the honorable united states court of appeals for the st circuit is now in session all persons having any business before this honorable court they give their attendance and they shall be heard god save the united states of america and this honorable court court is puerto rican people and again we need to understand that since this great nation was founded on a moral words are deemed not completely and property are they going to be by mistake with the breeders the risk being prosecuted under this statute i thought causing the provisions that were already in place that you're not challenging would precipitate reading i thought this so in order to have standing to bring the pre enforcement challenge is got to be a credible threat of prosecution under the statute and i'm just wondering what your evidence is sort of all the plaintive that they are risking prosecution i when the thought that there's any evidence that a breeder is at risk of prosecution may be the one but maybe if you i'm wrong on that there anything to indicate that the promotion provision for the sponsoring prison or the exhibition division it is not a generational passing from one generation to the next from parents to sons and daughters and grandchildren in a very real sense it represents much more than a is highly regulated already by its local laws violated appellants to process rights under the th and th amendment it ignored the island's cultural autonomy and imposed congress own sense of morality and the island with the sweep of the pen congress eliminated in activity that has been a fundamental part of the island's culture for hundreds of deprive any person of life liberty or property without due process of law the existence of a liberty interest therefore is an essential component t issue was addressed by mr prado and i would not be labor the point you were be repetitive in my argument the district court also determined that have a valid liberty interest existed then the legislative process provided all that due process require that essentially lowered the mandatory retirement age by ten years and they alleged they had not been afforded the opportunity to demonstrate their physical and mental fitness to continue to work the court concluded that no due process violation occurs when the legislature which creates a statutory entire movement alters or terminate that in title and that the legislative process itself provides citizens with all of the due process to which they are entitled to east involved a local law that had been passed by the legislature in puerto rico in which the affected parties had meaningful representation this case in contrast involves a federal law in which appellants did not have meaningful representation this court therefore did not consider in the korea decision whether the same conclusions would extend to a situation which involved a federal law of the magnitude given puerto rico's lack of meaningful representation in congress this honorable court has determined that if for significant deprivation of liberty or property takes place and states hands the infected individual must be forewarned and afford an opportunity to be heard and in need full time  deeply intertwined with the culture of the island i thought that for purposes of what the liberty interest could use articulate is the liberty interest dependent on a being expressive conduct you know not what i procedures and a case and that due process has to be flexible and cause for procedural protections that are mandated by the particular situation of course that's from the landmark decision of morrissey versus brewer the procedural protections that were afforded to the intelligence misdemeanors let me interrupt you there for one second and ask if there are questions from the court now commissioner this delegate does not have the same privilege as a state representative and has no voting rights moreover this amendment was passed at a time when all of the fifty states had already outlaw as a matter of local law cockfighting so puerto rico was left in essence to fend on its own with really little political leverage because they had no vote in congress and the disparity in privileges between a resident commissioner his state representative sasser that this process was unconstitutionally was unconstitutional constitutionally inadequate it deprived the people court of people of an important liberty interest and it cannot be characterized as a fair process in any way we are hopeful that this honorable body well remedy that in justice thank you if you would mute your video and audio we will hear from mr clark bay please the court i'm just clark from the just partment here on behalf of the united states and the other defendants on i'd like to start by bringing it back to the constitution but i think i can do that by referring to  agriculture improvement act and that year and there were lots of conduct that was already prohibited so you know what was prohibited was attending an animal fighting or causing a child under the age became effective on there was a special exception for places territories but it was only territories at that point where bird fighting was legal but even that was women at a time in the appendix to know even entirely effective to allow any form of cockfighting at all in puerto rico not the broad right that i think the plaintiffs are alleging so that's so happened and i'm now confused just about this i'm just trying to understand the background a little bit better on the attendance provision that you cited in puerto rico was it you say it was it applied to puerto rico before the new provisions was it in forced you address the standing issue you don't dress it in your brief but i'm having a little trouble seeing why if that's all of the current provisions that are challengers concern what the basis for standing of many of these plaintiffs would be as to the commerce cl claim yes your honor i think