the court christian thayer on behalf of helen johnnie lawrence i'd like to reserve two minutes for a bottle and i'll watch my time all right mr lawrence was charged and convicted of quote disorderly conduct under a regulation that does not define disorderly conduct or otherwise provide guidance as to what is actually criminal conduct this court should vacate the conviction because the break elation of the portion of the regulation about disorderly conduct is void for vagueness let me understand your position if the very specifies a b c d applied to disorderly conduct does your well i would submit that there is still some concerns with this statute it for example or with this regulation i apologize subsection a says an unusual noise is prohibited and that is entirely subjective and  wording in this subsections but should the court determine that the statute could be construed reasonably that way there would still be the lack of notice problem because we don't know what subsection mr lawrence was actually charged under given the citation what it says disorderly conduct on the citation yes and so what and then he he's the one who submitted a probable cause statement with what's worse the lack of notice the government actually submitted the probable cause statement in response to the motion to dismiss and the problem with the lack of notice that there was no subsection identified is that mr lawrence walked in a trial having no idea which theory the government was going to pursue and indeed at the beginning of the trial the government said it could prove any of the theories that simply citing the regulation was enough to cover a b c or d it's a pity offense yes and so petty offenses are governed by insufficient here because it just says disorderly conduct and moving quickly back to the reason that that is an unconstitutionally vague crime is that there's only one reason the interpretation of the statute that it that interpretation it would make it completely superfluous and in redundant for the statute to say loitering disorderly conduct and other if they all have the exact same meaning why would the regulation say three distinct think the problem is that a b c and d need to as under the overstrained even under isn't it reasonable to say that because even under the government's interpretation i think it was the district courts as well the regulation prohibits you could read it to say that the regulation prohibits loitering that creates a loud or unusual noise not creating a loud or unusual noise by loitering so why couldn't you read it that way because i don't think that's what the regulations plain language says and the district court actually held that only disorderly conduct and other conduct were defined by a b c n d yeah but i don't have to agree with the district  i think the government's there is a little less clear whether it's relying on the district court's reading or an order and it's also included i mean you have we're faced with a situation where you may have a reading and it's one that could be credited but if there is this other credible reading then we land in the world of constitutional avoidance so we have two judges there we're going to have three here take a look at it and we have you in the government each presumably reasonable individuals interpreting this statute coming out two different ways so why doesn't your client lose them because of the doctrine of constitutional avoidance because this court and the supreme court has said you will not rewrite a statute to avoid the constitution if there are plausible reasonable interpretations absolutely but here it just wouldn't make sense that a regulation  loitering that obstruction but it could be disorderly conduct that is impeding little performance i mean i don't view them as having the exact same meaning at all they are all there and they can be proved by any one of the four but they're not necessarily the same thing at all i understand the court's position and so i'd like to move to the noticed argument because you agree that if if we disagree with you on that then we don't really address the facial and as applied challenges so i think there are still problems but the notice issue would be our main issue and so the notice issue we talked about this briefly at what point did your client give the probable cause statement the record is unclear the first time the probable cause statement appears in to attach to the government's response to the motion to dismiss the first motion to dismiss which was about a month before the trial and and what time what's the it when should he have gotten it once the authority that you have that he should have gotten it earlier where that wasn't sufficient at that point well actually the insufficiency of the notice is that the citation or the probably cause statement don't identify a subsection well that's where a citation what's the authority that says you need more than what was here for the psycho yes you are if this court's decision and roe and in that case that the  notice was more deficient in a row absolutely there was no date even however but it is the same problem because though we have a date and a regulation and the words disorderly conduct in the fight taishan that doesn't give mr lawrence notice of is it a b c or d theories or as this that we have no idea what the elements were that the government before going walking into this trial and even the moment before the first witness started testifying we had no idea what legal theory the government was pursuing under and the government said right before the trial that it could go under a b c or d because it had cited the regulation in this in the fight taishan and that's not