essence the issues for both defendants are primarily the same i believe that mr butler raised the couple other issues in his brief in addition to the ones that were raised in ours but primarily this morning i'm going to focus on three issues the first issue being that the sufficiency of the evidence as it related to the forced labors indiction in this case the second if i have time i'd like to transition into the the failure to allow the defendants to come confront to daniel brown one of the cooperating witnesses in this case with the full benefit of the bargain that he received in return for his cooperation with the government and i think it's important to to touch upon an important sentencing issue in this case which is the kidnapping enhancement that was in essence instructed to the jury without the requirement that that be proven beyond a reasonable doubt all three issues of course are import we believe all the issues and are pretty far important  but back to the sufficiency argument this case i believe is different than a lot of cases as it relates to sufficiency and it's because of the nature of the statute itself this is a statute that this court has already found it was not a political to certain facts in a in a similar case brought called united states versus tovey ave until the r v then was relying upon the supreme court's decision and bond in the chemical weapons case and both of these cases i think stand for the premise that there can be overreach from the plain reading of a federal statute and when this occurs there's a danger that there can be an encroachment on to traditional local police to educate them and then he brought them into his home but wasn't the i mean i was on the panel i wasn't one of the i think difficulties there that you had this and prentiss situation where they were supposed to be helping as children would help if they were their real children and so a lot of the work related to that a lot of the discipline related to things like school work or as this case we have a disabled adult where there is a difference in the facts obviously in the sense that tovey avi was dealing with the  local print this issue i don't believe that that still for example for example in to messy which your honor authored that also was was a child that was brought there from a  a relative or someone related to the to the defendant in that case from cameroon that person was fourteen years old your honor i believe remark that it is compared to an an all pair situation gone awry this one well beyond that including the fact that that young woman was was sexually assaulted by the defendant and and so on and so forth so you have you still have the contrast in their meaning that children can still be engaged in forced labor it wasn't just the facts of the say that they're obviously there's labor in the sense that there's household chores being done cleaning the kitchen sweeping the floor in this two hundred square foot apartment taking the dogs out cleaning up after the dogs things that there was evidence to believe that that my client also was responsible for and that she also engaged in as well including making the family meal every night going to the going to the grocery store not only for her family but for for the complaining witness in this case as well and  taking their food stamp allotment in keeping them separate in purchasing food for her children as she helped out purchase the food for the disabled person in this instance as well so you do obviously have work around the house as we all do and in a shared government there was significant evidence of shared responsibilities for example when they were out scraping the house to try to get a subsidy subsidy by improving the home making it maybe se finder and well it's always the mystery of what version of the evidence was believed by the fact finder the fact the government also alleged that our clients engaged in the death of this individual's government benefits the jury acquitted him of the counts they also alleged that mr callahan sexually assaulted channon actually the jury did not make that special verdict finding as it related to the mr mr callahan sentencing the government also alleged that callahan and hot engaged in with witness tampering and the jury also found that they were acquitted of that found that they were not guilty of that as like a reasonable jury it does sound like a reasonable juror i think the problem comes in the facts that when it comes down to the end of the case when you get to facts even the ones that that we don't dispute sharon actually was beaten by by by d j brown and he did forcibly shave her head into a mohawk and he did right on her face but then the issue is l obtain dangerous drugs there's no doubt that a lot of very harsh things happened against this this individual in this case the question is whether there's truly a nexus between that traditional bad stuff that state courts deal with and the labor itself is it or does it strain credit credibility to believe that that they beat her up because they fast they found a map that led to a boy that that that daniel brown became jealous of and so he chan and actually in fact the evidence revealed that the chairman actually admitted that jordie callahan literally pulled dean daniel brown off of off of her when he was attacking her means of course the government's narrative is that that showed a note of an escape plan and that shannon was trying to escape the other distinction between this the facts of this case and the facts of just about every other forced labor case is the fact that when you look at most forced labor cases you're talking about individuals who come here under suspicious immigration circumstances who are basically prisoners in the home in and of itself where in idea of being there protecting vulnerable to particularly vulnerable about