that we we didn't cover it we essentially mounted the defense of the district court decision below which we commend to you obviously on the merits is excellent but obviously any standing issue is an issue that the court has a duty to look at so as want to decide whether you think that the plaintiffs here have standing and we don't think that they've done a particularly good job of policing up you know how their particular injuries given what they're engaged in and you know link up with exhibition and sponsorship so i think that is a basis on which the court could i'm trying to i grant answer them that one of the plaintiffs runs a cockfighting a reno i would think they would be at rest so you know you know that's the same basis essentially which we proceeded to address the merits your honor so you know you could  amendment to the statute what about a person who handles or participates in as an employee of the cock fighting arena would they be at risk of prosecution well i mean i think that would help us figure that out sure or so i think if you look at the text of the statute right so certainly they almost certainly would be attending such an event if they were engaged in activities so that the attendance was already illegal that's not being challenged the attendance prohibition well your honor i think fairly rare that they you know it they certainly have arguments that they're trying to mount against protecting the entire activity i think since they opinion i'm just trying to get help from the government about who is at risk of being prosecuted for the provisions that are being towns so and your one hundred to be clear there is a wide swath of people who are at risk of being prosecuted under the entire statute because the statute isn't limited just that it's going to eighteen men so i understand that they are challenging as you have made crystal clear only a particular provision of federal law correct yes so they have to be at risk of being prosecuted under that particular provision to have standing to challenge it so here's an example of a plaintiffs who i think would fall within the tw that's reading in the text we have actual plaintiffs in an actual case and i'm just trying to get a sense from the government as to these actual plaintive which ones in your view face a credible threat of prosecution under these particular provisions which is the only ones being challenged certainly i would think the person who runs the cockfighting arena would is there anybody else who is a plaintiff in this case who is at risk of being prosecuted under this statu supplemental letter brief with the court doing that and obviously invite response from the plaintiffs what the case has been briefed i think local zero in here on you know on on defending against you know what the district court conceived to the person who runs the cockfighting arena there is no question they're engaged in commercial activity doing that yes they're potentially on how we think about resolving the commerce clause issue whether it's a facial challenge or an as applied to so that's partly why i've been trying to get your sense of who's actually before us and what their actual claim is but taking just that there is there are there are two other plaintiffs that i was going to mention for purposes of discussion about the commerce clause challenge there is one who is an individual who is not in puerto rico who invests and game cops we similarly would say that you know he he may not be subject to on i guess you could read sponsorship that  as a sponsor potentially yes you may have other categories that you fall in depending on what other activity you're engaged there's also you know someone who who travels to you know sell objects in connection with  up in the air add a cockfighting so you're under the term of exhibitor has you know been used in animal welfare statutes or a long time it's not unique to this statute i think we're talking about exhibition in the same sort of sense that books would sometimes refer to a boxing match as a boxing exhibition so if you're sponsoring a boxing match if you were well you know if you're part of putting a boxing match on then you are exhibiting an animal fighting venture for purposes  well i mean i think as i sit here i'm hard pressed to think that used in conjunction the terms you know don't make clear what congress is amy up those who are attempting to profit from and leading an animal fighting venture spent you know you were asked about the employer earlier and that's what led me to this series of questions the employee is not the actual sponsor but by god that employee is exhibiting the animals and strutting around with and that's what i'm asking about and surely that were an exhibitor has to have a different ecause it goes to the sponsorship or exhibition that's not to say that that's the full reach of seven u s c two thousand one hundred and fifty six it goes broader i think it would cover employees under a variety of its settings potentially depending on what happens with the employees out yeah but you still have to justify these particular provisions would help to know who they cover so your honor i think that there's clearly a core that they  are under the cover of someone who says i'm going to set up an animal fighting venture i'm going to promote it so maybe you're an advertising company there's there's an easy way to distribute when a a promoter right you know who's kind of sponsoring the event and the actual exhibitor who's running the event i think the exhibitor more naturally covers those who are running the event and the sponsor could come across someone who is at some level who remove who's telling people go to the i  sure if there's at least one point if you have standing then the merits can be resolved although i do think that if there are no plaintiffs who have any you know credible plame to injury in fact as to a particular form of childers