morning ladies and gentlemen st case on the oral argument calendar today's united states versus taylor good morning your honors my name is tara allen on behalf of mr taylor i intend to reserve three minutes for may please the court mr taylor was convicted of being a prohibited possessor of firearms and ammo found in the family home this case presents the tension that occurs when you have a lawful possessor of far as who in such cases the law provides that proximity access knowledge and even close relationship with the possessor are not enough rather the law requires proof of a substantial connection between the defendant or the prohibited possessor and the firearms which were found that does not occur in this case all of the firearms and ammunition were found among mia taylor's belongings she was clearly a gun enthusiast found in the master bedroom closet which was a walk in closet there was testimony that all of me as belongings were on the left side of the closet and all of mr taylor's were on the right side all of the evidence in that closet was found on the right side among me as possessions there were three empty gun cases that were placed in the middle of the closet and there were photos taken of them on the floor the photos were taken from different angles the one showed to the jury was from an angle in which you could see men's shoes but those shoes were on the right side of the closet the empty gun cases were placed on the floor for photographs and as the court might recall a number of the items were moved prior to photographing the nd place where guns and ammunition were found was in the master bathroom closet that closet also was divided between women's items and men's items only opposite the right side of that closet was mia's belongings and the left side where mr taylor's pongs everything found in that closet was found among mia's belongings there was a women's nike shoe box that contained gun parts and there was a small safe which the evidence said was found in the middle of the closet and it was closed but not locked inside the safe for ammunitions and the rd area where guns and ammunitions were found was the office outside the master bedroom which indicated that that was mia taylor's desk and office that's where the receipt from sierra firearms was found also in the going back to the master bathroom closet that's where the concealed weapons permit for mia taylor was found along with her registration for a gun training class at shooters world everything indicating that she was a gun enthusiast and that these were her weapons and then the th area where some guns were found were in a closet in the west upstairs bedroom that contained women's clothes and hats and those were found in a suitcase the only items of mr taylor's that were found during the search were the bank of america debit card and envelope that were found in the shared bathroom closet but on the right side among his belongings they were later moved and put into the nike women's shoe box and brought downstairs to be photographed agents testified to that and agent montgomery confirmed it there was the defendant's driver's license was found in a drawer but that wasn't anywhere near any firearms in at and a well so in order to prove when you have joint occupancy and to prove constructive possession the court say that the items can belong to either of the parties or both of the parties and speculation isn't enough to figure out who they belong to and that is why the courts require some kind of a substantial connection between the defendant and the firearms that were found now that substantial connection in this case i can only assume that the government is relying on the text messages to trial that were found on the defendant's phone now that phone was also jointly decker who did the forensics on the phone said there was no way to tell which user of the phone sent the tax and when mia bought some of the firearms she used that phone number on the receipt there's nothing to say that she didn't take a photo of those guns and had the phone with her when she bought them there's just simply not enough evidence to show that he's the one that sent those texts to trial versus mia having done it not to mention of the checks were sent in august and the indictment charges this prohibitive possession to have occurred in november which was during the search and less the court has any other questions about the other two issues i can reserve  good morning may please the court rachel hernandez on behalf of the united states six firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition were found unsecured in defendant's bedroom closet and bathroom closet mingled among his clothes his mail and a credit card the text messages show that shortly after his wife acquired some of the guns message he sent messages attempting to sell the guns considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the government the conviction of this three time felon was supported by more than sufficient evidence the question on sufficiency is whether he had the intent to possess these weapons the defendant conceded in his opening brief that he had the knowledge and the power that's it page twenty eight dollars of his opening brief sitting at home he had access but not intent the intent here can be shown in several ways st of all just the sheer volume of the hundreds of rounds of ammunition found in bags found loose sitting on a shelf the bathroom closet is a closet with sliding doors and shelves the testimony was that the items in the bathroom closet belong to men and women items commonly used band aids things like that and in that area weapons were found and ammunition was found specifically in the bathroom closet there was testimony that close to the visa card and the mail all of the guns and ammunition in that closet could be reached from from where the card was to where the weapons were so just the sheer