disabled people the disabled people are particularly vulnerable if they're isolated but the evidence in this case was overwhelming that shannon actually was not in fact locked in a room up stairs with her child and daniel brown talked about screwing down the windows that are out in that will transition me to the second issue that i want to address because if there is a rule twenty nine problem it's when you look at it ok now we're going to view the evidence in the light most favorable to government and we're going to accept everything that daniel program says is truth  and so now we have a we have a situation here where you have you have corroboration that she's being restrained of course just cuts that none of those facts ever happened but facts that did happen that are that are not in dispute shannon brown during this period of time was in contact with law enforcement on three even during the period of time where she supposedly was being held captive in the basement because she was arrested for shoplifting she sat in a jail cell while her daughter was supposedly being held in a cold basement and never revealed to law enforcement that she was in fact that her daughter was was was trapped with mentally disabled to some extent well she was mentally disabled she graduated from think they clung to one of those overt acts in this overly broad statute that that says well there's force and there's labor and there's a connection at all between the two then therefore you know we can find someone guilty of forced labor and that's the problem she was forced out in the lease she was he was a roommate living in an apartment in these were shared responsibilities that they they would cook and clean in fact she never sounds awfully but i thought there was evidence that facts and i also ask your honour's to look at this in a common sense why and also look at the entire record because when you look at the attire record you not only show this person making contact with law enforcement officers on several occasions including occasions where they came in witness  think that's sort of offensive to to shannon actually herself she's a high school graduate and she was working in ashland university and she has the ability to read and write in fact she testified that one of her her favorite pastimes is reading the mystery novels other people testified that when they came to the home she was frequently seen reading a book other people testified that she partied with the others and was out in the cookouts in got high in did drugs with them which was consistent with the manner in which they lived in a previous residence that was the once residence in this instance this elite woman with traumatic brain injury following an automobile accident right yes now the government then a present any expert witness any psychologist or not neurologist or psychiatry is to say what the level of shannon actually disability was whether or not she had the ability to think and fend for herself at all they didn't present that they they wanted to present it just basically based upon the same speculation that we're engaging in here was she was disabled of course she didn't have the ability to help her so she went to psychologist it the social security administration was interviewed by a psychologist where she said that just her friend these this is all evidence in the record jessica was her friend has had her hand smashed so that she can obtained prescription drugs illegally for the people and we're not disputing those she would go and do that because she was commanded to do that didn't labor and that's where that where the evidence is wholly insufficient in this case that that dysfunction there clearly was dysfunction there was drug abuse there in gauged in by shannon actually as well there was there was physical abuse on it on a number of occasions but again we're talking about an eight hundred day span of time this was a period of time the just the heart was working going to work it when these from may two thousand and eleven to the end of the facts of this case going to work and working in a windies restaurant and yet the government has created this narrative that somehow this is a disabled woman being helped captive against her will shannon actually is mom was in essence literally across the street as c'mere compared to chip chip does mont do mesh she's a victim whose parents were literally across the ocean so that's the real problem here that this is a set of ugly facts that the government is trying to overlap the forced labor statute and i see that i am i'm out of my time and i'll  good morning your honor woman chelsea rice assistant united states attorney from the northern district of ohio your honour's this court should affirm the convictions of pretty much in just a callahan as well as their below guideline sentences in this case this case is not about roommates or a living situation gone awry as the evidence at trial demonstrated and the fact finders determined after observing thirty four witnesses from the government including three days of examination of the adult victim this was a situation of forced labor your honor there were a number of witnesses including the adult victim who testified that the labor she was forced to perform was directly tied with the abuse humiliation psychological coercion and threats of having her daughter removed from her when she didn't clean up after the numerous animals in the house her face was shoved in the dog excrement she was only permitted out of the basement when it she was able to clean and her and her three year old daughter only were able to eat after she had completed her chores your honor m to go back and re cite arguments that were made before the jury site two things that are not in the record and the standard of this court is to review the motion for a new trial and to do novo review of i