Petition for Writ of Certiorari — Jacob Joshad Robinson, Petitioner v. United States

NO. _________

In the Supreme Court of the United States

________________

JACOB JOSHAD ROBINSON,

Petitioner,

v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Respondent.

________________

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE

FIFTH CIRCUIT

________________

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

________________

Quincy H. Ferrill

Counsel of Record

FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER’S OFFICE

819 Taylor Street

Room 9a10

Fort Worth, Texas 76102

(817) 978-2753

September 22, 2025

i

QUESTION PRESENTED

In November of 2023, Arlington Police responded

to a call at a barber shop in Arlington, Texas. At the

barber shop, they found Jacob Joshad Robinson with

a gunshot wound to his leg and a pistol on the

bathroom floor. Robinson previously had the pistol in

his waistband. Robinson was on probation at the time

for possession of marijuana of 5 pounds or less, a state

offense for which he was placed on five years of

deferred adjudication probation. Robinson was

charged with 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(1)’s prohibition on

possession of firearm by a felon. When Mr. Robinson

attempted to challenge 922(g) as applied to his prior

felony convictions, the Fifth Circuit declined to

analyze whether those offenses could justify a

permanent deprivation of Second Amendment rights.

Instead, it held that Robinson could be disarmed

constituent with historical tradition because he was

on probation – which is not the basis for his §922(g)(1)

conviction, or the 37-month sentence he has been

ordered to serve.

The question presented is:

Whether courts should analyze as-applied Second

Amendment challenges to 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(1) by

examining whether historical tradition supports

permanently disarming someone for the predicate

offense(s) underlying the defendant’s conviction.

ii

DIRECTLY RELATED PROCEEDINGS

United States v. Robinson, No. 4:24-CR-114-1 (N.D.

Tex. Sept. 27, 2024)

United States v. Robinson, No. 24-10912 (5th Cir. June

24, 2025)

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Question Presented ..................................................... i

Directly Related Proceedings ..................................... ii

Table of Authorities .................................................... v

Opinions Below ........................................................... 1

Jurisdiction ................................................................. 1

Constitutional and Statutory Provisions Involved ... 2

Statement ................................................................... 2

Reasons for Granting the Petition ............................. 6

I.

The Decision Below Defies This Court’s

Precedents And Deepens A Circuit Split. ........... 7

A. The decision below is wrong......................... 7

B. Courts of Appeals have fractured over

how to address as-applied challenges to

§922(g)(1). ................................................... 12

II. The Question Presented Is Exceptionally

Important, And This Case Is An Effective

Vehicle For This Court To Address It............... 13

Conclusion................................................................. 15

iv

PETITION APPENDIX

Opinion, United States v. Robinson No. 24-10912

(5th Cir. June 24, 2025) ......................................... 1a

Judgment of Conviction and Sentence, United

States v. Robinson, No. 4:24-CR-00114-O (N.D.

Tex. Sept. 27, 2024) ................................................ 3a

v

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Page(s)

Federal Cases

City of Los Angeles v. Patel,

576 U.S. 409 (2015) ........................................... 10

District of Columbia v. Heller,

554 U.S. 570 (2008) ......................................... 2, 3

Garland v. Range,

No. 23-374 (U.S. Oct. 5, 2023) .......................... 14

McDonald v. City of Chicago,

561 U.S. 742 (2010) ........................................... 10

N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc., v.

