good morning everybody survived the elements this morning we frequently have district judges in our circuit assist us in our work and they do so despite having a full caseload  their district so this is extra work for no extra pay and we appreciate his willing to assist us this week and tough and helpful to with the cases that we're going to hear this morning we read your briefs the authority cited in your briefs and we looked at at least portions of the record so in the limited time that's available to he should feel still free to get straight to the heart of your argument whatever you're not able to address in that limited time of course that otherwise addressed in your brace will will still be before us since abetted to us on the  briefs please do not treat the red light as aspirational when the red light chime please pay attention then it is time to wrap it up in the event that you're answering a question for the court from the court may please the core like to serve three minutes for a bottle but i think the fundamental issue in this case is whether the district court had authority or jurisdiction to enter the order  vacate partially make it the final forfeiture order and so then the next question before we get to that question i wonder whether your client has standing to complain about it whether the district court had  or not and let me tell you where i'm coming from ok so in two thousand and ten i believe an order was entered in this case where this co just missed an appeal from the final forfeiture order by your client and ruled that your client forfeited whatever interest he had other property listed and the final forfeiture order when the preliminary forfeiture order was entered and for that reason this court ruled that your client lacks standing to complain about anything in the final forfeiture order now here we are almost nine years later and the district court has vacated the invested your client have any interest in any of these properties including to to show companies who are here to talk about today it would seems to me that that that order regardless of what happened in the other case the two thousand and ten order it sync to me was law of the case that your client has no interest in any of these properties and therefore it would seem to follow cannot complain about the vacant tour of the final forfeiture order any more than he could come out of the shit any more than he could complain about the entry of the final forfeiture order what am i missing i mean your very expertly set out the facts and the  very awkward situation this case is in i think that the term standing is kind of a generic term and i believe i understand there was a previous order but i think that was based on mr armadale was filing a motion himself in this case it was the government the filed the motion so i don't think it's really the same situation so the government before mr amodeo did anything in this particular second of the case it was the government the filed the motion to partially vacate the final forfeiture order and then the court ruled in the bill that it and he was served with that motion was you know i believe so and he didn't respond i think i don't recall i believe the court may have ruled very i mean i don't think you require i mean it obviously would be better but i don't think you're required but i think if i can can supplement the record if i find out more information about that but i think that no matter what this is standing is different than whether he filed an opposition to the pending motion i think anybody that i agree with that ok so but so the preliminary forfeiture order is in is final and it was entered october second two thousand and eight and i'm reading from the order that was entered in this court on march twenty sixth two thousand and ten right oh and it says this appeal has dismissed for lack of jurisdiction that is your client's appeal from the properties referenced in the november eighteenth two thousand and nine final forfeiture order cordingley i'm a day old lack standing to challenge the november eighteenth two thousand and order in this court like stress to action over his appeal from think certainly i'm following what you're saying but i think that that is a different situation because and here you're faced with the government filing the motion let me ask you a question though the only way that i could see that there could possibly be standing here is if the district courts vacate or the forfeiture of the final forfeiture order somehow reversed did your client with an interest in the property if it did that then i think your client has standing right that i government specifically asked that the court do the act and the order does not appear to do that so my question for you is number one did is it your position that the court did that and if so where does that come from and number two if the court did not do that then how do you get to standing those again very good questions i think that the the four questions that were given to us to answer and miss appeal by the court they raise some of the points that you just said and so they do so that at least raise an issue of whether mr amodeo somehow did get the property back so i think that does implicate at least on some level whether or not he has an interest or do you contend that he got his interest in those two companies i think that it's left in limbo that again i think it's i think it's really better to focus rather than focusing on standing but greenwood judge rosenberg if if he didn't then you don't have stated i think that's an open question because that was again that when the government filed a motion that really was not based what i'm trying to understand from this record is how the they could sure of the final forfeit your order affects your client in other words what's it to y and if we were to rule as we did nine years ago that no interest reverts to your client if you're satisfied if that's what we row as long as you know that no interest civil cases more than criminal cases they don't and no no no no article