 924(c)’s residual-clause definition of a crime of violence is unconstitutionally vague. Jd. at 486. This Court thereafter affirmed the Fifth Circuit