much your honesty issue presented in this case is simple and straightforward that the question is where you have this the the simple facts of this case a person is recruited to take a truck be responsible for it find a warehouse for it take it somewhere to unload it and to handle the unloading of the truck may or a reasonable jury infer that that person knows the purpose of the job for which he's been retained in this case the jury found beyond a reasonable doubt the mr knew that this offense involved cocaine a considerable amount of coffee the drugs were hidden inside the truck if they were you know the language to finish off what needs to be done inside the off take care of it and it's clear from just the circumstances that that was mr boreas job there was no one else that we know of in this sequence of events who was going to be there to do that and yes it isn't the question here your honor is what is a reasonable him for if someone is given a job does the fact that those statements came from a coconspirator had additional weight to it i think that's as much weight as as if it came from anyone else certainly it's no more it's hard to say but the important question with what we need to focus on here as i know your honour's are well aware is the standard of review the standard of review is is there evidence which a jury could rely to find out and that certainly of course is evidence on wh ere's more to it than just our other state if you look at the way this whole conspiracy operate we're dealing here if i could take a minute just to with well unless we're dealing with a very sophisticated organization that is shipping huge loads of cocaine all over the country from the other test hundred kilograms at a time going to multiple states and philadelphia is just one of the destination and the da managed to get an undercover agent to be one of the drivers on one of the ship and that's very important because he explained how it is they do and how they do it is they take it to wherever the local destination is the driver along the way does not know where the drugs are he knows he's ferrying drugs but he doesn't know where they are in the truck he gets to the local the local spot hooks up with the local agents of this organization and only then is informed where to go in the truck because of course we know in this instance you've got this enormous amount of rotten produce that's in the back of the truck these people are not going to spend hours going to r they're going to find out exactly where the cocaine is and they'll get it and the agent explained that's what happened he got to the destination he was told i think was count nine rivets down the tar and then go down to your left and that's where you'll find  mystery joe was not did not have possession of the suitcase until the very last moment here borrell is put in possession of the truck for all intents and purposes it's now his to dispose of now i will say as i'm sure you where the government disagrees with you joe decision we did then we always have we have a great deal of concern which i'd be happy to address today on about the line of precedent in this court only in the specific area has been for many years and it's a problem for law enforcement because it affects the way in which we try to cases that he would say which specific i'm not saying a specific case are you saying that it's our requirement that there is proof of knowledge of the specific contraband that distinguishes us from other circuits yes in the in the area of drug cases with for accomplice liability one could read some of these cases as to require actual proof of actual knowledge and not simply proof from which a jury of made inferno just doesn't make based on our our statements and some of the cases i assume to the effect that well it could have just as easily been jewels exactly where there's a prime example of that could have been contraband could have been stolen gems and are not on that question is it make a difference what drug it is no it's a cocaine case and it could have been marijuana well this court's decision in barbosa which is not affected by any of this is that the defendant does not need to know what type of controlled substances simply need but does need to know it is a controls not right but i'm wondering is that a principle distinction is there is there you call distinction between us saying that barbosa that well you know need to know whether it's cocaine or marijuana on the one hand and these cases that we're discussing today where it says well it could be jewels or i don't think that's where where we get off base because we don't just believe the basic proposition the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knows it the purpose is they can is to distribute it controls us we don't dispute that what we dispute is what evidence can a jury rely on and what inferences can it make in order to reach that conclusion that the person knew that was a controlled substance and our position in these cases i think we have a but i want to get back rest of this case when we have a bit more evidence in this case than in some of the others but in all of the cases you have evidence on which a jury can logically rely here for example one can say if someone's given the job done loading a truck that has two and a half million dollars with it in a joint you can draw a reasonable inference that you don't put that in the hands of someone who has no idea what he's doing a wife i that's a reasonable inference of knowledge that there's a controlled substance ito well should have turned up the same way also but here we have the additional evidence that mr boy is put in charge of the so what we're really this is about the problem that i'm identifying though again i'm not sure it has to be resolved here but the problem involves the standard of review the supreme court in jackson versus virginia as explicit the standard of review is there  sufficient evidence taking all the inferences to support the verdict and that any rational trier of fact could rely on and or in competing inferences do not need to be eliminated and the problem if i again respectfully say in some of this points  a question exactly because we have a