three of the constitution grants federal courts jurisdiction over cases and controversies the constitution establishes the requirement for standing what we're talking about is standing as a matter of article three this is constitutional standing that applies to any case or controversy criminal civil doesn't matter you disagree with that no but i think again i think the better focus would be on whether the court had jurisdiction to issue this order there this certainly is a pending case there are cases on the docket at the district court level erst have to figure out whether you have your client has standing to complain about whether it did or not i don't really think that's correct because i think a bigger problem is having a district court enter an order that doesn't have jurisdiction to answer if that's the case if you if you find that and that that cannot be appealed or otherwise reviewed because then you're left with a situation a problem with that is that's a question about whether the district court had the authority to do it but your client has appealed purported to appeal that order right and that raises a question of whether we have jurisdiction to entertain your appeal and that comes first doesn't it i think i'd have to say no because i think you can't have a situation i don't think it's a justice system where you have a district court that can i mean mr amodeo certainly part of this case is that he's a name party so we there's no question he's like a third party intervener he is part of this case and to have a court system where the district court can enter an order and if i not you know pursuant to a statute rule or whatever there must be reviewable so i think the problem is that if there is not standing here there wasn't standing in the district court either sell it there are two are there not to sort of subject matter jurisdictional types of issues that are lurking around this i think yes because this is so complicated and again i think that all stems from the government filing a motion that it did not have a proper basis because it said there was civil in nature which it was not because it's still part of the criminal case so when you when you have a situation where the motion itself is not base on any statute then it just the whole thing disintegrates and whoever there must be somebody that can what's not clear to me is why your client the best it is interest over ten years ago has any right to complain about it now answer you may respond to that yes right i fully comprehend what you're saying i just think that this court in terms of jurisdiction which is obviously a very fundamental part of the court system you have order from the district court and i think that that order is appealable i think this court can review that order and so a question would be how can they review that order and i think mr armadale is he's a name party to this case and he hit there's at good morning and even cream for the united states i may say may please the court the district court had the authority under rule sixty six do we need to get to that now you don't but let me ask you a question let's just say that that there's no jurisdiction and there's no standing let's just assume for the purposes of this question that that's the case is there is there some reason under sino cam why we should not decide the jurisdiction issue before we decide the standing issue i thinks senate camp is in opposite here because in the senate what you had was a situation where the district court initially was looking at different to dismiss the plaintiff's action so they all fell to ones to one side here you've got a question of the district court's jurisdiction to enter an order being raised by someone with no  issue on non marital yes ok that being the case didn't what didn't sign a cam hold that a court may decide not merits issues in any order that it deems appropriate do to some extent yes your honor that is what it held but the sit but the situation being very different where the the choices among them were were different bases to dismiss a plaintiff's action  here because essentially you've got a jurisdictional issue potentially if there are it to the extent there is one on either side i think the case law is clear you always start with standing well actually where is the case  that says you start with standing over jurisdiction well every time this court has looked at just using the forfeiture context claims in the ancillary proceeding the first inquiry is always does the does the party challenging the forfeiture have standing yes go ahead and say yes but do we have a case that says if you have if the district court lacks jurisdiction and the person challenging the jurisdiction lacks standing you still decide the standing you are required to decide standing first i don't know that we have a case but we also don't have that problem here because the court well we really have that problem though because if the district court didn't have jurisdiction in the first place that's the first problem right this debate and if if and of course in this case mr armadale did not challenge the jurisdiction originally but let's just assume for the sake of argument and this question that he did challenge the jurisdiction originally it even then that would still be the first question whether there is jurisdiction and who would challenge the jurisdiction make a suggestion to you miss green you please so there's article three questions about whether there's a case or controversy in two different courts here correct there's a question about whether there's a case or controversy in the district court that's within it's subject matter jurisdiction but there's also a question about whether we have a case or controversy in this court and before we would address whether the district court and subject matter jurisdiction over the action before it we would first ask whether we have jurisdiction whether we have a case or controversy and that the main question about that is whether mr ahmed a zero has standing to appeal the order of the district