may please the court john gotti for the united states district court erred when it found that puerto rico is not a territory or possession of the united states for purposes of eighteen u s c section twenty four twenty one with three principal reasons binding precedent and they are consistent with congress is seated in for the matter when congress first passed the mann act in one thousand ten that passage was accompanied by two reports from the house of representatives and from the senate and both of them said the same thing stated that it was looking at the intent of the framers of the sherman act and said that if they were aware of the changes that occurred in puerto rico in one nine hundred fifty two how would they have intended to have treated puerto rico and they looked at the strawman act and they said that the sherman act ceases to apply to local affairs muncy territory becomes a state that puerto rico as a result of the one nine hundred fifty two act experiences an autonomy that's comparable with the states and that there was no countervailing intent within the within the sherman ac history and purposes of this that can be distinguished from those of the sherman act in a way it's relevant under court over you know if i heard why the rationales put forward include over didn't apply here equally  the court of appeals did not recognize such an intention and the second mode of interpretation that was employed in cordova was this idea that puerto rico had very robust antitrust laws at the time that the cordova addition with respect to children which you would you imagine there's no dispute that section twenty four twenty three applies to puerto rico you haven't heard defendant make that argument there's no holding to the contrary this would create a gap in enforcement for trafficking of child sexual abuse excuse me for trafficking of child sexual abuse and for trafficking broader review dissonance between the application of the lesser included statute and section twenty four twenty one which is the greater that there are differences in the  preserve that congress has made a roll only for interstate and has left the intrastate by itself and then the question we have here is for this purpose is it really what we like that is a or not and rios back in one nine hundred fifty eight that with the passage of the puerto rico federal asians act the inclusion of the seedings clause which indicated that laws that apply to puerto rico federal laws excuse me prior to nine hundred fifty two continue to apply to puerto rico after nine hundred fifty two in the same fashion there's some tension there particularly given this court's holding in beach or excuse me in creswell given the supreme court's holding in beach that congress needed plain when it passed them an act tha were repulsed last regulating sex trafficking in the district of columbia but the supreme court said that it was up to congress not the courts to determine whether the result of protection and that principle applies here as well it hasn't you know  argued that because puerto rico is a commonwealth and section to find in section two forty five which addresses commonwealths exists that the statute didn't apply to puerto rico this court rejected that argument based on the idea that congress would not approach the statute in such a subtle way overruling precedent that existed and understanding of a statute that has existed for decades another is no there is no congressional intent what the heck that case i think you make the point that the case it territory but it is it doesn't say that they apply the way it is one thousand nine hundred fifty two and so it seems to me your argument pushes back quite heavily on the fundamental purposes of  so much to say this is very limited this is a really unique situation the double jeopardy clause that you need because it but quietus to go back to the origin of the power and the show i mean they went out of their way to tell us not there's a big difference between cases where for purposes of the statute doesn't really make any difference whether or rico is treated as a state or a territory the application of the statue would be the same but there's a limited class of cases where it does make their first whether another one there are a couple of others but why shouldn't order rico be able to make its own policy with respect to sex trafficking the way it was able to make its own policy with respect act ceases to apply locally once territories become states it did not identify an explicit stated intent on behalf of congress as occurs in that distinction of court over to you and ask you what you think of it sure and the distinction is this that in cordova we're dealing with any trust laws where states in the federal government may have different approaches to any trust as such  mentioned earlier that quite a few differences between state and you trust laws and federal trust laws and under those circumstances are double would say well the where the rico as a result of the one hundred fifty two my solution ought to be able to make a choice as to what the trust laws should be in the interests of interest territory context but that the mann act is different in that there really isn't any argument that order rico should be able to have its interfere with a local judgment as to what the law should be in contrast to the trust situation where the state or territory may have a different judgment about what the rico this case doesn't have anything to do with trafficking the transportation in this case occurred wholly within puerto rico had there been any attempt to transport an individual in or out of puerto rico or in foreign commerce we would not be arguing that the act does not apply  secondly i think that the similarities between the structure of the mann act are actually strong with regard to the sherman act in that section one and section three of the sherman act one purport if you agree that puerto rico and the federal government don't have a different policy with respect to such structures i can't speak to whether or not they have a different policy i can't speak to the fact that puerto rico does have robust criminal correct in this case has a very limited impact on the enforcement of the mann act it does not remove section twenty four twenty three is ability to criminalize the trafficking of minors and it does not impact any sort of actual trafficking activity that has an interest component with the travel which is exactly how it is in the fifty states and the question that this court has to answer which the justices have correctly frame comes from which was subsequently discussed with approval and you see you know in two thousand which is if the framers of the mann act were aware of the structural changes to puerto rico's government since the one nine hundred fifty s with being in ten section provided by court of we believe is binding on this court is there anything that you can point to that tells us to two potential hypotheticals for the legislative state of mind in passing this act originally  congress wants to cover this activity wherever it can possibly get at it but shoot it can't get at it inside the states knows there's no state commerce or congress doesn't want to take away from the states the to recognize certain activity but when it gets to be interstate we're going to regulate it is there anything that you can point us to that would shed any light on whether one or the other of those sort of purposes was  defines territory to mean the district of alaska the insular possessions of the united states and the panama canal zone there's no dispute that when alaska became a just a state in one nine hundred fifty nine that it was no longer viewed as a territory under the purposes of the act and our position is that the same change would take effect when puerto rico was elevated to a self governing commonwealth status and our position is the default rule act and that is what the court must do in this case because while the government wants us to disregard the exceptional status that puerto rico has changed since the one nine hundred fifty s the menes precedents of this court and of the supreme court indicate that we just can't do that we cannot ignore the realities the supreme court essentially as i mentioned bent over backwards to emphasize the significance of those changes and they indicated that if have meaning we cannot assume that congress negligently or forgetfully just failed for no reason at all to include the word commonwealth in twenty one whereas they explicitly did so twenty three and two judges actually in the district of puerto rico and stay have held that twenty three was amended specifically so that it would apply to introduce intra puerto rico transportation i mentioned the holding that we're asking for we're not asking for a repeal of the statute as it applies to puerto rico and so in that way this case is distinguishable from some of the precedents that the government cites those presidents held that that federal law continued to apply to puerto rico after it became a commonwealth and we just continued to apply to puerto rico albeit in as if puerto rico were a state as opposed to or territory for that particular act this holding would not open the court up to endless amounts of challenges to whether puerto rico is contemplated by every statute that fails to name it th involve floor and transportation of individuals for the purposes of prostitution so the context that the court is considering in this case is very limited and a holding would not have widespread ripple penalty in puerto rico where he's spending sentencing he's facing a penalty that is greater than the statutory maximum under the mann act so he was found guilty and adjudicated of the offense that inside the district court in determining that should be considered a state twenty four twenty one was correct for three reasons first because there's no reason either in the statute in the legislative record of transportation indicated that the default rule under the savings was that we treat puerto rico similarly to the states on autonomy than upon the states or to give commonwealth employees more rights than their counterparts in the fifty states similar court of the court found that there is no reason of policy discernible in the sherman act for treating puerto rico differently