The Fifth Circui t Court of Appe als has held that to determine
whether an appea l of a sente nce is barred by an appe al wai ver pro vision
in a plea agreement, the this Court will conduct a two-step inquiry : (1)
whether the waiver was know ing and volunta ry and (2) whether the
waiver appli es to the circumst ance s at hand, base d on the plain languag e
of the agreement. How ever, many of the other circuit courts of appe al also
conduct a third step, inquiri ng whether the circuit court's "failur e to
conside r [the defendant' s] claim will result in a misc arriage of justice."
This dicho tomy thus raises the specter of a circuit split and render s the
Fifth Circui t Court of Appe als's stance on the issue to be an outlier.
Should this Court therefore grant certiorari in this case in order to clarify
the law on this often-occurr ing situation and t o resolve the circuit split?

Whether the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals' two-step inquiry for determining the validity of an appeal waiver in a plea agreement should be expanded to include a third step inquiring whether the failure to consider the defendant's claim would result in a miscarriage of justice