sentencing first the facts do not support the guidelines definition of abducted nd the district court's guidelines or was not harmless rd in the alternative the district court sentence was substantively unreasonable to my st point your honour's the facts of this case do not support the elements of the duction mr redmond often thought it was d enhanced on the basis that quote a person was abducted to facilitate commission of the often see or to facilitate escape the guidelines defined abducted to be a quote that a victim was forced to accompany an offender to a different location the example the guidelines provide is a bank teller being taken into a get away car the fundamental question in this case is whether when the tellers were told emphasize a more global intuitive point here which is that when the victim in the offender going into office is directions that reduces the danger to the victim in those circumstances the offender goes with the victim into that room the danger becomes a life and death situation that's the importance and that's the difference that we're trying to emphasize here to guidelines provision or statute reads in our brief we've cited several dictionary definitions all point to the intuitive answer the way we always use the term the company which means to go with that a company needs to go with and always has meant to go and that's simply the point that we're making today if this court work or to conclude that there is  meeting in effect to any word or phrase in the guidelines to the extent possible and to the extent reasonable here we believe that the governments in the district court's interpretation of a company effectively reads it out of the statute we can see this from the pre sentence report on page one hundred and fifty four d of the record where the p s r applies the abduction hansen and when applying the language of the guidelines provision to the facts of this case it says quote specifically he forced the p and g s who are the tellers to walk to a room to chase him to the teller counter he told them to shut the door and count two hundred that he left the bank there after if you look at that factual description and it does describe the work force it does describe the mn but a different location but in that description any description of a company and effectively reading it out of the guidelines for vision the guidelines provision itself in the definition of abducted contains the three elements force  lenity which is a dispute over the strict or flexible interpretation of a statute for these reasons the the district court committed d guidelines error but there is another important thing to reach here which is my nd point and i believe the government may rely on it handily which is the argument that the district courts guidelines error even if it existed was harmless because as the district court said that on page one beef or it would have imposed the same upward variance nonetheless i'd like to make a couple observations about this starting with some law in the in talking about the facts in some observations about the sentencing transcript itself or so as this court has stated and united states versus how percent and two thousand and eighteen and elsewhere the good the proponent of the sentence in this case the government carries a high and review but that's a very similar analysis to harmlessness this court described in the united states versus castro alfonzo and two thousand and sixteen that the overarching principle that we d look to when evaluating inclusive the district court spent a significant amount of time litigating the abduction enhancements following on page one hundred and twenty eight the district court mentioned a range of possible punishments stating quote the community would be ill served if he was back in the community in the near future or anytime in the next ten to fifteen years then only after  spending so much time on it and then saying either way i come out the same way and then saying having considered the factor here we're where i'm going i don't think we should be sanctioning the district just for having spent time on a subject because that could support the fact that it doesn't matter whether you add the enhancement because the conduct was violent and wrong well your honor i would agree with you if the cause itself were being disputed but here none of the facts were in dispute the seven pages were spent arguing over whether the undisputed facts support the language of the guidelines  in other words there was no dispute that there was a threat or a change of location or any of those things that happened was simply a question over the during those seven pages as to whether the enhancement was supported in the get concerned i think judges have to do the right thing they have to have a good record i'm not disputing that anyway but i'm concerned about parsing every word the judge says instead of looking at the overall context of what the judge did and here the judge didn't just these enhanced moments and hear arguments about them extensively i'm simply saying that that reflects on the fact that the district court's decision as to the guidelines influence the district courts of ultimate decision as to the sentence as it certainly did the guidelines are the starting point are the lodestar are the central feature of sentencing a district court and i believe that's what happened here in the alternative your hon or if we look to the language on page one hundred and thirty four of the record where the district court said i'm doing this without regard to what the advisory guidelines might be in the case if we have the district court at face value in isolation and they are it gives rise to a different problem which is an indication that the district court did not consider an essential sentencing factor thus rendered a substantively understandable sentence am not that's not a sexy my outcome and that is did my best argument on the harmlessness otherwise is the amount of time litigating the mention of a range of punishments in the ultimate adoption of the highest range of the punishments after rejecting the defendant's objection but the point i'm making here is we either take the district court at face value here or not and if we do he does give rise to a different sort of problem which is the rd point on substantive reasonable  and your honors it's for these reasons because of the guidelines error number one number two because there is there does lack absolute certainty or clarity or the type that we see in these cases to reach the conclusion that it's harmless and in thirty four we take that statement at face value it appears that the district court may not consider the guidelines at all that we asked this court to reverse  to opposing counsel spokesman response times was not in fact calibrated in connection with you advise or a guideline range the advisory range was seventy eight to ninety seven months and the district court imposed a non guideline sentence of one hundred and eighteen months so i'm like each and every case cited by the appellant whether it's a district where this court declined to find what there are but i'm a sentence imposed here was not made in reference which was his commission of three additional bank robbery the court walked in detail through each of those