Bruen,

597 U.S. 1 (2022) ....................................... 3, 9, 11

Pitsilides v. Barr,

128 F.4th 203 (3d Cir. 2025) ............................. 11

Rambo v. United States,

2025 WL 581574 (U.S. Feb. 24, 2025) .............. 12

Tate v. Short,

401 U.S. 395 (1971) ............................................. 8

TikTok v. Garland,

145 S.Ct. 57 (2025) ............................................ 10

United States v. Contreras,

125 F.4th 725 (5th Cir. 2025) ............................... 6

vi

United States v. Duarte,

No. 22-50048 (9th Cir. May 14, 2024) .............. 13

United States v. Eichman,

496 U.S. 310 (1990) ............................................. 8

United States v. Giglio,

126 F.4th 1039 (5th Cir. 2025) ........................... 6

United States v. Grace,

461 U.S. 171 (1983) ............................................. 8

United States v. Price,

111 F.4th 392 (4th Cir. 2024) ............................ 9

United States v. Rahimi,

602 U.S. 680 (2024) ............... 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12

United States v. Raines,

362 U.S. 17 (1960) ............................................... 9

Whitaker v. United States,

2025 WL 581590 (U.S. Feb. 24, 2025) .............. 12

Williams v. Illinois,

399 U.S. 235 (1970) ......................................... 7, 8

State Cases

People v. Burns,

79 N.E.3d 159 (Ill. 2015) ..................................... 8

Federal Statutes

18 U.S.C. § 922(g) ................................................... 13

vii

18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) ............. 2, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14

18 U.S.C. §922(g)(8) ................................................ 10

18 U.S.C. §922(g)(8)(C)(i) ......................................... 4

18 U.S.C. §922(k) ...................................................... 9

18 U.S.C. § 3583(b)(1) ............................................. 12

28 U.S.C. § 1254(1) ................................................... 1

Rules

S. Ct. R. 13.3 ............................................................. 1

S. Ct. R. 30.1 ............................................................. 1

Constitutional Provisions

First Amendment ............................................... 8, 10

Second Amendment ...... 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14

Other Authorities

Sarah K.S. Shannon, et al., The Growth,

Scope, and Spatial Distribution of People

with Felony Records in the United States,

1948-2010, 54 Demography 1795, 1806

(2018), available at

https://tinyurl.com/mz36x3uh ........................... 14

U.S. Sent. Comm’n, Quick Facts: 18 U.S.C.

§922(g) Firearms Offenses (June 2024),

https://tinyurl.com/nheeuyuz ............................ 13

In the Supreme Court of the United States

_________________________

No. ______

JACOB JOSHAD ROBINSON

v.

Petitioner,

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

_________________________

Respondent

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

_________________________

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

__________________________________

Jacob Joshad Robinson respectfully petitions for a

writ of certiorari to review the judgment of the United

States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

OPINIONS BELOW

The opinion below was not selected for publication.

It can be found at 2025 WL 1743512. The decision is

reprinted at pages 1a–2a of the Appendix. The district

court did not issue any written opinions, but its

judgment is reprinted at pages 3a–5a of the Appendix.

JURISDICTION

The Fifth Circuit entered its judgment on June 24,

2025. This petition is timely under S. Ct. R. 13.3 and

30.1. This Court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.

§ 1254(1).

2

CONSTITUTIONAL AND STATUTORY

PROVISIONS INVOLVED

Section 922(g)(1) of Title 18 reads in relevant part:

(g) It shall be unlawful for any person—

(1) who has been convicted in any

court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year

***

to ship or transport in interstate or

foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.

The Second Amendment provides:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the

right of the people to keep and bear

Arms, shall not be infringed.

STATEMENT

In its seminal decision in District of Columbia v.

Heller, this Court held that there is “no doubt … that

the Second Amendment confer[s] an individual right

to keep and bear arms.” 554 U.S. 570, 595 (2008).

While the Court acknowledged that the right is not

“unlimited,” it looked to historical restrictions on

3

firearm possession to inform its analysis of the

constitutionality of the law at hand. Id. at 626-27, 63134. But the Court left a full-throated exposition of that

historical analysis for another day.

Over the next decade, lower courts “coalesced

around a ‘two-step’ framework for analyzing Second

Amendment challenges that combines history with

means-end scrutiny.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 17. But this

Court ultimately rejected that approach in Bruen,

explaining that a “judge-empowering ‘interest

balancing inquiry’” would not sufficiently safeguard

individuals’ constitutional rights. Id. at 22. After all,

as Heller made clear, “[a] constitutional guarantee

subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness

is no constitutional guarantee at all.” Id. at 23

(quoting Heller, 554 U.S. at 634). So the Court laid out

a more robust constitutional framework steeped in

“the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm

regulation.” Id. at 24. Under that approach, if the

regulated conduct is covered by the text of the Second

Amendment, then it is presumptively protected, and

the burden shifts to the government to justify its

regulation. Id. To do so, the government must identify

historical firearm restrictions that are analogous to

the modern challenged regulation in their “how and

why”—i.e., the “modern and historical regulations”

must “impose a comparable burden on the right of

armed self-defense” that “is comparably justified.” Id.

at 29.