have a question about the statute so i understand your argument response that you know well the statute by its terms is a restricted international trafficking even though about happens to be the fact pattern of many of these cases are just i was just looking at the statute i guess it has no foreign or domestic commerce clause component at all you don't the person doesn't have to cross state lines right now read about it is that because this is like section five legislation for now it would be section five the thirteenth amendment and force mint legislation is that what's going  to the constitution so you see you just don't need to worry about that there is no requirement of interstate commerce because it is created to abolish slavery and all forms and in fact the legislative history points out that it was created and then  amended and two thousand and again in two thousand and eight to combat all forms of modern day slavery in fact congress specifically expanded the application of the trafficking and victims protection act to include more situations than those that the united states supreme court found because men skee so and after that amendment and included more coercive forms of manipulation and this case there is abuse than sufficient and there were several instances that mr bryan let's talk about that i wanted to touch on here and i'm know in our brief synergy of the record makes clear but the timeline is important and the references to the  she's being directed by presumably both defendants in this case to beat her child because the child's cry i think you it some of the bases that this young woman was fearful absolutely was your honor yes there were multiple videos made and the first video was created after the adult victim attempted to escape and then was brought back and told by jessica hahn that if she stand with her mother her mother would report her children services so absolutely that video was used as coersion those videos were shown to the jury the jury was able to review them and consider them and their analysis and determination of the evidence and the jury also heard from the adult victims as she watched those videos and explained them so there's no question that those videos were used as coersion and manipulation as a number of witnesses testified when the victim was seen outside of the house going to buy cigarettes and beer for the defendants she was always in a hurry she was always alone her child was left back with the defendants literally being household as a form of manipulation in order to induce her to come back  bryant point that she worked every day at a wendy's presumably her child did not accompany her to wendy's to work is that correct mr brian was referring to jessica hahn a portion of the time period she did wendy's there were times that the a topic time had to wash her clothes for her and during the time that she was at wendy's the adult victim and her child were locked in the basement if they were if she was not being forced to clean the up stairs bedroom where there was no ability for her to use the bathroom that the four children of jessica hahn abuse the adult victim and the the juvenile the three to five year old child during that time period as the judge clay point out this is not the benign record the record makes very clear as it did for the jury the horrors that were endured by this victim there is no doubt based on these conditions of confinement that the labor she performed was not done willingly that the reason she did not leave when she as as mr brown claim had the opportunities is because of the abuse and continued manipulation and coersion she had and part of the government your honor there were a number of ways that the government did that first of all through the testimony of the adopted him herself regarding the time that she was locked in the basement and held in the basement she s pecifically pointed out photographs in the basement during my direct examination of her corrected me on multiple occasions to highlight that the exactly where in that basement she was forced to sleep  small elevated area where there was no water as there was in the rest of the basement there was also the testimony of the cooperating witness mr brown regarding her being locked in the upstairs bedroom there was where the windows were  there was the testimony of that mr redmond who work for the cable company who came over completely on bias an interested party and saw the adopt victim and her child in a room with a large quantity crawling over them in fact that caused him such alarm that he had to speak to a supervisor and say i've i've never seen anything like this there's something going on here that is not right so your honor it was certainly there was no photographic evidence of of her being locked in the basement but the jury heard the testimony of the victim other witnesses saw photographs where there had been locks on doors and windows with respect to be amount of brain injury there were a number of references that there was no evidence presented to the jury well again the jury not only heard from the dock victim for three days and  record while it certainly does not capture what the jury was able to observe in her demeanor reflects her limited abilities and and speech and understanding in addition the government's exhibit eighty series contained a number of medical records of the don't victim that specifically referenced traumatic brain injury so there's no question that the jury had sufficient information regarding her limitations and extreme vulnerabilities and your honor mr brian referenced the case and these facts eerily parallel the situation there certainly they don't victim was a s citizen she did not come from a foreign country but she was not allowed to use the bathroom she was not allowed to shower she had to work long hours every day she was hit