and this case is the kind of case that's just right in the heartland of what we like to do arguing thinking about how criminal convictions affect immigration status and how they work i told clients quite frequently and i tell you i tell other lawyers more talking about immigration consequence of criminal convictions that virginia statutes are kind of like this broad fishing net that they're designed to catch up as many people as they can rightly or wrongly to get the conviction have brought jefferson in there that tradition that's how they write their laws unfortunately congress doesn't do the same when they're writing the immigration laws and the immigration laws are much more focused the scope of behavior that and that implicates an aggravated felony is much more narrow this case really comes down to i think really what the the strongest point in all my arguments in all about this case there was no court order in this case compelling very sadly arguing well of course there was an order of course there was an order there's no bond order the only thing that's in there is this appearance a trial form which all defendants are signing so yes i promise to be in court on this day that's the notice requirement remember virginia is not looking to figure out what's the way that we're going to make this fit into the aggravated felony definition if he doesn't show up for court what did he plead guilty to a felony for  pled guilty for feeling to appear in court when notice as required is what the virginia with the virginia conception says required by law it just simply says as required it doesn't matter as what  the general statute about the code work well your honor i think as required could be by the court but there's still the court doesn't issue the order or who else would require issues orders that aren't sometime i member the parent for instance it is routine that attorney's fees are assessed on a losing party after an appeal it doesn't require a signed order by judge it is never the petitioner pled guilty to a felony for disregarding and order it was issued by the court so i'm i'm having your argument doesn't clear here that i can see and you haven't directly addressed it with the facts i'd disagree with the foundation of the question i do not believe that he failed to appear pursuant t case there was no clerk's mind order the only thing it's in there is that appearance at trial court which is signed by my client it wasn't signed by any other clerk it wasn't signed by a judge it wasn't signed by judicial officer and we're talking about the circumstance of a civic approach to be a felony the court the that he was told what his court was now whether that's like a clerk or whether that was by the judge we don't know  i'm having difficulty where you can see that a court order can be something signed by a court official which court official is not a judge you can see that i did you just say in this case there was nothing like that yes both of those orders were issued by judge alfred of the arlington circuit court on a seventeenth of two thousand and four which was about thirteen days after may fourth which was the date that he was to appear in court it's hard to say approach and that evidence is absent in this case you think this is your strongest argument i don't think i can actually argue that the underlying charge that he ultimately big could guilty to was the the other arguments are just as weak they're weak they're weaker arguments than this one this argument i think is pretty strong because it's the department's burden to prove it was a court order and the department only showed what's in the join appendix they only they didn't show up on the order they didn't attach a transcript of the grand jury the term day the indictment day where the judge might have said from the bench a mr shall not do you have to be in court on the fourth that's not in the evidence which suffices to establish that point you get evicted beyond a reasonable doubt happens all the time the circumstance pacific approach requires them to show more than not they need to show the circumstances of the underlying conviction especially when they're dealing with a case that's thirteen years old when he comes to the immigration judge initially i'm sorry i don't entirely mean to co opt your argument but you might want to focus on that at least initially absolutely and you're correct that he focuses on just one of the components and th the three that the board found were circumstance specific are pursuant to a court order again virginia law and the record in this case establish there was a court order i think i think the question was the factor just ticked them off that gets us satisfies the court order component it was sort of been talking about them but i think the question years tell us specifically that's a factual proof of what you're saying correct in the indictment he under the circumstance pacific approach and the plea agreement indicates that he pled guilty to those four things and also underscoring it is there that as required under he failed to appear as required under virginia law and there's no indication that he would be required by anything other than a court order any questions of the court has any ok and if the court has no other questions thank you thank you very much i think our i think our discussions here kind of lead to one of the points are tried to raise in the brief about the circumstance pacific approach and you can't aggregate factors to come up with a court order into can aggregate component i don't think you can in  fact of the failure to appear on may fourth of two thousand for your arguments going to essentially the weight of the evidence not that you can't aggregate factors and in the abstract dealt with the federal sphere to appear statute not not a state statute in applying whether the fierce the only theory to appear in federal court applied to the aggravated felony definition that's kind of a different angle strongest argument i'm still don't know fine know what it is i know your general attack but in this case while just the fact that the bond is referenced is not sufficient they can't for the same argument write what you're saying go strong we've heard about  arguments you say that what she's saying or strongest argument say the government's wrong in what she just presented to us what was she wrong they can't prove that he thought to appear pursuant to a court order you can't rely on the conviction for fair to appear in virginia because the virginia statute only requires failing to appear when when notice or when required that's the strongest argument you can't rely on the conviction records the indictment the police you can't rely on those because that because ridge is can't rely on the uni as a matter of what we look at we can't look at them but they are insufficient to make the point the government's trying to make under the government under the category of all those approaches you can look at everything you can look at the indictment you can look at the plea agreement you can look at that and when you're talking about the circumstance pacific approach everything's on the table it's everything being on the table the government still fails and tell us the the transcript this is not part of the record and inferring it is is not is not appropriate when you talk about the different approaches that are used in immigration court there's no proof because now  virginia statute said peer to peer pursuant to a court order i'm blown out of court because he pled guilty to that but the virginia statute says as required that's all it's not your argument was that it was basically it's insufficient the evidence is insufficient as a matter of law it is you which is good