understood will for me please the court my name is peter last me i represent the appellant kathy can't win in this matter if i can reserve two minutes two for rebuttal i'd appreciate that so the issue in this case your hon r is whether miss cantons conviction should stand when the very foundation of that conviction no longer exists i would argue that due process and fundamental fairness means the federal conviction should have to go away that it cannot stand in light of the montana supreme court decision in denying my motion for new trial judge christiansen relied primarily on two cases listen to dia and i want to speak about those cases because while i don't think are in fact they don't dictate what the court must do here today they certainly provide guidance there are significant differences between the convictions at issue in lewis and the dia and the situation we have here with mr kant one that can allow this court to decide this issue differently than the court might have in those two cases the first is the nature of the invalidation of the mental health commitment at issue here the second is the timing of the invalidation when it happened and the third  process between how you become a felon versus how you become a committed person in possession and i want to in my briefs i talked about all that but the nature of the invalidation i want to start with this case the montana mental health commitment was reversed by the supreme court of montana because the district court failed completely to make any findings during the commitment hearing that's fine if you just make specific that's correct and i think that brings up the question of why findings are important a case like that and in my view the idea is that courts make findings so that later chords can review what the lower court did montana supreme court specifically said that the state court district court had no detailed facts no testimony no description specific to my client's condition symptoms things like that so i analogize that to a sufficiency of the evidence style appeal  underlying conviction was tainted by the failure to provide counsel it was but i think it's one of the fundamental that the fundamental problem with any conviction i agree completely and i'm i kind of that your honour's let's say room he was he was treated as an adult even though he was a minor right and they said that was just fundamentally wrong and i think where the difference is in this comes back to my sufficiency argument pleaded guilty to that first felony it was a one thousand nine hundred seventy cocaine charge he pleaded guilty to it and so if congress is goal is to keep guns out of the hands of people that are dangerous that's what lewis says over and over it's the problem that i statutory language and in one twenty two g or present for possession of a felon in possession of a gun and then one who has been adjudicated as a mental defect defective there are very  language is similar and it's very similar i don't know why the principles of those cases wouldn't apply to this one as well and that's what i'm trying to get to your honor and to go to the statutory text to go to that i agree however i think that in louis and and especially louis they kept saying the goal of the statutory text is to keep guns out of people or out of the hands of people that they deem dangerous there's not much debate that could be committed the crime the earlier crime the felony he pled guilty to it i think there's a difference here my client challenged commitment right away in november of two thousand and fourteen never admitted to that she needed committed never conceded that anyway in fact she challenged early not post indictment she appealed right away so this is where i come back to sufficiency argument that you know i look at this more analogous to a person that is later totally exonerated possessing rather than someone that has a constitutional invalidity to their conviction like there was in pity and lewis  that the firm or the process of how you become a committed person differs from how you become a felony or become a felon and part of the d n a lewis i think looked at those prior felonies because they had much more indicative trustworthiness patea pleaded guilty to his  went to trial was convicted presumably by a jury i know without an attorney but again they were found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt or they admitted guilt and we have a much different question here we have someone committed on a lesser burden of proof clear so finding on the merits a technicality i would argue its merits it's why i'm saying i think it's a lot like a court reversing for insufficient evidence to convict which is different in my view i mean there's what do we know we don't know anything about what the district court might have found credible with the district court may have believed what the district court didn't believe what the district court thought in terms of my client's medication needs things like that that's why the supreme court of montana was so clear that when you're committing someone which is a very serious thing and the supreme court spelled that out too they can have calamitous effects on an individual you have to follow the statute so that later courts can review which he did and my client challenge that comm this isn't like the dear louis where the defendant brings it up only after indictment but he brought it up during the p s r process they never challenged it in the state level until after their federal conviction until after their federal indictment so we have a state high court here reversing that commitment which to me is a much different invalidation than we had in either patea or in lewis did need to correct one thing in my briefs your honor i did say that there's no right to a jury trial on one of these in montana  beginning of the montana supreme court's opinion this is they were going to remain and then they get to the end of the opinion they say oh no dismissed correct which i thought was kind of surprising and but as you read through the opinion it looks like they were just frustrated with the trial court judges who are not following the statutory command of providing detail findings about the specifics of the individual circumstances and they're trying to send a message to the trial judges look for people you need to do this i think you're right you're on i would also say it is a written in a shot across the manner that being said they remanded it and they ignored the state's request to remand it and i saw that which are important factors here too i mean had the court wanted to they could have affirmed this on the implied findings that the state asked them to again this is why this case to me is more analogous to someone that's actually in or sent that cigs on aerated later possessing which is different than again the invalidations that were court and counsel my name is tim roscoe i'm an assistant united states attorney for the district of montana working out of the missoula office it's a pleasure to be here this morning and judge paes and judge mel i sort of like to jump into one of the last points that you made and it relates to the nature of the state supreme court's opinion and the sort of to the credit of my colleagues shot across the bow notion of that opinion i think that's exactly right and i think the reason that that's important judge pies the way you captured their tone is it relates directly to judge mel's point that it's really a technical violation they re cite the facts in the case that the whole the court heard testimony from the state district court from a law enforcement officer from cannons neighbors and from the mental health professional that provided fairly detailed information about her mental health situation but none of those were included in the order and it was the court's point the supreme court's point to the lower courts to say we're not going to use the doctrine of implie findings to sort of save your bacon here you have to do a better job of putting detail findings in the order and i think that it is a gray area whether it's technical or really fundamental in nature or even on the merits if it's a gray area then what options do we have well i'm not sure ultimately it would make any difference because our position is the focus should be temporal based on the lewis and patea cases was ms callan under an order of commitment at the time she possessed a firearm and i think that's where the language in lewis discusses in great detail the breath and scope of this statutory scheme and that it's the obligation of the individual to clear whatever that stat is she was under a commitment order was she had been a or who has been committed to a mental institution yes that's correct your honor that she had at the time that she was the fireman she had been committed and at that they want that to be a temporal analysis that's what lewisohn pedia really stand for not withstanding the fact that those involved felony convictions as opposed to mental health adjudication so ultimately i don't think it would make any difference but it's important the analysis because it really is more technical than fundamental in our view i'm happy to take any other questions that the court has but you seem to have a very firm grasp of our arguments i have no questions thank you very much your honour's very briefly your honor so i just conclude and say that this is a very unique case in terms of how it's happened and might not ever happen again the way we've had this case come before you in terms of the state supreme court reversing and then a federal trial occurring and bringing to where we are today and so i think that you can decide this case completely consistent with lewis and the dia when you consider the differences between the type of invalidation we have here which is a state supreme court erasing the commitment off the books it's like it never happened in the foundation these conviction is gone and to allow her to stand convicted of a federal felony based on that at the district court judge that wrote the mayfield opinion said something like it's an abdication of justice to let something like that stand and that's what i'd argue here i think you can decide it like i said on its unique facts and reversed the conviction on count two in favor of my client there's no further question you had another argument as well but i don't yeah maybe briefly touch on that your honor i did argue that count one should also be reversed due to the spillover prejudice from count two i outlined that extensively in my briefs and i would lie on those