punch hit if she did not work and unlike and messy this victim was physically restrained confined to the basement confined to the upstairs bedroom confined to the bedroom in the front apartment in addition in this case we have the extremely strong manipulation incursion of using her child the one person in her life that was the constant and her love for her daughter to continue to hold over her head and threaten that her child would be removed from her as happened when the it up victim finally escaped and told law enforcement what she had endured and like to speak briefly there was a reference by mr bryant to the cross examination of the cooperating witness mr brown you honour's as this court is aware defense is entitled to the opportunity for an effective cross examination not the opportunity to ask anything and everything that they desire in this case there was more than ample opportunity to cross examine mr brown in fact as the appellant cited in their brief they claim that brown story fell apart in cross examination the defense were able to ask mr brown about his prior child endangerment conviction his jail sentence resulting from that the fact that the defendants testified and cooperated against him in that child endangerment case the fact that he hoped to receive a lesser sentence as a result of his plea agreement the fact that he admitted to his own drug abuse that he was engaged and the drug trade with the defendant already callahan the nature of his past relationship with the  and in fact before there was an objection there was even reference made to the fact that mr brown was not charged with this substantive forced labor account so your honor this was more than sufficient impeachment evidence for the jury to evaluate mr brown's bias and motivations regarding his testimony and should this court determine the specifics of the deal that he received from the government before benefit of the deal th e jury did moderators are correct the jury did not hear the fact that mr brown was not charged with the substantive forced labor count the jury did hear that he engaged in a plea agreement with the united states that his plea agreement entitled him to some benefit for his testimony that at the time of sentencing if he cooperated and was truthful the united states would ask the court for a lesser sentence and exchange for his cooperation there was also reference by mr bryan to the kidnapping and he had spent on the special verdict form your honour's during the trial both from the enter dr remarks to the jury to the conclusion of the trial the jury heard one standard for the burden of proof and that was beyond a reasonable doubt there was never mention of any other standard than bert beyond a reasonable doubt none of the verdict forms including a special verdict form on themselves contain beyond a reasonable doubt however the judge repeatedly instructed and in fact mere moments before turning to the kidnapping and handsome and those requirements indicated again  beyond a reasonable doubt standard must be applied to all elements of the case the fact that the jury understood this standard was highlighted by mr bryant and the fact that they acquitted on counts three and five the jury certainly understood that that was set for them and found that the government had not met that burden with those counts and also with respect to count one with the there was a special verdict form asking to the conspiracy apply the forced labor or the theft of government benefits and the jury found that it only applied to the forced labor the jury also clearly knew that it did not have to check every box on the special verdict form because it chose not to select the aggravated sexual abuse special verdict and han in the remaining bit of my time this court obviously has the record before it and can read through and see the extreme humiliation and abuse that this woman endured  again there is no question that a person would no doubt that no one would willingly live in this type of situation no one would willingly live in a basement and have serious bedroom with no access to a bathroom a shower having to eat out of cans being beaten when she tries to get food for her child the references to excursions and partying as the record demonstrates and the jury evaluated happened before she was in the basement and the references to the swimming pool that occurred when they couldn't leave the adopt the team at home as the jury heard from mr callaghan's own voice recordings this woman is a snitch don't let her go near the windows don't let her out alone the defendants had to take her to what they categorized as excursions in order to continue to monitor her just as jessica hunt did when she took her to her doctor's appointments to her meetings with her attorneys and it's no wonder that the adult victim was not truthful when she's meeting with these attorneys and other social services people when her abuser is sitting next to her and her child is back at the house with the other abuser i think and i will conclude by highlighting that as judge sutton pointed out this statute is based on the thirteenth amendment this is absolutely forced labor is absolutely a federal crime as this court pointed out until the and the facts of this case are extremely different from those and certainly some of the labor may have been the same but the state the situation of servitude and abuse is much more in this is these are not children under the control of parents these are not roommates this is not a dysfunctional family this is a situation as the jury heard and evaluated the evidence and concluded forced shannon actually to work and perform services for them obtain prescription drugs through use of deception and held her in a condition of involuntary servitude for more than two years judge watson's point as it related to the the videos again this was