court and heard is it my stating it the way you understand you are you are and the answer to that question is no he lacks standing for two reasons one as you've already identified it's law of the case but secondarily it's also well established in this court and in many others that a defendant whose interest has been forfeited  order a forfeiture lacks standing to challenge any aspect of the ancillary present now it may be that we i think it would you agree judge rosenbaum's right that if we're just distinguishing between say an issue of just disability like standing and an issue of statutory jurisdiction site jurisdiction under section twelve ninety one  right right we could pick and choose in what order we want to address the us but but but the first question for any court is whether that court has jurisdiction i think that that's correct and the district court has jurisdiction by virtue of do we go to whether the district court has jurisdiction before we satisfy ourselves that we have jurisdiction you need you need not know i think there's i don't know can when i have a more fundamental question you say you need not can we can we even entertain a question about the district court's jurisdiction until we satisfy ourselves that we have jurisdiction no all right so let me ask you this if that is the reason why and we have case law suggests that where there are first let me ask you this would you agree that standing was also an issue before the district court absolutely ok so if we have case law that shows that where you've got two issues of this nature they both sort of are considered to be issues that the district court level but then in that circumstance under sino county we could determine high either one first that we deem appropriate perhaps you can again i come back to the fact that you don't need to make that determination here because it is clear that that the defendant does lack standing in the district court and  in this court and it is equally clear that the district court had the jurisdiction and the authority to enter the order that it did look let me ask you about that you're going to go into this sixty b authority of the district court right but this was a criminal proceeding right correct so let's let's assume that you're wrong about the sixty be that and let's also assum that the district court was without authority ok but as a practical matter where are we then let's let's say we assume that we have jurisdiction let's assume and there that was decided that amodeo had no interest correct so this is all an academic exercise it is and i point also to twenty one u s c eight fifty three age disposition of property because to the extent that that the defendant believes there's some confusion about the fact that we have no final order but we do have a plan in every order of forfeiture the statute speaks to do you really care if amodeo gets the property back that you don't want for whatever reason there may be some liability associated with it do you really care if he gets the property back i mean why not give it to him let him have all the liabilities i care not in the because it is important whether mr armadale gets any interest back in the property to me anyway i think if he gets an interest back in the property then we have standing and it doesn't matter about the law of the case because these are things that happened after we entered the other order so in the district court it appeared to me that you did argue that it reverts to him but now i understand you to be arguing that it just sort of i mean disappears into thin air i guess it doesn't revert to him and nobody has an interest i it i just want to make sure i understand what your position is what is your position with respect to what happens to the interest of the government's interests that has now been vacated and that had previously been forfeited from  armadale does he receive it back does he have any interest at all what is the status sure so let me let me address the facts on that first and then and then the law as judge moore says this is truly academic next the as the record shows was it minister italy dissolved back in two thousand and eight and acme in two thousand and nine so what we're talking about are companies that ceased to exist shortly after or shortly before depending on which company the with with some type of interest in the company even if the company you know isn't really doing very much right now then mr armadale has standing i would agree but that's not what the order does while the government indicated its willingness to have that happen the only thing that happened was the preliminary the funds or the final order was partially vacated as to next the an acme and the the preliminary order stood as to all of the corporations and when you read that with eight fifty three h it makes clear that when when an asset can't be transferred to the government for value the defendant's interest is extinguished and he can never have it back ok so now let me ask you another question if if we think there's no jurisdiction then how would other courts know that they cannot in similar situations vacate the forfeiture if we don't address it here well again that's i think that's a merits determination and if there is no standing ok but i'm asking you to assume that there is standing  this even you can assume there's not standing but even so let me ask you how would how would courts other courts know that they they don't have jurisdiction and they can't exercise jurisdiction to enter  forfeiture order in circumstances such as these if we don't address it if and if no one can address it well there are there are certainly other instances where district courts do things that end up not being review again the court did have jurisdiction here so that's ok but i'm saying to assume that the district court did not have jurisdiction how would that i mean obviously it's not an issue right now but let's say that other courts look at this case and decide that they can vacate forfeitures under similar circumstances and were of the opinion