sufficient notice mr lawrence should not be required to track down and investigate all of these theories because the government can just choose which one it like that and even well after the testimony even statute violated without specifying a relevant subsection and without including any other facts such as date time or location here i think what you i'm asking you it seems like the citation included disorderly conduct is that correct yes as well as the date yes is that correct yes the time yes and the location of the incident yes ok so i guess i guess my question is in the context of a petty offense why isn't this information sufficient for the constitutional notice why isn't it adequate first i would know that there's no difference in accountability afforded by the procedures used to obtain an indictment information or complaint so i guess i'm just asking why isn't the sufficient in light of our case law that we have here because it's not our issue is not with the procedure your honor it which is absolute citations are lesser procedural protection it's substantive that the content of the notice was not sufficient and so are is your best case yes you're ok thank you thank you i just wanted to note that your time has expired but i will be giving you some time for may please the court bill read for the united states impeding or disrupting a government employee in the official performance of duties where you tell the employee that you're going to expletive her up and leave town is not unconstitutionally vague when this occurs on federal property in bryce's court found that this regulation involving the same impeding or disrupting language was not unconstitutionally vague mr lawrence's claim that disorderly conduct in this regulation is unconstitutionally vague on its face hinges on his argument that the list of odd the itemized list of prohibitive conduct in the regulation does not apply to his case because of the rule of the last antecedent i guess i do have a question why wouldn't the term conduct be rendered basically supra superfluous under your reading of the regulation and since the regulation would then be prohibiting both disorderly conduct and other contact and then  under this regulation that it is designed to control certain conduct on federal property is what we're talking about in my response to your honor's question as to  when it's unclear he had it before trial though the district court correctly found out i'd submit that there's no clear air with that and in fact the record shows that he he had to have used this statement of probable cause and before he had coun or i don't know if he had counsel but he was he was filing pro se defense motions where he quoted the verbiage from the statement of probable cause the alleged verbiage that he was convicted of of uttering to this social security employee and he also identified the two employees by name the the victim if you will and the witness to it so in the district court found that he had it before trial the statement of probable cause are both dated june twenty eighth that is correct on the both dated the same day but it is unclear when he received the statement of probable cause but but it's at least it is clear he had it in the district court correctly found out smith there's no clear error and that finding that he had it before trial and he used it in his defense that we had plenty of notice adequate notice to provide him what about the argument even if he had the statement of probable cause which recites the narrative what about the argument that he was entitled to know terms of notice what subsection of the regulation the government was proceeding under thank you out of the state of probable calls does not set forth the exact subsection however of the statement probable cause it uses the verbiage sums from that subsection where it accused him of threatening conduct to quote interrupted the performance of social s s a employees and identifies both of them and disrupted normal operations at the facility so that's clearly anywhere else and certainly an individual of ordinary intelligence would be on notice that this type of conduct which interrupts and disrupt the performance of government of government employees in their  duties would be prohibited and it certainly does not present opportunities for arbitrary and foresman less or any other questions about this matter ninety the government said it could proceed on any theories of the government didn't even interpret its probable cause statement as cabin ing it to subsection c the government said we could prove anything and indeed elicited testimony that maybe he was loud when he said allegedly said this statement and the fact that the government wanted to have it both ways is now an appeal of saying no this was super clear because the p c statement but now but before it wanted to keep its options open before trial to see which theory it could prove a b c or d after her the testimony that's the prejudice here and that's why notice is important this is not a high requirement to make the citation or the government clearly identify its theory under the  subsection before trial is not a high burden and the government should let me let me ask you about just the receipt and the timing of the receipt of the notice approach because the government says that it's pretty clear that even though we don't know the precise date on which you received it pretty clear that he did have a before trial do you agree with that yes i agree the record shows it was about a month before trial but what's in it legally that was still insufficient thank you thank you thank you thank both counsel for the argument this morning united states versus lawrence