The question presented here is the same as the first question presented in the petition in Hunter v. United States, No. 24-1063, which this Court granted for plenary review on October 10, 2025. In Hunter, the petitioner identified the decision of the Fifth Circuit below as evidencing one side of the circuit split that his petition sought to resolve. See Reply Br. in Hunter v. United States, No. 24-1063, at 3, 4 n.2, 5.

The question presented is:

Whether the only permissible exceptions to a general appeal waiver are for claims of ineffective assistance of counsel or that the sentence exceeds the statutory maximum.

Whether federal courts may apply the judge-made “honest belief’ doctrine to grant summary judgment in Title VII cases when: (1) this Court’s unanimous decisions in Desert Palace, Inc. v. Costa, 539 U.S. 90 (2003), and Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, 605 U.S. 803 (2025), require that circumstantial evidence of discrimination reach juries and reject atextual judicial frameworks that distort Title VII’s statutory text; (2) the federal circuits are irreconcilably split, with the Third and D.C. Circuits rejecting the doctrine as violative of jury trial rights while the Sixth and Seventh Circuits apply it broadly to dismiss cases with substantial circumstantial evidence, while the First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth Circuits recognize it in varying degrees, and while still the Ninth Circuit has left it unadopted; and (8) the doctrine operates as a “tautological trap” that automatically credits employer assertions of belief without allowing juries to evaluate credibility, directly contravening Rule 56’s requirement that reasonable inferences favor the non-movant and the U.S. Constitution’s Seventh Amendment provision of the jury-trial right.

“Since before the founding of our Republic, courts have universally met the need to educate jurors by orally advising jurors ‘in the presence of the parties, the counsel, and all others .. . in matters of law arising upon thle] evidence.” United States v. Becerra, 939 F.3d 995, 1000 (9th Cir. 2019) (quoting 3 William Blacksone, Commentaries *375).

In this case, the trial court orally instructed the jury, but that instruction contained mistaken references to conspiratorial liability in a non-conspiracy count.

The parties noticed the error after the judge finished the jury charge. However, instead of returning the jury to open court to reinstruct it on that count, the parties simply agreed to correct a written copy of instructions which was provided to the jury. The jury was never informed of the difference between the judge’s oral instructions and the written copy of the instructions it received. On plain error review, the Fourth Circuit determined the district court’s instructions were “stray misstatements.” For this and other reasons, the appellate court affirmed Mr. Jacome’s conviction on that count because he did not establish a reasonable probability of a different outcome.

This type of error—and its various iterations—is subject to harmless-error review in several circuit courts. However, in the Ninth Circuit, not instructing a criminal jury in open court is treated as structural error, which is “not subject to harmless-error review.” McCoy v. Louisiana, 584 U.S. 414, 427 (2018).

The question presented in this matter 1s

I. Does a district court’s failure to instruct a jury 1n open court result in

structural error, automatically producing a violation of a defendant’s 1

This case is a repeat of Glossip v. Oklahoma, 604 U.S. 226 (2025). Like Glosszp, this case involves a 2004 capital- murder prosecution in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma. Like Glossip, this case involves the failure of prosecutors from the same Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office to correct knowingly false testimony by cooperating witnesses about the extent of the benefits that the prosecutors had extended in exchange for their testimony against Mr. Wood. These witnesses identified Mr. Wood as a participant in the robbery during which one of two robbery victims was fatally stabbed in a struggle with two masked assailants. Their testimony also came in during the state’s case at the penalty phase.

Like Glossip, this case involves a decades-long effort by Oklahoma County prosecutors to keep their rewards to cooperating witnesses hidden from prisoners whom the state seeks to execute. In September 2024, Mr. Wood discovered evidence in the prosecutors’ file that led him to suspect that evidence of additional benefits extended to the cooperating witnesses had been hidden from him. Two weeks after this Court decided Glossip, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) ordered an evidentiary hearing on Mr. Wood’s alleged violations of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959).

Testifying at this hearing, one of the trial prosecutors admitted that he knowingly failed to correct testimony from one cooperating witness, Brandy Warden. This agreement required favorable treatment for Ms. Warden

I. Did Trial Counsel Render Ineffective Assistance by Failing to present Evidence About the Psychological and Physical Effects of Methamphetamine and Alcohol, Giese’s Good Character, and Giese’s Efforts to Relocate?

Il. Did the Trial Court Deny Giese Due Process and a Fair Trial by Admitting his Un-Mirandized and Involuntary Statements?

III. Did the Prosecutor Fail to Prove First Degree Premeditated Murder Beyond a Reasonable Doubt?

IV. Did the Trial Court Violate Giese’s Constitutional Rights to a Fair Trial and Due Process by Excluding Evidence of Vallivero’s Drug Use?

V. Did the Mutual Combat Instruction Violate Giese’s Constitutional Rights to a Reliable Jury Determination of his Guilt?

VI. Did the Prosecutor’s Prejudicial Misconduct During Closing Argument Deprive Giese of Due Process and a Fair Trial?

VII. Do the Cumulative Errors Require Reversal?

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