case where you know mrs coo saw and worked with sources security within the destruction and she had the bad judgment to issue to benefit verification letters that contained a false address for her from a friend of her husband and they were submitted in an immigration proceeding and she knew that she was convicted and the question is you know what is the standard how do we interpret the skyline the guideline was passed as part of the sarbanes oxley act and its intention was to provide additional punishment for persons who either altered substantial numbers of records or records that were essentially either essential or on usually important to an underlying invest investigation and that's just simply the record doesn't show that here my understanding is that the district court referred to the fact and i did states worth of matthew which of course is from our search yes in determining whether there was an obstruction of justice enhanced and what way did the court go wrong by referring to math well the math use case actually shows why the court is wrong and the matthews case is the only case published on this particular guideline  subsection in mathews the defendant was a v a nurse who was treating a patient in intensive care the patient had been scheduled for transfer to be stepped down to a lower level of care and he didn't who knows what he was doing but he st he didn't record any vitals and then he just recorded some false vitals as a result the patient was transferred and then he died when confronted the defendant went in and added additional records so that the court properly found that these were essential records they were central for two reasons they were life and death they were related to a person's medical care and they were and nd one he altered the records a nd time who knew there was an investigation and he he have it didn't even have any weight to the hearing officer the hearing officer didn't even really consider it she was like well this isn't enough she asked for more st of all there were two denials in this case the st and i'll she denied because she found he wasn't a good moral character when he came back again with a nd letter which was inconsistent with the st letter you know that she was like well why don't you have more to show you've lived here for this long she asked for what she asked for utility statements things like that but that's when that's when your was going to be helpful i'm sure she thought it was going to be helpful obviously she did but that's not that has i don't think that the guideline is not about what the defendant intended it's about the nature of the records so they so if it's a nature of the records essential i would say that's part of the equation the other part of the equation is to look at the nature of the records in and of themselves and if you if you know it and so what are you what are we looking for it i think i think we're looking for i mean i think we can look at a lot of different examples i think didn't and the guideline is not limited to that but we're talking about medical records that are essential to their essential both to the investigation to guilt or innocence what she provided was something that was just a piece of the puzzle it was it was that it was a piece of evidence that went to whether he he actually lived in the district maybe maybe i didn't understand the fact that ms landau are the effect of them i so straighten me out i thought that the original thing that was done was to falsify the address so that he lived in sacramento rather than in los angeles and that this short the time that he and the tiriel he that he would have to wait for these proceedings that's what that thought certain that that that it seems to me that that makes a huge difference because that he's cheating the system materially well he definitely cheated the system and they definitely did there's no and she she she played if it's about that but i think the question is did that this this piece of evidence just was not particularly probative and what does that have to help justice it certainly no no to the russian your honor you're right but that's the basis of the conviction i think what i'm saying is that the guideline require something more for the actual two levels she already got three levels for substantial interference with justice she offense level for obstruction the question is what is the nature of this record and i mean i would just like to point out one other thing sources security doesn't even rely on the state address they you know but for example you don't get your benefits at your address anymore you get your benefits but do they rely on it do they do what it what how does it function within the social security administration what's the evidence that the social security administration does not rely on there's not much there's not any evidence that it does well you know i if i may i i would like to just address i'm running out of time and i'd like to address the abuse of trust ok issue briefly are i don't want to so again this she did not hold a professional a decision making perfect that involve professional discretion and again i just like to refer the court to the harm after decision which is cited in my brief and also the evans decision i think that this is this is a case where the the court conflated the concept of she was trusted she you know her employer expected her to perform honestly withholding a position of trust and the type of work that she did did not involve is not she doesn't have a position of trust in relation to the government the she did have a special skill and i conceded that but she got it if you recall she got both the adjustments for supervisory role and for why was she interpreted in the st place th she was a friend of the husband and i mean he was the husband's friend and she was the translator was it who was she what was she were she being paid i don't believe so she didn't get any money for any of this now she just but she came in and she translated like a lot of times in immigration proceedings my understanding is the applicant brings their own translator and she brought he brought her and she translated ok let me ask you one more thing i know that your time may be given the extra minute because i was curious during the set this is a big tough sentence for what happened here and so i was just curious the judge during the course of sentencing said that he was going to make can example of her i appropriate well you know i guess not really not really but you know your honor he did say that you know he felt he needed he wanted to send a message to the because they were because i did that's what it is i've got one more question a position of trust or are we looking only at a position of trust as a translator or inner social security administration as a claims rep i think you can look at both  the government argued only for position of trust as in the social security administration but the court of course can affirm on appeal so i addressed the alternative argument but i think under i i mean as a translator she's clearly not the court has held that a lawyer who presents false asylum claims doesn't hold a position of trust so the lawyer doesn't i don't see how a translator does not employed by the government she wasn't employed by that she was not let's hear from the government in morning may it please the court miriam him and for the united states i'd like to clarify three things that came up during the appellant's argument and in the reply brief to make sure that the court does not have any misperception the st is on the argument about whether the records were especially probative the defendant has been arguing in the brief and in the argument today about the social security letters  produced the government's argument is that the social security electronic database records were especially probative not the letters that custodian produced well having a nd officer henderson didn't rely on the social security administration record dating he insisted on more for for determining what her dress his address was yes the officer did not find the letters adequate was concerned and asked for more as part of the investigation that ensued investigators ended up looking at these database records it's those database records that because so in altered in the internal database expecting that investigators might check them to verify her letters and that was the government's argument and the courts finding below it was about those database records which you can see that you are six and eight another point that the defendant made in her argument just now is that there is no evidence that as i say relies on its records that address that is not correct there was trial testimony that as i say were alive on its records of i trust in a number of ways