jury system we rely on juries and you're charged to find this beyond a reasonable doubt which means we assume well we do and we look at the particular evidence in this case when when someone again is given charge of this mission to unload this truck with this quantity of cocaine if someone excepts the inference that a person normally knows the purpose of the illegal venture and which he's engaging that surely you can bank to change this approach your honor i wish i could say yes i want to say yes because this is been a problem for the government for many many years i would welcome and then they make arguments in this case and our office would welcome but i have to honestly answer the question i think we have faithfully distinguish those cases also and that we may have enough evidence where he panoply decide and should decide that there was sufficient evidence in this case in the district cour here but i do think it would be a very i'm just going to step outside my role slightly as an advocate in this particular case and say that would be a very positive development for the for this court for the consistency of the law in this circuit as opposed to other circu similarly this court has decided many cases involving sufficiency of its many you know directly involving each each of your honors in recent years in other areas of the law none of having drugs and this issue never arises one recent case i'll just say is  case ca r p o which is five seventy two with a third one twelfth which was decided this year it's an honest services fraud case and in any really it's theoretically it's the same issue which is did the defendant have knowledge that the purpose of his concealing payments to a public official was to further on a services fraud as opposed to some other type of crime such as taxes and this court as it does faithfully in every other area has said well you don't have to dismiss every other inference dough that that said this person was going up to get the suitcase he had the cash in his hand and a coconspirators that he's then going to unload the suitcase and ship it off where it needs to go then you have facts more akin to what we have here so dover decision and the person has eighteen thousand dollars he needs to know the amount of cash he's the one who handed over his the want to check the bag and says they didn't pack this thing at the government cost what and i said we would welcome the opportunity to address this and because decisions like that a fact charging decisions that are made every day we regulate our charges based on these cases and sometimes it's a very unfortunate decision that needs to be made what about the testimony latest the last possible time and here you have four yeah who gets involved with this truck the evening before and or that morning gets involved with truck that morning it reasonable that you could infer from the information about morale that boria did not know what was in that truck that he was unloading absolutely we readily conce which a rational jury could rely and there certainly was based on the us now i'm happy to argue the case this is in fact as i know your honour's are aware this was the only issue that was presented to the jury we're not dealing with a credulous group of people what in the country we have twelve reasonable citizens who were presented only with this issue did he know there were drugs there was no other dispute about any facts and when you really the arguments the closing arguments that's what i'm focused on and these twelve people looked at the evidence and and they thought i'm sure what i'm about to say which is that yes mirelle did limit the jobs of people in the organization but still when you have a job you need to know at least what your job is and what you're going to do and it makes no sense whatsoever that you have morale and other people responsible for shipping millions of dollars of cocaine across the country who then at the very last step after all of these elaborate for gracious with the truck in the face cargo in the fake bills of lading after all those preparations they're going to give it to a nobody who knows nothing and trust that when he gets to wherever east taking that he's not driving it into the arms of law enforcement into the arms of a rival group that makes no sense whatsoever and i have no they're not surprised in the least the twelve people in their deliberations coconspirator saying that india was going to open up the suitcase we have a surveillance that shows it into who in fact opens up the suitcase but isn't there a difference isn't there a difference from the language in this case when the the guy that's calling the shots there says he's going to take the driver the tractor trailer to finish off what needs to be done inside the truck he's responsible for taking the truck from his hands to think it to another garage participate in this process in philadelphia the government characterized this as a very sophisticated plan but yet what we know and i try to case what we know is by the time the drugs got to philadelphia no one knew where to find a girl much they spent a greater part of the previous day morrell and his so called henchmen trying to find a garage that's how sophisticated that was that the drugs arrived here they didn't even know what to do with it so i eat i think exception to the characterization that this was so sophisticated was planned down to the you know precise you know step and the waiting wasn't real sophisticated and that had nothing to do with it that this company called banana republic right levity in the record there and quite frankly and again that had nothing to do with cory i sat through the trial it first two days had nothing to do with me and they went through all of the details about the mean from mexico to texas and then cross country and then once we i think concede seemingly did not know what was in the tractor trailer almost the entire day that he was working he ended hand with morrell trying to find a garage and if you read the record close we were really saying he didn't know what he says is this at the end of the day after he is asked then she was sister the driver to find the safe location vs who was from an