siegel please the court my name is dan siegel and i represent the public robert ward with the permission of the court i request three minutes for a file that requests from the grand there are three reasons why this particular gun case cannot be prosecuted in federal court first state statute means what it says second the federal statute means what it says and third if there's an end acuity the rule of lenity means what it says it's well turning to the first point the state of delaware has a got well the answer it and we discussed it in the grease is that the state of delaware didn't repeal the statute they have a statutory construction rule against repeal by implication and the civil rights back if you get finish a tribe in prison without any parole so the question then becomes if you accept that premise the government doesn't but we've made arguments to that point if you accept that cre that that you can't you're right back to have a pasta out then say and when your girlfriend comes to visit you in the prison a lot go and they in the room they don't let you have that much contact you've got you're right back to have more contact with your girlfriend  of your rights not your and your conviction our argument is that both of the statutes are saying the same thing in different ways if that distinction was correct then the government would be limited to the argument that they've provided which is they're talking so why would delaware then amend its constitution to provide for the restoration of voting rights after the completion of the sentence if this if this was a casual provision that well the state of delaware  constitutional provision which takes precedence over the statute and that if they want to make sure that people get their rights back they have to amend the constitution but we don't know from the record from the statute how the state of delaware defines civil rights what we do know is they have a jury statute that says you get back your jury rights when you get your civil rights back and they have another statute that says that when you get out of jail you get your civil rights so whatever they meant by service that it says that you lose your right to serve on a can be successful here to get your federal gun law right back you know the way prosecution in federal court in federal court is that you need to get a pardon no your honor because they didn't that you want but we have argued i think it's a correct argument you'll have to make the decision that the state of delaware has a rule against super forces and that they have no reason to give back rights expressly that people  no no you're on i don't want to i don't see it as a revolution i see it is as a as a strict construction of the word terms of the statute there's a statute that says you get your civil rights back if you get out of prison there's another state statute that says you get your jury rights back when you get your civil rights back so at least for this narrow purpose you get the civil right back to serve a jury look what makes this case unusual is the nature of mr ward's prior conviction for sort of a strong and i don't want to minimize drunk driving it serious but the government made a concession recidivist drunk driving is not an infamous crime so mr woodward would get back his right to run for public office in delaware and that's one of the three rights you have to get back i can't be sure and i rather doubt that the government would make the same concession in other cases involving more serious defend its with more serious prior record so well will fight for everybody this case might be something  outlier but the second question i wanted to get to your daughter is that the federal statute i think the key word in the federal statute is a simple word the word such and if the words such as it's normally customary meaning that means you look to that particular restoration of rights in that particular case and you ask whether it gives an express warning about possessing firearms and if the words such as some other meaning we really need to have a discussion what that other meaning might be turning to the third and final point that i wanted to cover let's say that you go through the words of the federal statute and the legislative history and you can only guess at what congress me by their use of the word such or if it came to that then the rule of lenity would favor the defendant's position but i don't think that it does come to that because the congress that passed this statute requires that the express notice of the prohibition on firearms and they require that appear in such a restoration of rights so those of the three points we wanted to discuss your honor the the fact that the delaware statute more harshly punished defendants would benefit i civil rights when you get out of jail then you also get back your civil rights when you get out of home confinement or halfway that's what the statute says you're trying to read the statute and read its words but you're ignoring wor is a person who has preserved the person's term of imprisonment that's true but there is a cabin of construction which i would offer on behalf if i were representing somebody who i said is among the get out of jail if you get back your rights if the server your shall have the effect of restoring all civil rights lost by operation of law upon commitment sense is found within a subdivision of section forty three forty seven of chapter eleven of the delaware code a section of corrections but you are subject to the orders of the board of parole and that means there are no limitations that any increase limitations on the supreme court in jones be cunningham talked about his status primarily in that in that he has contact many of these cases of to what it means to be in custody or rise in the haiti is corpus context and i think in john's becoming him there was a call we who had been released and what had happened in those circumstances was the parole board governor where he was permitted to live whether or not he was permitted to travel where he broke whether or not he could drive a car and those are the kinds of limitations that remain in place why you ron paul that are not imposed they  was are the rights last one hundred