bank robberies which were not accounted for as relevant conduct and therefore were not reflected in the guidelines we the quote then move to the rd and final category which was the assault on the a talent's wife which took place one week after the final bank robbery so there was no cessation of criminal conduct before his arrest in fact it looks to be a matter of happenstance that after being released from the hospital the uncovers the back of the bag masks and the fake beard and fake license plates and turned it over to detectives so the court looked at the some of these facts and found that he was a quote very violent person and here we have those variant intent it was not imposed within the correct range and as a result there's no evidence that it improperly influenced the district court to make women seem determination and for that reason we fall under the other category of clearly we we should take the district court at its word that it carefully consider the facts of this often the other criminal conduct of all the pertinent factors and came up with a specific sentence that it believed was appropriate and we should take the court at its word and find that any purported error in this case was in fact that said the government maintains that the abduction enhancement was properly applied here yes to redmond advocate for a however in the united states versus the score do it up to the abduction enhancement where was the offender stood in one location in the bank brandished a firearm and demanded that the bank tellers move from their location in the officer question i can't say that i have seen that arise i would imagine that the score would still have to take a close by close approach and look at the playing the canary meaning of the term a company which is not as limited as mr redmond advocates in fact is this quote looked at each and every baffin ition cited don't start and end with to go there is no movement requirement in fact each definition also includes to present attend or to be with and so if you read that case but it's certainly clear is that we had actual physical proximity here the record at page one hundred and ninety eight dollars has screen shot from the surveillance video at the time of the robbery that  that mr redmond was that the teller counter and it's difficult to see but you can see that the teller counters are numbered he was at the tower counter close to the adjacent room at the time that he forces them to move to a different location  and the video itself is not in the record i viewed that video in connection you know in preparation for argument unfortunately it's not a fluid would be all it's a series of the sort of screen shots that you would see in the record but this video itself shows that he was on an arm's reach away with a semiautomatic firearms wearing a hoodie and i'm asking and demanding the record shows in the p s r that he was demanding more money there has to be more throwing the bags back at them reaching through the counter so he's very much in direct proximity to these victims at the time that he forces them to change location so the same definition of a company to be to be present with to attend or satisfied in this case and the district court looking at that record as an end and deciding that he was close enough and particularly in light of the fact that he was carrying a firearm which would reach much further than arm's length less associate to a private enhancement under a little bit about the abduction of hansen's started with united states versus kiel here's the facts from the opinion while one robber vaulted the bank teller counter the other robber secured the offices officer offices and other rooms during the robbery one of the robbers also held his firearm to the head of a bank employee directing the employee to fill a backpack with cash multiple robbers into one stays the front what goes back secures the office that secures the offices every one of those cases involved dispute about how much movement is required for a location that is not in dispute here we accept those cases there's nothing there's no tension between those c we're arguing today and if you look at all of the cases cited and all of the briefing and mentioned before the district court looking at the question of this flexible interpretation they all trace back to united states versus and ninety seven and that was another different location question and that's where the defendant physically dragged a victim fifty or sixty feet in a parking lot in this court ultimately is held that there is a there is a flexibility there when you move that farmer from one distinct point to another we're going to call that a change in location but what's being lost here i think is the guidelines that abducted ask yourself whether this happened was a victim forced to accompany mr redmond to a different location that's what the guidelines say has to happen in order for hands from supply was the victim accompany him to the back room the answer is no because he never went to that and i know that sometimes dictionary definitions and almost get confusing as to how these words are being used but this is not my definition this is american heritage this is webster's is the same definition adopted by the united states supreme court in whitfield versus united states where justice scalia said a company means to go with it and it always does and that's consistent with the way we always use it that's also consistent with the guideline policy rationale at least how i interpret it that when the bad guy in the victim going different directions that's a good thing and when they go in the same direction particularly to a closed room that's when we want to punish the bad guys more because that's what creates more danger the teller's the safest time that they ever experienced in this is when they were in the back room when mr redmond was walking out the front door of the bank and i think th guidelines really are looking at that type of behavior where he absolutely needs to be punished or if he goes back into that back room because that creates the life or death situation where the victims are isolated and in face to face contact tacked on this to redmond is walking out the front door that's a good thing from the guidelines perspective even though everything that happened before that is horrific and of course i would never want to minimize that back to take in the district court are i would like to address the three cases the government side just a harmless talking about same sentence same reason there is a little bit more to those cases richardson castro alfon helgerson that i think it's what i'm trying to establish here for your simple language from castro alfonso for example the district court was plain and clear in expressing the court's reasoning we take him into this word united states versus richards and there was a careful description of the impact of each since in factor i don't believe that something we see here then the united states versus how versus the record must show a clarity of intent expressed by the district or i think there are some mixed messages here if we take it far enough it becomes substantive other reasonably substantively and reasonable in the alternative we asked this court to reverse the remand thank you your honors