and this is a hearing held to determine whether the court will exercise its discretion to have to allow mr richmond to represent himself on appeal so let me take first appearance limitations that would affect your ability to participate fully and knowingly in the proceedings today you know you were in the influence of any drug or alcohol known for you  are you able to hear me and respond freely so in response to your request to represent yourself in this appeal the court has authorized me to conduct this hearing to make sure that you understand the yourself if your request is knowing intelligent and unequivocal and not intended to weigh the proceedings in determining whether the court will allow you to represent yourself the court will than the parts of this proceeding that you represent yourself  so i know i notice that you raise you filed a brief in your last appeal in which i had to lead you to represent yourself to the extent of filing a brief in a case where you're a refund and you're saying that your council didn't find any issues so you filed a brief so i'd be curious whether any of the issues that you are wanting to raise in this are similar to or identical mean i don't mean to insult your intelligence i just want to make sure that we cover everything so we have a record so first of all rhonda the first the first point is that an appeal is different from a trial the proceedings occur  only through written submissions the briefs and those briefs must comply with specific court rules and if you represent yourself you will be expected to comply with those roles and your appeal could be dismissed if you do not comply  and that is that or an appeal you must obtain and review the transcript of the trial proceedings and identify the potential legal errors committed troil the issues an appeal are limited to addressing identifying appropriate if you use requires legal knowledge and sophisticated analytic ability if you fail to identify a legal issue you may be barred from raising their issue again you understand that you are you are also required to support any assertion of error with legal authority that means you must be able to research and understand the provisions of the constitution federal statutes and rules and the cases from the role to understand that better the year also strategic determinations come into play in the appeal for example you might identify a large number of issues but not all of which have substantial wherever it takes judgment and experience to know how many issues you should raise and how to release them if you raise too many you may underlie undermine the strains of your strongest issue or issues by hiding them among a number of weaker issues understand that concept is a is often it is difficult just to understand the analytic components of the issues on appeal but even if you do that it is extremely difficult little difficult to convey that understanding persuasively in writing to judges who have only limited amount of time to read and study the briefs warriors and especially the lawyers who we appoint on our to handle our pell cases spent years developing a perfecting the skills but if you represent yourself you will have to accomplish the same thing without all the training and experience you understand that if the there are also additional difficulties she may encounter in representing yourself on appeal your access to legal materials may not be as extensive and free as a lawyer  would have you already mentioned that you don't have access to a time where you may or may not have some assistance in the facility where you reside and if you are working with another inmate or library assistant there is no guarantee that you'll continue to have that assistance available to you finally it will be more difficult for you to communicate with poor or and it would be for a lawyer you understand all those difficult in addition to the written submissions the brief the court also allows oral arguments of twenty ten to twenty minutes in some cases the oral argument is not particularly for the parties to ensure that the judges  understand the arguments and the facts it's also an opportunity for the judges to ask specific questions about the proper disposition of the appeal we are a criminal division it is represented by counsel the court often but not always little bit about the attorney client relationship here and ask some matters about the discussions that have occurred and certainly this request to suffer representation and the issues of the inappropriate for the government to participate in this hearing for the rectory major of the hearing which i assume will be quite brief but i think will give me some important information to