Last year, this Court provided additional guidance

on how to implement Bruen’s methodology in United

States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024). Rahimi

reiterated that “the appropriate analysis involved

4

considering whether the challenged regulation is

consistent with the principles that underpin our

regulatory tradition” as evidenced by the

government’s proffered historical analogues. Id. at

692. This Court clarified that those analogues “need

not be a ‘dead ringer’ or a historical twin’” for the

challenged regulation. Id. But it reiterated that “[w]hy

and how the [challenged] regulation burdens the right

are central” to the Second Amendment inquiry. Id. In

other words, the focus remains on whether the

challenged regulation “impose[es] similar restrictions

for similar reasons.” Id. Applying that framework, this

Court held that §922(g)(8)(C)(i) is constitutionally

sound, as it is grounded in a historical tradition of

temporarily disarming individuals who have been

found to pose “a credible threat of danger to the

physical safety of another.” Id. at 702.

In short, as exemplified in Rahimi, Bruen tasks

courts with conducting a categorical comparison of the

mechanics of the challenged provision and the

government’s historical analogues to assess whether

the challenged law passes constitutional muster.

Factual Background

In 2019, Mr. Robinson was stopped for expired

financial responsibility. During the stop, he fled the

scene on foot. During the pursuit, he threw a bag over

a fence in an adjacent apartment complex. He was

apprehended and detained. During a search of his

person, officers recovered a clear baggie contained 3.1

grams of ecstasy. He pled guilty to possession of a

controlled substance and was sentenced to 120 days

imprisonment.

5

In 2022, officers were conducting surveillance and

Mr. Robinson was observed in his vehicle and was

stopped for a traffic violation. During questioning,

officers detected a strong odor of marijuana emitting

from the vehicle and observed marijuana residue in

the center console and cup holders. Mr. Robinson was

detained and a probable cause search of the vehicle

was conducted. Officers located 15.65 ounces of

marijuana. He pled guilty to possession of marijuana

of 5 pounds or less, but more than 4 ounces, and was

placed on 5 years of deferred adjudication probation.

He was on this probation term when arrested for the

instant offense.

On November 3, 2023, a police officer responded to

a call at a barber shop in Arlington, Texas, where they

found Mr. Robinson in the bathroom with a gunshot

wound to his leg and a pistol on the bathroom floor.

Mr. Robinson admitted that he previously had the

Taurus pistol in his waistband.

Mr. Robinson was charged with a violation of

§922(g)(1) for having possessed the firearm as a

convicted felon. The indictment was predicated on

drug possession offenses. Mr. Robinson tried twice to

dismiss the §922(g)(1) charge, at the district court and

the Fifth Circuit, arguing that 922(g)(1) is

unconstitutional as applied to individuals who

committed only non-violent prior felonies under

binding Fifth Circuit precedent. Mr. Robinson also

argued that the case should be returned to decide in

the first instance whether the government could show

a historical tradition of disarming individuals with

convictions like Mr. Robinson’s. The district court

denied this motion. The Fifth Circuit issued summary

6

affirmance based on United States v. Contreras, 125

F.4th 725, 729 (5th Cir. 2025), along with other cases.

App. A. See United States v. Giglio, 126 F.4th 1039,

1044 (5th Cir. 2025) (holding that “the government

may disarm those who continue to serve sentences for

felony convictions” on probation or supervised

release).

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION

The decision below is wrong. There is no other

context in which the government may defend a

conviction

under

a

law

that

criminalizes

constitutionally protected behavior by arguing that it

could validly deprive the defendant of his

constitutional rights for some other reason entirely.

And certainly nothing in Heller, Bruen, or Rahimi

suggests that, when a defendant argues that his

conviction violates the Second Amendment, the

inquiry turns on whether there is any reason that

someone in similar shoes could be punished for

possessing a firearm consistent with historical

tradition. To the contrary, both this Court’s cases and

bedrock principles make plain that the government

must defend the challenged law itself. Yet the Fifth

Circuit failed to hold the government to that burden

here.

This case is no isolated incident. Multiple courts of

appeals have made the category mistake of letting the

government avoid defendant §922(g)(1) convictions on

their own terms by pointing to the fact that the

defendant was on supervised release at the time of the

lawful possession.

