the obstruction of justice enhanced first the cases defining application of no eight two two three one point one require a close relationship between the obstructive conduct and an underlying  case there was no underlying offense adenike tied as having a relationship with the obstructive conduct in this case that count that was the obstructed conduct and sending threatening letters to the revenue agents to collection agents who audited my client and sought to collect his standing taxes not people who were investigating him for the charges that naturally were filed the wiretap at the freeman complex tribunal the conversation where my the government has not demonstrated that that there was any offense with respect to which that obstructive conduct occurred so as to case the part of you are relying upon to support your argument your honor these cases out of other circuits because in the ninth circuit there is a national exactly on point in the ninth circuit that i found anyway and i think not that the government found perjury is the example given in the guidelines and that's also in the denge in cases where they lied and then they they lied about the but certainly mcgovern explicitly says that there needs to be a close relationship and i'm also relying on the language in this in the guideline itself where it says with respect to which which implies that the person is obstructing justice with regard to or charged with any conduct that he lied about or that he hid evidence about in a case that the government cites judie does not apply because it was not a separate charge for hiding the money that mr shetty hid in a swiss bank account and clearly the money that he had would have been evidence of the offenses that he was being investigated for so this case because the harm was the same with financial harm should have been grouped without the enhancement just being grouped with the other offens counting prevention that says that you only add this if the obstructive offense was with respect to which another another chance with respect to which any charge underlying offense that's the language there are no other questions on that point i'll move on to the next the official victim enhanced which is another example of double counting in this case in the sentencing mr wishart the clause which is the second clause of section seventy two twelve was this that the clause of conviction of the offense of conviction but clearly the language of the statue talks about two different kinds of harm administration of the internal revenue laws which is language that is both the title of the whole section and appears in the second clause in the omnibus clause and then it says by sending falsely into agents acting in their official capacities which is the language from the first class the any officer class clearly the conduct was attacking or attempting to stop these officers in their duties and that statute that part of the statute directed toward protecting  the evidence at trial clearly was letters were sent to these individuals threatening and that that was the conduct underlying not claim that back out that that was the basis for that conviction so that was another example of double counting now i'd like to go to the argument of that the district court's refusal to modify the courtroom protocols denied my client the right to effectively represent himself in denial of his rights to due process  of my client's serious mental difficulties and emotional problems which the court commented on in order to competency exam because the judge noted that he was the judge used the word he was had an utter failure to grasp reality you  some obligation beyond the first round obligation to let him know that you're making stupid choices yeah and that's why you are going to be able to do a good job and you want to have a lawyer he is beyond that beyond that if an individual wants to represent himself but he's blind there is no court that would not provide some kinds of accommodations to allow for that for example simultaneous oral transcription or braille i don't know what they would provide but they would certainly same with a death litigant but what do you do for an attention deficit to swell there were a lot of suggestions that were made by gawker shortly afterwards and among those would be more breaks during the trial and i and certainly the court was aware the individual does not have to make an official request and this gentleman did not know what he was entitled to my age doesn't apply i understand your honor that i'm not applying  well i have argued in my grief that notwithstanding the government's argument that play an error applies that in fact because it was raised in the sense that the judge was aware of his diagnoses that he required some additional accommodations changes through the court my name is karen quenelle appearing on behalf of the united states the defendant's offense of conviction and the relevant conduct or a closely related offense so it includes relevant conduct or a closely related offense and clearly in this case his entire course of conduct which was over twenty years was aimed at preventing the i is that under three c one point one eight if you have an obstruction offense and underlying offense to which the obstruction relates you group those two together so the guideline account for the possible double counting problem by grouping those trying to gather as if there were and then you determine one level one offense level for that group and then you add two for the obstruction so there is in fact only double counting that is allowed by the struck the contact with the thread that's correct we're going to give to that conduct and under three a one point one if victims of the offense are especially employees of the federal government and their band or their spouses then an additional three bends level calculations that you can do for seventy two twelve depending on the nature of the condo and if the nature of the conduct is more in the nature of what we call the omnibus clause a corrupt endeavor to impede the administration of the into  revenue code then it is sentenced under two j one point one and if you look at the application notes under the the official victim statute they say when they're discussing offenses that include the status of the victim those are for example beating up an officer things like that there are sentenced under two and it says specifically if you're strapping and you know i'm not your intent to come to the goal and i didn't do the calculations so i don't know what the offense level would have been under two a one point i think it's two but i'm not sure so i can't make the comparison between what the the court explained to him time and again the risks and disadvantages problems he might face representing himself the defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his right to counsel at that point forever required  to allow him to proceed pro se the district court made every modification or accommodation that the defendant requested when the defendant requested additional time to either get evaluated or obtain treatment the court gave me in excess of nine months to do that the court granted the defendant breaks when requested generally and he also appointed standby counsel so that defendant would not be on his own in the courtroom unless the court has any further questions we would ask that the conviction be thank you first i official victim and has been i urge the court to look again at the title section seventy two twelve which uses the language that the government is relying on for its claim that it falls under the other clause because that's the language of the whole that's the title of the whole statute so if that indictment is tang's he violated this statute and then by doing what by sending a letter to these people in their individual in their official capacities and second at the bottom of that section say with respect to both clauses consequence the statute doesn't break it into clauses that was something that the courts have done and with regard to the issue of prejudice there are the record is rife with examples of the kind of behavior that  individual was driven to by his emotional and mental problems he spouts rhetoric and dogma straight out of the instructions and he challenges the wiretap by finding if the monitors were practicing law without a license