including being able to contact claimants and also being able to determine the correct amount of benefits and you can see that at a c r thirty six to thirty seven but rd point that i'd like to clarify is regarding the abuse of trust adjustment at the time of the offense miska saw and worked for s  a as a claims representative not a service representative and let me ask you this did her position as a claims representative have anything to do with the work she was doing as an  interpreter her position as a claims are presented of does not formally have anything to do with her role as an interpreter the way in which indeed she did she use your position as a claims representative to represent that she had some sort of special knowledge or information that she was passing on or as you just produced these records without any indication that they came from her as a claims representative at  other words is she trying to use your position as leverage or more weight for credibility when she's presenting her information about the address when she was acting as an interpreter in the interviews she did not use her position at social security to try to great gain more credibility she did use her position at social security to produce the letters that she provided to assess the end but then put those into his application and saying anything you think we ought to focus on it's your role as a providing the address is corrupting the database and so on that's the issue here not the fact that she was a translator well the government has made both arguments and the court below found both her role of social security and her role as an interpreter as b c is for applying it use of trust adjustment so those are both being reviewed here under plain error the government is arguing both the government's primary argument is that she abused her position that social security because she was required to evaluate evidence before updating records instead she falsified records knowing that they were false the government is making an if we weren't persuaded by the translator aspect in terms of the position of trust but were by the s s a portion that would be sufficient certainly in her position of trust is she was a claims representative word where does the professional or managerial discretion come in and that as a claims representative she had several discretionary responsibilities one of those that was determining payment rates which require judgment another was evaluating the validity and acceptability of evidence prior to updating records so part of her job was updating records but she was supposed to evaluate whether evidence was adequate before doing that in this case she updated the records without proper proof and so she was abusing that discretion that she had in her position she she she wasn't she didn't get any money for th she had as i am as i read the record and i'm maybe wrong but she had an otherwise exemplary record that right there's no indication that she made money for this she did generally have an exemplary record although there was some information in the record that she had one other instance at social security of assisting someone who was an acquaintance yup and the she was armenian is that's right and and the person that she was helping was armenian was a friend of hers yes and that's part of the reason she was able to exist as an actor was her motive that was her motive was to help her friend and this is a very stiff sentence  it seems to me would be for what she did because this is not the normal abuse of trust the normal abuse of trust is the person in the bank who's used to who has all of responsibility for money takes it that i mean that's the classic situation this is and that it is a substantial sentence there were also reasons for that she was a government employee who abused a position of trust she also went to make an example of her but she made it clear that he was concerned about deterrence in this case and i think when deterring whom you're supposed to sentence the individual before you based on the factors in the statute and the guidelines that's true and i think he absolutely will and not not not to send a message the publicly necessarily all right the judge described factors that were specific to her that he was taking into account but he also was talking about general deterrence which is something that he's permitted to take into account and he said that the sentence was necessary to deter obstruction of proceedings use of positions of trust and those are things that the judge can take into account but again with for her specifically she had abused her position of social security and she had also demonstrated this contempt for the  law by by lying on the stand at trial and just throughout this process her abuse of her position of social security did not involve a claim it involved her manipulating the records in social security that's correct it did not involve a claim but part of her job was accessing and maintaining the social security records and so she altered those social security records that was took advantage of her access that's  trust to adjust his claims it's the trust regarding the claims but it's also the trust about evaluating evidence to make sure it's adequate before she changes information in the social security database argues she had at least two kinds of discretion one of those was about what kind of payments someone was eligible for under a claim absolutely but the nd was she was required to evaluate evidence to determine its  but let's just say hypothetically that within the community that she belonged there was a great deal of recent convictions for fraud involving government entities and government programs would it be proper for a district judge to take that into account in quotes and sending a message in quotes even though she had not been involved in any of these other types of crimes for example of what drug wheelchairs lots of that lots and lots and lots millions of dollars worth well known criminal offenses in that community versus all the individual not the community but would it be a lawful for the district judge to take that into account in his three thousand and fifty three dollars a evaluation if your honor is asking whether it would be lawful for him to target a particular community that appears to be very involved in crime  but if it's a particular community involved that is being targeted for that friday i don't believe that targeting a particular community with sentences would be appropriate but generally finding that a particular time thank you your honor i would like to start with your hypothetical my answer to that question would be no because if you do that st of all you know if you were part of a ring and there was a conspiracy and you know you had a situation like that you know you could talk about the whole you could you could still be bit sentencing the individual but to treat a defendant harshly because there's a lot of fraud related crime in a particular community is essentially punishing the to put for the actions of the group not what she's done the current aspect can't relate to the larger group no it can't and in fact this it wouldn't hear because you know she was an employee and it just i don't see how that would even work practically i'm not saying yeah no you know i'm just i'm correct me i want to just met mention a couple of things so from my reading of the record and the testimony of the social security administration employees who testified klein's representative in a service representative had the same duties in terms of abuse of trust i really went back to the guideline application notes in this case and her position is much more similar to that of a bank teller who doesn't have a position of trust it's not just that your complaint again the fact that she was trusted to do such certain things is not a position of trust a bank teller is trusted with money or trusted to update information much like much like mrs this when in a database if a complete if a of a customer comes in and says i need to change my address you change your out you change your address in the but how is that different from the social security administration apply they have the same access but the guidelines tell us bank tellers are not to not hold the position of trust but the bank auditors to the bank auditors do or a bank executive does a lawyer does well you know i mean that's that's a situation she just doesn't meet those categories i mean again i are going to refer back to contrary which is the prison cook case she was trusted and i believe she smuggled  remember what she did but she smuggle drugs or did something like that no position of trust and i see i'm out of time i'm sorry we don't have more time but we thank you both for your argument and the case just argu