7

In short, although most circuits have addressed asapplied challenges to §922(g)(1), they have splintered

on the basic question of how to analyze them. That

disarray readily warrants this Court’s attention. The

Court could simply resolve the analytical dispute over

how to evaluate as-applied Second Amendment

challenges in the first instance that has fractured the

lower courts and then remand for the Fifth Circuit to

consider Mr. Robinson’s appeal under the proper

framework. But in all events, whether through

plenary review or summary reversal, the Court should

not let the decision below stand, as Robinson is, at

least, entitled to a resolution of the constitutional

question he raised – whether the government can send

him to prison because he possessed a firearm following

a conviction for drug possession.

I.

THE DECISION BELOW DEFIES THIS COURT’S

PRECEDENTS AND DEEPENS A CIRCUIT SPLIT.

A. The decision below is wrong.

There is no basis in law or logic to permit the government to defend the constitutionality of a conviction by

speculating that it could have reached the same result via

an entirely different statute (real or imagined). Indeed, that

much should have been clear even without Heller, Bruen,

or Rahimi. After all, this Court expressly rejected that

sleight of hand more than half a century ago in Williams v.

Illinois, 399 U.S. 235 (1970). There, a defendant challenged

a state statutory regime that forced indigent criminal defendants who failed to pay the fines imposed as part of

their sentences to serve a prison sentence longer than the

applicable one-year statutory maximum. Id. at 238. Although the state argued that the statute was “not constitutionally infirm simply because the legislature could have

8

achieved the same result by some other means,” this Court

had no difficulty rejecting that argument, as the state’s authority to pass alternative means to achieve the same goal

“does not resolve the [constitutional] issue” actually presented by the law it sought to enforce. Id. at 238-39. For

that reason, the Court granted relief to the defendant after

finding that the law the state actually enacted and enforced

violated his equal protection rights—even though it

acknowledged that the state could “have appropriately

fixed the penalty, in the first instance,” and incarcerated

the defendant for greater than one year for the same conduct. Id. at 240-41; accord Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 395, 399401 (1971).

After Williams, there is no room for the government to

argue that its ability to implement an alternative, supposedly constitutionally valid regime enables the provision it

actually enforced to survive (or evade) constitutional review. As one court aptly put it, “[a]n unconstitutional statute does not ‘become constitutional’ simply because it is

applied to a particular category of persons who could have

been regulated, had the legislature seen fit to do so.” People

v. Burns, 79 N.E.3d 159, 165-66 (Ill. 2015). That is why this

Court invalidated a law categorically banning the display of

signs outside its building under the First Amendment in

United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171 (1983), even though the

same behavior may have been regulated through “reasonable time, place and manner restrictions.” Id. at 183-84. It

also explains why this Court concluded in United States v.

Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990), that the government could

not criminally punish a defendant for burning a Post Office

flag under a law specifically outlawing flag burning, even

though he could still be subject to prosecution for the destruction of federal property for the exact same conduct. Id.

at 313 n.1, 316 n.5.

9

This understanding of as-applied challenges is ubiquitous precisely because it follows from bedrock constitutional principles. Indeed, any other approach would render

the “as-applied challenge” label a misnomer. As this Court

has long observed, a court is “never to anticipate a question

of constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding

it.” United States v. Raines, 362 U.S. 17, 21 (1960). If courts

were instead authorized to sustain statutory enactments

on the grounds that the government might have chosen another valid means to achieve the same result, they would

stray from the case presented and answer constitutional

questions that are not implicated. Id.

Courts thus routinely reject government efforts to

employ such sleights of hand. See, e.g., United States v. Price,

111 F.4th 392, 402 n.4 (4th Cir. 2024) (en banc) (rejecting

an attempt to invoke defendant’s felon status to defeat his

constitutional challenge to §922(k)’s ban on possessing

firearms with obliterated serial numbers because regulating felon firearm possession was “not the law Congress enacted via §922(k)”).

That principle does not change just because the

court is tasked with addressing a Second Amendment challenge under Bruen and Rahimi. Indeed, there is absolutely

nothing in the methodology laid out in either case that

would justify a deviation from this bedrock rule. Both

made clear that the focus of the analysis turns on the mechanics and contours of the challenged regulation itself.

See Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 692 (“Why and how the [challenged]

regulation burdens the right are central to this inquiry.”);

Bruen, 597 U.S. at 29 (requiring courts to evaluate “how

and why the [challenged] regulations burden” the Second

Amendment right). And neither announced any rule giving

judges or the government a roving license to investigate

whether there is any conceivable reason that the party asserting his Second Amendment rights could be disarmed. It

10

is little wonder why not: Such a rule not only would treat

the Second Amendment “as a second-class right,” McDon‐

ald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 780 (2010) (plurality),

but would run afoul of the constitutional principles requiring strict adherence to examining the application of

the challenged law to the facts at hand. cf. City of Los Ange‐

les v. Patel, 576 U.S. 409, 418 (2015) (explaining that the

Court “considered only applications of the statute in which

it actually authorizes or prohibits conduct” when assessing

its constitutionality).

Take Rahimi. This Court focused exclusively on whether

historical going-armed and surety laws were comparable

to §922(g)(8), even though the defendant there had not

only threatened his domestic partner (prompting the domestic restraining order) but also threatened a woman

with a firearm (prompting an aggravated assault charge)

and was connected to five other shootings. See 602 U.S. at

687. Because the government charged Rahimi only with violating §922(g)(8), the Court asked only whether

§922(g)(8) could pass constitutional muster, not whether

the government could have constitutionally disarmed him

on another basis. See id. at 690, 700-02; see also id. at 777

(Thomas, J., dissenting) (“This case is not about whether

States can disarm people who threaten others.… Instead,

the question is whether the Government can strip the Second Amendment right of anyone subject to a protective order[.]”).

Just as with other constitutional questions, then,

whether there may be other reasons the government could

disarm someone is not a valid consideration in the proper

constitutional analysis. Cf. TikTok v. Garland, 145 S.Ct. 57,

68 (2025) (“[W]e look [only] to the provisions of the Act

that give rise to the effective TikTok ban that petitioners

argue burdens their First Amendment rights” to address

their as-applied challenge.).

11

The Fifth Circuit’s approach led it to ignore its basic obligation to address Robinson’s actual challenge that his

conviction could not stand under §922(g)(1) – a statute

that dispossessed him of his Second Amendment rights

solely because he had previously been convicted of felonies. Robinson’s probation status is not constitutionally

relevant to “why” or “how” §922(g)(1) impinges on his Second Amendment rights.

The Fifth Circuit’s approach also runs headlong into the

exact problem Bruen sought to solve— avoiding an “interest-balancing inquiry” that requires a “case-by-case basis

whether the right is really worth insisting upon.” 597 U.S.

at 22-23. Bruen adopted its historical-tradition approach

to prevent judges from engaging in a subjective assessment

of a defendant’s worthiness of Second Amendment

rights—“a value laden and political task that is usually reserved for the political branches.” Rahimi, 602 U.S. at 73233 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring). Yet under the Fifth Circuit’s

approach, courts must address extra-offense characteristics and assess a wide range of potentially disqualifying

factors unmoored from the justification the government

has asserted for taking away Second Amendment rights.

See, e.g., Pitsilides v. Barr, 128 F.4th 203, 210-13 (3d Cir.

2025).

Once a court steps away from the firearm regulation at

hand and abandons the value-neutral analysis of how its

particular features measure up against the features of historical regulations, it is left with only “value-laden” questions about who is deserving enough to exercise Second

Amendment rights. That does not comport with what this

Court has instructed courts to do when adjudicating Second Amendment challenges— namely, “apply faithfully the

balance struck by the founding generation to modern circumstances.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 29 n.7.

12

In short, the government has sought to imprison Robinson because he possessed a firearm after having been convicted of certain specified felonies—not because of any

other action he took or any other personal detail about his

background. After all, §922(g)(1) regulates possession of a

firearm by an individual who has been convicted of a felony, not possession of a firearm by an individual on probation or supervised release (which is separately regulated

by a statute that applies to misdemeanants and felons

alike, see 18 U.S.C. §3583(b)(1)). It is that decision to attach

liberty-restricting consequences to felons’ firearm possession that ought to have been analyzed on appeal. The Fifth

Circuit grievously erred in choosing to analyze an entirely

different (and unappealed) question.

B. Courts of Appeals have fractured over

how to address as-applied challenges to

§922(g)(1).

