Section 502(a)(2) of the Employee Retirement In- come Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) allows a plan participant to bring an action “for appropriate relief’ under ERISA § 409. 29 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2). Section 409, in turn, provides that a plan fiduciary who breaches a duty is “liable to make good to such plan any losses” resulting from that breach. Id. § 1109(a).

In Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Russell, 473 U.S. 184, 144 (1985), the Court held, in the context of defined-benefit plans (which promise fixed income), that “recovery for a violation of § 409” goes to “the plan as a whole,” so § 502(a)(2) authorizes relief only “for the plan itself.” In LaRue v. DeWolff, Boberg & Associates, Inc., 552 U.S. 248, 256 (2008), the Court held, in the context of defined-contribution plans (which promise the value of individual accounts, which may fluctuate), that § 502(a)(2) authorizes “re- covery for fiduciary breaches that impair the value of plan assets in a participant’s individual account.”

since LaRue, the courts of appeals have split on the scope of “appropriate relief” for defined-contribu- tion-plan-participant plaintiffs. In the Fourth Circuit, those plaintiffs can seek monetary recovery to only their “individual retirement account[s].” Trauernicht v. Genworth Financial Inc., 169. F.4th 459, 468-69 (4th Cir. 2026) (Niemeyer, J.). But seven circuits, 1n- cluding the Ninth Circuit here, hold that § 502(a)(2) doesn’t “limit” plaintiffs “to recovering losses suffered only by their individual accounts.” App. 21a.

The question presented is whether “appropriate relief’ for a defined-contribution-plan participant un- der ERISA § 502(a)(2) includes monetary recovery to other participants’ individual retirement accounts.

This case presents the question whether a federal court may continue to rely on a record generated by a court-appointed officer in a pending criminal prosecu- tion while declining to determine whether the officer committed fraud on the court in creating that record.

1. Whether allegations that a court-appointed of- ficer committed fraud on the court by submitting false materials to a federal court present a judicial question that must be adjudicated by the court under its inher- ent authority to protect the integrity of judicial pro- ceedings, rather than deferred to the ultimate fact- finder as an ordinary evidentiary dispute.

2. Whether postconviction review constitutes an adequate alternative remedy where the alleged fraud was committed by a deceased court-appointed officer and no later proceeding can reliably reconstruct the provenance, authenticity, alteration, transmission, or judicial use of the challenged materials.

18 U.S.C. § 922(¢)(1) makes it a crime for any person “who has been [previously] convicted in any court of[] a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year’ to “possess … any firearm or ammunition.”

Petitioner’s sole predicate felony 1s a 2015 state conviction for marijuana cultivation—a non-violent offense involving a substance that the federal government has since rescheduled and many States have legalized. The Tenth Circuit nevertheless affirmed his § 922(g)(1) convictions over his Second Amendment challenge because circuit precedent categorically foreclosed any as-applied challenge, regardless of the predicate offense.

The question presented, on which there is an acknowledged and entrenched 6-3 circuit split, is:

Whether an individual whose sole predicate felony is a non-violent offense may bring an as- applied Second Amendment challenge to § 922(g)(1)’s permanent dispossession of the right to keep and bear arms.

Mario Tzunuz-Zacarias’ trial came down to whether intercourse with the alleged victim, who did not testify, was consensual, as it had allegedly been for years. Mario was neither allowed to introduce evidence of consent nor to cross-examine the officer who translated a non-contemporaneous text exchange used against him. Over the past 22 years, the Court has decided at least 11 cases to clarify, or otherwise apply, Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), as Justice Rehnquist noted, in dissent, would be necessary. [d. at 75. None of those cases addressed if the Confrontation Clause applies where an interpreter translates a _ statement. Resultingly, there 1s “an ongoing split of authority among the federal circuit courts [and among the state courts] regarding the continuing validity of the language- conduit theory for the purpose of Confrontation Clause analysis in the wake of Crawford.” Tzunux-Zacarias v. Commonwealth, 2025 WL 2999465 (Ky.). Weighing in by a 4-8 vote, while noting “the absence of definitive guidance by the Supreme Court,” id. at *20 n.7 (Ky.) (Nickell, J., concurring in result only), Kentucky joined the Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Circuits, Arkansas and Minnesota, holding the Confrontation Clause does not apply. The Eleventh Circuit and Armed Forces Court of Appeals, Kansas, Maryland, and Nebraska have reached the opposite conclusion. Without the Court’s intervention, how the Confrontation Clause is applied, and whether evidence that could make the difference between being acquitted or convicted is introduced, will continue to turn entirely on the state or federal jurisdiction in which the alleged criminal conduct occurred since the courts remain hopelessly split on the matter. That leaves prosecutors, defense attorneys, and trial courts with practical uncertainty on whether the language-conduit theory survives Crawford in general, and specifically where a translator is used to translate a non- contemporaneous statement or where the translator was a police officer, both of which occurred here. “[T]he thousands of federal prosecutors and the tens of thousands of state prosecutors need answers… .They need them now, not months or years from now.” Crawford, 541 U.S. at 75 (Rehnquist, C.J., dissenting). And this case provides an ideal vehicle through which to give them those answers and to thus put the issue to rest one way or the other. No procedural impediments to review exist, and the state court directly addressed the Confrontation Clause issue, splitting 4-3 on the issue, with three concurring justices noting the split and implicitly urging the Court to provide guidance The question presented is:

Under Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), does the Confrontation

Clause apply to an interpreter’s translation of a written or oral statement;

alternatively, does the Confrontation Clause apply to non-contemporaneously

made translations?

The questions presented are:

(1) Whether a litigant can meet the Hunter miscarriage-of- justice standard when the sentence imposed would fail the standard of review announced in Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38 (2007).

(2) Whether courts may invalidate prospective waivers of effective assistance at sentencing hearings when enforcing the waiver would raise serious questions about the fairness and integrity of the sentencing hearing.

I

1. Does the Sixth Amendment right to a properly instructed jury and the right to Due Process under the Fifth Amendment include the right to have the jury instructed on the prohibition against using electronic media to investigate the case when every jurisdiction in the United States, state and federal, requires this instruction?

2. Does the failure to properly instruct the jury as outlined above, coupled with the trial court’s refusal to allow jury interviews about the effect of that failure to instruct the jury, obviate the need to satisfy the prejudice requirement under Strickland when such a regime makes an inquiry impossible?

3. Does the failure to object to a prohibited instruction regarding a prior jurys recommendation of death likewise require a finding of ineffective assistance of counsel when no inquiry on the effect of the instruction on the jury (the prejudice component of Strickland) is permitted?

1

Petitioner is an Indian who was convicted by the State of Oklahoma for a crime that was committed on land that is within the Citizen Potawatomi Nation (“CPN”) Reservation, is part of an original CPN/Absentee Shawnee Allotment, and/or is a dependent Indian community. Before, during, and after his conviction, Petitioner has maintained the State of Oklahoma lacked jurisdiction over him and_ presented evidence the CPN Reservation was not disestablished and deeds proving the land is an Indian Allotment. At each stage, the courts have disagreed but for different reasons. The questions presented are:

1. Did Congress disestablish the CPN Reservation through the Act of March 3, 1891?

2. Were the restrictions on the Indian Allotment on which the alleged crimes were committed ever extinguished?

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