volume the haphazard storage of them the shotgun in the master bedroom closet leaning up against the wall immediately accessible upon walking into the closet nylon gun cases strewn on claim no your honor the as i said the shotgun was in plain view leaning against the wall was that on the woman's side of the man and i don't i don't think the evidence was clear on that and i don't we don't dispute that they share the closet but that this case on on par with the terry case in which the gun was found in the defendant's shared closet with his wife and the way these guns were and the way the ammunition was throughout the house there can really be no question that he intended to possess them as well when you combine that with the text messages sent from a phone that subscriber records show us has that a bill shows was his that text messages were signed by tony which is his nickname that he received text messages that said bro let me swap the guns were is typically not going to be sent to his wife there's absolutely other than his mom's assertion that they hit the wife and the husband shared the phone there's no evidence that they shared the phone and that really doesn't comport with how we know people use i phones they don't share them close in time to these messages the defendant was sending  text messages to other women which would indicate again that his wife wasn't using the phone it was found charging next to a hat a man's hat so when you combine  the permissibly admitted cell phone evidence and the manner in which these weapons and ammunition were stored in the home it's clear the defendant had the intent to possess  this and this case is similar to the court's decision in banda moore in which plain error was found this issue was not raised before the district court but it did not the rd element of error could not be met because it did not affect bene more substantial rights because he stipulated that he had a prior conviction punishable by more than a year as did the defendant here also and ben a more  court found that that nothing would change because he had i think in that case six convictions here we have three convictions but the government would urge that this case is is   that the jury was told to find the defendant did enter a stipulation saying he understood he agreed that at the time the relevant time period he had a conviction he had been convicted in the past excuse me of a crime carrying a punishment of more than a year i think that you could infer from that that he knew he had that because he entered the stipulation but the jury was not instructed  thank your honour's in response to the government's arguments let me ask you this what else could mia taylor have done in this case if these firearms and ammunitions are hers as is the case what else could she have done in the family home where children live other than keep them in her private areas which are her master bedroom closet her master bathroom closet among her own belongings they were in safes they were in gun cases they were somewhere where the children could not get them it is not her fault that she lives with her husband all of us have master bedroom closets usually and closets we share with our husbands in the garage as i can give you a personal story my husband is a gun enthusiast he has every bit as much of this ammunition if not more and every bit as much many of these guns if not more we have four different saves there as ammunition in the garage that we share in our master bedroom that we share there is a reason why the law provides that you have to search you have to prove some kind of substantial connection and in this case yes there is evidence that it was these things were only found among her belongings and that his documents that were found were found among his board the haphazard storage th government alleges is not half as or the guns were in cases and in a safe the their reliance on terry is completely distinguishable because in terry in the master bedroom closet the gun was found among the men's belongings and next to the men's boots that is not what happened in this case as far as the text messages go that were signed tony those were messages that had nothing to do with the weapons whatsoever and notably all of the text messages to trial none of them were signed tony as far as there not being any evidence that the phone was jointly used there certainly was she used it on the receipt with zero option and his mother testified that they use it to face time the kids which everybody does there are four phones found in the house only one was an i phone an agent signing back or testified that the i phone is the easiest and best one to use for taking photos and tax etc so there's no surprise that they would both using the best phone in the house for things that they needed and in regard to the four a four b evidence in the prosecutorial misconduct i think because the evidence in this case was so weak that that's really what tipped the scale for the jury was seeing evidence of extra marital relations that had nothing to do with the guns when there was plenty of evidence that showed that mr taylor used the phone anyway they already had the tax that were signed tony they already had that he was the subscriber and it was shipped to him and that it was password protected they didn't need these extra marital relations to show that he was using the phone and they certainly didn't need to violate the court's order by pointing out to the jury in the st sentence of opening statement that he was a felon and then again during the last witness implying that she bought the guns because he was a felon the prosecution did that directly against the court's order and i submit to you that the reason that they did that as well as lobbied so hard to get the extra marital relations in was to make mr taylor look bad because they didn't have enough evidence otherwise so unless the court has any