The Fifth Circuit’s marked departure from the proper

course warrants this Court’s intervention. At the very least,

the Court should vacate and remand with instructions for

the court to address the challenge Robinson pressed:

whether §922(g)(1) is constitutional, either on its face or

as applied to him.

Notably, this Court recently granted the petitions of two

criminal defendants raising the as-applied-review question, vacated the judgments in those cases, and remanded

for “further consideration in light of United States v.

Rahimi.” See Whitaker v. United States, 2025 WL 581590

(U.S. Feb. 24, 2025); Rambo v. United States, 2025 WL

581574 (U.S. Feb. 24, 2025).

The decision below is considerably more egregious

than either of those Eleventh Circuit decisions. The Fifth

Circuit held that Robinson may be deprived of two

13

fundamental liberties without ever deciding that the statute the government charged him with violating could constitutionally be applied to him. That result, which turns the

whole notion of an “as-applied challenge” upside-down,

cannot stand, and justifies the strong medicine of summary

reversal.

That said, the lower courts would be better served

by plenary review, as the Fifth Circuit’s approach is emblematic of the profound confusion that pervades when it

comes to §922(g)(1) challenges. The Sixth and Seventh Circuits have embraced an approach similar to the Fifth Circuit’s, sanctioning a free-floating inquiry into whether

there is any reason an individual could constitutionally be

deprived of Second Amendment rights, rather than focusing on the predicate convictions the government invoked.

II. THE QUESTION PRESENTED IS EXCEPTIONALLY

IMPORTANT, AND THIS CASE IS AN EFFECTIVE

VEHICLE FOR THIS COURT TO ADDRESS IT.

How to resolve §922(g)(1) challenges is an exceptionally important question given the frequency with which the

federal government seeks to dispossess citizens of firearms under §922(g)(1). In fiscal year 2023 alone, 88.5% of

all §922(g) convictions were convictions under

§922(g)(1). U.S. Sent. Comm’n, Quick Facts: 18 U.S.C.

§922(g) Firearms Offenses (June 2024), https://tinyurl.com/nheeuyuz. And with the increasing volume of

constitutional challenges to these convictions, it is critical

that courts have a shared (and correct) understanding of

how to resolve them. Indeed, the government itself has

made precisely this point in seeking review of decisions

unfavorable to its maximalist position regarding the constitutionality of §922(g)(1). See, e.g., Pet. for Rhg. En Banc

19, United States v. Duarte, No. 22-50048 (9th Cir. May 14,

14

2024), Dkt.72-1; Pet. for Cert. 24-25, Garland v. Range, No.

23-374 (U.S. Oct. 5, 2023).

Moreover, millions of Americans are estimated to have

felony records (a non-trivial proportion of the citizenry).

See Sarah K.S. Shannon, et al., The Growth, Scope, and Spa‐

tial Distribution of People with Felony Records in the United

States, 1948‐2010, 54 Demography 1795, 1806 (2018),

available at https://tinyurl.com/mz36x3uh. And given the

increasing scope of supervised release (and its state equivalents), many individuals charged with violating

§922(g)(1) do so while on supervised release (or probation or parole). Not only does §922(g)(1) disqualify all of

them from exercising their fundamental rights; decisions

like the one below effectively deprive them of potential asapplied challenges, amplifying the importance of ensuring

that courts apply the correct framework in these cases.

At a bare minimum, though, this Court should grant, vacate, and remand with instructions for the Fifth Circuit to

consider Robinson’s challenge to his §922(g)(1) conviction

itself, without any free-floating inquiry into whether the

government might have some independent basis for stripping Robinson of his Second Amendment rights. Whatever

room for debate there may be about whether §922(g)(1) is

susceptible to as applied challenges, there should be no debate that the government must defend §922(g)(1) charges

by grounding §922(g)(1) in historical tradition. By failing

to follow that bedrock rule, the Fifth Circuit not only risked

sanctioning a violation of the Second Amendment, but deprived Robinson of his right to a full and fair adjudication

of the Second Amendment challenge he raised. The Court

should not let that egregious mistake stand.

Petitioner fully preserved his objection in district

court and in the Fifth Circuit. See App. 1a.

15

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, this Court should grant

the petition for certiorari.

Respectfully submitted,

s/Quincy Ferrill

September 22, 2025