words that you can use the words of words you know and i think that they are civil rights because people's freedom of association to be able to come and go as you please is is a civil right versus what this court described it within honor i agree there is something of a schism between understanding that as the course of rights to serve on a jury the right to vote the right to hold public office but they are considered collateral consequences of a conviction and they are unrelated to chew confine suit so that distinction is an important one and it is one that we know is what the statute intended because that is what it sat at delaware very clearly has an understanding of how to connecting the restoration of the course of all rights to serving a term of incarceration it would have a perverse consequence a century render any more serious offenders i will for civil rights restoration of mediately upon release from prison making them eligible what trumpery when forty three forty seven was passed the dollar constitution said a person convicted of a felony could vote section two said a person convicted of a felony can't vote correct at one point time yes or no yet when and that's when forty three forty seven was enacted that's what it said yes so are you saying the constitution trumps the statute with with the statute then trump the constitution the constitution would trump the statute and again under the appropriate reading there is no disconnect between those two provisions so there is no need to elevate the constitution above the had been a five year waiting period for restoration of the civil course of a right to vote and said now when you are when you've served your sentence completed whatever it is you get your right to go back but there is no analogous p associated with the return of the right to serve on a jury ops in a pardon and while that may seem unusual it is not unique to delaware and that it need for whatever reason has not been elevated to the same status  is the government's understanding that in both the sister district in the circuit that in pennsylvania new jersey as well the right to serve on a jury is restored only by party and if we were to read the statute the way mr siegel wants that would that requires action which again speaks to the absurdity of the result that arises under defendants the statute should be certified was issued to the delaware courts to decide what their is your honor i don't believe that that's necessarily because i think that the delaware court not not the courts but the donor attorney general has offered an opinion there is nothing inconsistent and in fact the way in which deference i don't believe that deference is the appropriate standard for it but in a vacuum absent that statement there is nothing else directly on point if there were a conflicting formal attorney general so in so far as it is a concern there is a reasonable interpretation it should be given some consideration and here it really is the only interpretation that makes sense again and as you look at the results  to the contrary you look at the plain language of the statute there is there is no reason to believe in it i don't defend points to nothing within the legislative history itself to suggest that delaware intended anything else civil rights including the course of all rights that are necessary under washington the restoration of civil rights under federal law in one thousand and one eight twenty and so there is there is nothing suggesting that any other reading of the statute is appropriate if you can make it that far because again equal role provisions have been repealed in so far they have not been repealed but they do not apply by their very terms to defendant under regarding the intent of the delaware legislature when the delaware legislature passed this overarching sentencing reform statute back in the one nine hundred sixty s that included this whole subsection which included the restoration of civil rights the legislative history of it that is the the commentary to the model act reflects consistent with the times a liberal approach to the restoration of civil rights in fact when justice is marshall brown on the supreme court were trying to make efforts to get restoration of jury rights back as part of federal law as federal constitutional they weren't successful with it but they made the point that look there's this model law and they take this liberal approach that would give people back their right to vote so to the extent that delaware has a statute that says we look to the commentary to the model laws that we use to next attitudes there is a basis for restoration of civil rights but i want to get to your point which is well taken point regarding inconsistency i want hand they've got a constitutional provision that says you can't vote and then on another hand the delaware legislature in the  sixty s passes this model act which has the small provision which says you get back all of your civil rights when you get out of jail if there was certainly a constitution takes precedence over a statutes of the constitution when butt is that mean that when you look at it you say well if they passed that statute at the time they had this constitutional provision they must not be talking about the civil rights we're talking about voting in serving on juries and the like they were talking about something else perhaps the rights that the government is referring to and the answer is that's an acceptable approach if it's a reasonable argument that is if there's a reasonable  basis to say you know the delaware legislature expressly passed a restoration of civil rights because they wanted people to get back their right to eat the foods that they like and have relationships but they weren't talking about voting they weren't talking about  serving on a jury they were talking about right for public office well the commentary to the statute says that they were talking about precisely those sorts of fights so what this case w would lead the court to say that so it's a commitment commitment not conviction it would need the court to say that i believe that you don't that the to the extent that the civil rights restoration of sort of the right to vote is overcome by the