that they are melting then you could decide obviously an exercise would be to source right not to reach that challenge and leave that for another but i don't think you you know as i think i was trying to make clear that judge barrett there probably is at least one plaintiff like that identified one who you think is at risk by skews in which means we don't have to get to the merits at least as to that one and the one who seems the clearest is the one who runs the cockfighting arena ok yes here's my question as to that for  purposes of the commerce clause since it's a pre enforcement chalons there happens to be a jurisdictional hook in the statute yes at one level it's quite obvious that this person could be shown to satisfy that  on their conduct given that they run a commercial cockfighting ring and then we could say well a prosecution of that person if the jury was instructed you have to satisfy the jurisdictional element by proving that they run that ring this case becomes quite easy because we have a clearly commercial activity that is at risk of prosecution and if you aggregate that activity over time there'd be a substantial effect on interstate commerce but it's not evident to me since we don't have an actual prosecution with actual jury instructions that that's the right way to look at it because it's at least possible the way the jurisdictional hook is written and the way the findings read that you could bring a prosecution against that cockfighting arena owner and the jury instruction could read even a trivial connection to interstate commerce the mere fact that he isn't dealing in birds would be enough to cover it because the findings suggest a very broad view of what affects interstate commerce and if you took that the you then arguably we have to reach a very different type of question about the commerce clause because you'd be then reaching potentially any cockfight even one the little one of the backyard that would make it look like rakes and you have all the difficulties of whether this is really a race like analysis of could you help me figure out how to think through that problem sure your honor so i suppose i don't think it's that difficult in this respect al hook sometimes can be a bit of a mirage if it's defined to encompass anything even the martial version of the activity because the activity and growth has been found  that case here that's how you're defining this hook in the hook doesn't do very much work and if you could prove satisfaction of the hook by simply showing he deals in birds or it's a bird fights then that arguably picks up even the local backyard cockfight which then raises the harder question under rate so how do we deal with that problem so is it your honor i think i want to say to you on this is if  know you want to look at whether a particular set of facts which supports d a finding by a fact finder whether judge or jury that the jurisdictional nexus for could been met then you need to wait until it's actually brought in for an actual criminal action against a particular defendant and then assess whether the finding that it met the jurisdictional element is correct or not i don't think you can look at the fact that congress was clearly regulating commercial not just trying to get it so the government could tell us what the hook mean and you could give one of two answers you could say the hook means what the findings suggest that any cockfighting no matter how noncommercial it is qualifies as cockfighting that affects interstate commerce or you could say it depends sometimes we might be able to view it that way but we might also say no we have to prove an actual commercial nature to the activity or you could say well we've continues how to structure the case in a particular prosecution if you took the last view that it would depend how you framed it to the jury i then start to question whether we even have a right case here because i'm not sure there's any plaintiff who faces a credible threat of prosecution of the kind at least with respect to the commerce clause issues of the kind that implicates the commerce clause so it's really i mean the government knows what the hook means it's your statute to enforce so you tell me what it means so your honor look i think it should be given a broader meaning for i do some more parsing of the text and one let me say though that we think this challenge can be rejected based on the authority that congress had to adopt this statute as applied to puerto rico in the territorial clause in that that doesn't raise any of these issues that you're raising about how to apply the commerce clause to this jurisdictional nexus requirement me let's stick with the ok so let's let's talk about the statute so you know the statute does indicate that an animal waiting venture has to be something which involves a sport or or entertainment we big those are all clearly economic activities so the hypothetical of someone who has you know two surely puerto rico roosters that are fighting with each other in their backyard seems like  you know quite a stretch to apply the statute but i can't rule out based on the fact that there's a clause that says if you're affected interstate or foreign commerce if there was a imported bird used in that particular backyard  animal but the rooster was a fix with gas in the hopes and flaws that were traded in interstate commerce that there wouldn't be a sufficient nexus to interstate commerce so i think that's why it has to wait you know factual developing your honor i think for purposes of the br you know and so so so we're going to go ahead and end it there and i want to express my thanks to all coun that concludes the arguments for today the session of this honorable united states court of appeals has now recessed until the next session of the court god save the united states of america and this honorable court counsel you may now disconnect from the meeting