a high heat hundred days span in which these individuals live together from may of two thousand and ten to october of two thousand and twelve there were three videos that were made and they were made the video was made on october sixteenth two thousand and eleven a year and a half into this period of time including after the period of time that ms actually was supposedly held captive in the basement so that there wasn't any way that those videos could have been used to extort her into remaining there for that year and a half period beginning there and as a related to whether or not these videos were contrived or or created by that by the defendants again and i'll take credit for the cross examination of d j brown it was clear from his own cross examination that when he first conveyed that to law enforcement he said that was an incident that came upon them without them knowing it was going to happen that just sons came running in the room said shannon's beating her daughter and they flicked on the monitor that that was up in the room at the time and they witnessed it occurring and even admitted that jessica hot wasn't even there when this beating began and that jessica was being dropped off by the woman and the quote p t cruiser which was her aunt dixie dura who was bringing her per back from an appointment and she walked in on this as it was occurring that was the first video the second one was made on the twenty second after d j brown had assaulted shannon and moved out of the home the facts are very important in this case because of the the devil's in the details but when the government the big is able to take a broad statute in through all these ugly facts on top of that and say you know you have to show force and you have to show labor and i think you also have to show a nexus between the brutality in labor it's not hard for the jury to return a verdict in their favor on one of those circumstances but that's not i'd believe what this the statute into and in entailed i think it's important to note the government's own words  rebuttal because they're up here saying now the evidence is proof positive that she was held in a basement and everything else but even co counsel mr gets that in rebuttal and weak in his rebuttal closing argument and we got all kinds of things about windows were nailed shot windows were screwed shut i don't think there was ever any evidence about anybody saying there was only one window that was screwed or nailed shut you'll see the pictures there's holes all over the place including the number of holes that could be could have been used to have held up a nail anything on which you could have tied a rope around to close or tie up the door we don't know i'm sorry we don't know the government lawyers same we don't know we didn't get pictures people weren't in there when it was happening taking photographs but i will remind you is to look very closely at the jury instructions that tell you that it doesn't even matter if the doors were locked it doesn't matter if the doors were tied don't be distracted by this whole issue of whether there is a padlock here or a padlock there or there wasn't look at the instructions very carefully the court gave you an applied to the facts you have and it didn't matter it didn't matter all that because they had this this this theory because this woman was disabled that she didn't have the ability to do the things that normal people would do if they were really being treated this way go to your mother's home like she did on one occasion did go to her mother's on just a walking distance away only to return again when it bit adly she said in cross examination because she wanted to be boyfriend girlfriend with d j brown again not not  because just got home was threatening her that your mom's going to call human services on her mom could have called human services on her any time soon have to be living with her to call human services on her so what the government did is they took all these horribles of horrible of their narrative that was she had to stay there because they were stealing her benefits a jury acquitted and then they were threatening other people you know the jury acquitted him that they acquitted him of three sexual assaults that shannon equity testified to but again all they had all they needed is that one overt act that want to overt act to convict and i believe the evidence is wholly insufficient to show that there was a nexus against all this mistreatment which there was admitted leigh and forced labor in this case and that's that's why  it's not usual that you would waste most of your time in an oral argument on on a rule twenty not argument but but i think this is one of those rare cases that applies just like it is applied until the obvious well these are very fact specific circumstances that have to be addressed and when you do that you find that there was overreach here that this is a case that should have been remained in the state system to to prosecute them for abusive of this individual under state law but not to bring a federal force labor case against them after all the thirteenth amendment does apply here because this was to eradicate slavery and i believe that it's offensive and then there are terry servitude an involuntary say well slavery which is involuntary servitude which which i agree it when you look at the whole record in this case which which we were acquired to do on a day in a de novo review you are you can you really believe that the elements of this offense were established beyond a reasonable doubt and i'm out of time i didn't get a chance to address the with the daniel brown issue but if you're going to if you're going to bootstrap some of that sufficiency of evidence on daniel brown's testimony we should have had the opportunity to show the full benefit that daniel brown received in return for his