account alvarado then gets into the passenger compartment of the car of the says basically what's in the truck and that's when we were why would we infer that that means he doesn't know there's a controlled substance literally did he not testify at trial that he had a lot of experience transporting drugs on behalf of moral he did he'd be on the surface so what's in the truck wouldn't the most rational inference be is it heroin is it cocaine is a marijuana all of the above but it's really why would we infer that it's not  ah so we learn as an example that someone is close to morale as alvarado seemingly was in the dark about what was in that tractor trailer for the greater part of that day when he work hand in hand and we want to try to attribute that level of knowledge to boria who i would say based on this evidence the characterization could be made that he came in in the last minute why do we know that they take exception to that he was nowhere to be found the day before when they were trying around trying to find a garage his name was never mentioned earlier himself never never utters a word about drugs nothing is ever uttered in his presence about drugs if he's just sort of a a  a last minute mule why is he making fourteen phone calls between six thirteen am and seven thirteen am to a known drug dealer but number one we don't know what he knows he's a drug dealer ok if he's calling his cousin who is a known drug dealer during an hour in your early morning that he was calling him because he knew he had drugs that he was dry no i think there's so many to say that all we need to do is a generic no i think there's so many layers because number one you need to prove the poor you knew he was a drug dealer you need to know that there was some connection with that me and barroso was that with this drug at all we all we know it was not is a jury could have found that inference could they have speculated obviously as an fir you know while they want to speculate but inferred there i think lies any rational juror i think there lies the distinction between speculation and and and permissible inference when you have so many different layers you have to prove a aurion knew it was a drug dealer then we have to prove that rosso himself had some connection with this operation and that the further you know him the inference is that it had to do with something about drugs as opposed to any other kind of illegal contraband i would submit that this case never should have went to the jury the trial judge recognized that i believe he did the right thing he followed this court's precedent where's  the evidence and i have police that i mean i have police was the driver right where is the evidence that he knew heroin was in the black camera bag that was in the trunk of his car what the  removed from the way he says he's driving his own car right now your client is getting out of bed at two thirty or three in the morning his girlfriend says it's very odd you know actually that wasn't the test and what happens when she went to bed i believe we got home he went to bed at two thirty when she woke up the next morning he was gone all right he can't he comes in at two thirty and he's gone by six correct ok little little awed he goes to a parking lot  public parking lot walks around a tractor trailer makes fourteen phone calls within an hour to a person who is a known drug dealer i know you say he may not  the police and i believe his name was in doubt the guy who was actually doing the transaction inside the hotel because i believe the additional evidence in that case was both the pager evidence between the two it was actual telephone contact between the two while the deal was actually but there's no evidence as to what they talked about i agree i agree police how do you square this how do you square this decision  vehicle that he actually did the drugs were put into his vehicle that he operated that vehicle he did it in a suspicious manner and that it was direct telephone contact not with just some obscure drug dealers but with the little unclear and what's also unclear is what was said were told to board that's betrayer isn't what the district court did here on the rule twenty nine motion and what you're asking us to do is the way these inferences now actually are not really what you're you concur with the government that the whole issue was not correct ok so you argued knowledge you did your best just like you're doing today and you know you are good knowledge and if you're a king back it is as the defense lawyers did in from a defendant it's often very difficult to prove things like knowledge and intent we send people to jail and state courts all the time for murder for life or worse based upon an inference of intent to kill from something they've done stabbing someone in a vital part of the but you know this you know i mean it just strikes me that maybe this is this is almost insurmountable now absent a statement from a defendant yes i know there are drugs there and you're there that has you still find it scattered in some decisions from other circuits but it's wrong and then the government consistently opposes it this court in fact was one of the leaders all way back to the one nine hundred fifty s and probably before that in rejecting that equal inference i joint could look at this sequence and see that there's very close contact here directly with the local person who supervising this operation all rado certainly did not testify that he didn't know there were drugs until that night you can easily  he's a drug dealer he knows as well as boy and knows exactly what they're doing there and that's what the jury found what he didn't know till that night with the specifics of how much there was and then after i don't get this additional assignment that he's going to take some of the drugs to new york where the lookout is his conviction is vacated but there's another defendant in the salmon case fitzpatrick is the lookout salmon there who's also standing around while this happens there the coconspirator says he is the source of the drug and on the bas of that statement alone this court affirms salman's conviction we have a very similar statement here thank you very much