and i'm just speaking for myself i'm not intending to suggest anybody else may or may not feel this way but let's say they were of the opinion that there was no jurisdiction for the district court to do this i mean how does this stop happening if the only parties that have some kind of a live interest are the only party that has a live interest in this is the government and we can't we don't the authority i mean i think we do have the authority but if we don't address if we don't choose to address the jurisdictional issue before addressing the standing issue i don't know how to answer that question except to say that it would fall into the same category of other cases where you might look at a record and and want to change something but not have that issue right for review and again there are there are a number of circumstances if i'm right because if the issue isn't ripe for review that means at some point it's likely to become ripe for review or at least it's a case or controversy in the in the idea of well at some point will become a case or controversy i suppose but in this situation in this circumstance there's no way that this can ever be challenged ever why does it need to be challenge there is no third party won't intelligent don't you think it's problematic when eight court exercises power it doesn't have i mean that seems like a big article three problem to me i have i think it's abundantly clear that this court had jurisdiction to do right b your argument relies on it having had jurisdiction but if it doesn't have jurisdiction why is that not a problem because it's doing things that it doesn't have the power to do because no one was harmed because there was no third party whose interest was adversely impacted mr crane let's assume that the district court have the authority to do is it any less of a problem if we don't have jurisdiction to study anything about it but we go ahead and do it  i'm in other words if there's a problem of a district court doing something without authority isn't there also a problem when an appellate court does something when it lacks authority because the appellant like standing yes it's just compounds the problem in essence and again you come back to the situation but that's only if that's only if sino can does not allow the court to decide the jurisdictional issue first isn't that right you know either way divided everyone would like an answer to that question gets briefed and then we find out that something's happened that makes the case  in other words we no longer have a case or controversy in the supreme court and the supreme court has to dismiss the case right it doesn't it doesn't go though trying to determine whether the court of appeals or the district court jurisdiction who dismisses the case because the case before it has become under article three right correct so let me just make sure i mean they would have to be because the court found it didn't i mean when the court when the court denied the motion for reconsideration it did so solely on standing and there is no question as to the court's jurisdiction to deny reconsideration both are on so both of these questions are on appeal and both of them were before the district court right yes yes ok thank you we have and we have to figure out though judge doing something that they don't have the authority to do and sometimes district court judges do these things but the and she doesn't want them to continue to do that so can i suggest  a solution because judge pryor thinks that we don't have jurisdiction so can we say that we don't have jurisdiction but by the way not as a holding we don't type of authority at least we have something out there to guide district court judges who may go a little rogue on relying on sixty be civil provision can we do that you know why not well i mean i guess meddling yes i have to say that standing is a very complicated issue that i know the courts are fascinated with and and i had some experience the d c circuit on issues a standing immunise i'm very familiar with that but i think that judge rolls mom is on to something because i believe that the fundamental issue of jurisdiction needs to be addressed and then the courts like your court and ripeness and those types of things but but you have to have the chance to discuss how the many court opinions as i'm sure you know discuss those very important issues but that the first step is jurisdiction to be able to and instead of addressing the jurisdiction of the district court we would first have to address our own jurisdiction that is whether the case before us has become moot and if it has we would have to dismiss wouldn't we we've been dismissed the appeal i mean i think that the courts right opinions discussing why something is moot so they have jurisdiction the right people now the wiser we know opinions about music just be simple yes but  but when they do it they're dismissing it when a court of appeals dismisses a case is moot it's dismissing the appeal is it's not and it has to address that before the addresses the jurisdiction of the district court but but i do i believe i understand what you're saying but that's wrong i'm just i think there's a distinction between a court of appeals ruling on a district court order which is what is really a issue here and then in the course of ruling on that discussing standing and you have i believe you have the jurisdiction to rule on the district court order and then say make your whatever you do you know yes but only if we if we have jurisdiction over the people isn't that right i think the jurisdiction comes from the court order this is a court order being on appeal under twelve ninety one i think you have to have better see actually heal itself it's not just because your client like standing to complain about it that we don't isn't that right like i said i believe that the courts of appeals written countless numbers of opinions discussing standing mootness etc so they must have had some basi coming today to assist us in addition to your brief thank you will go to now to the second