professor boyd georgetown university law center and i was appointed as an amicus in support of mr jones in this case with the court's permission or human today to be presented by sarah pubic got a third year law student at georgetown who was appearing in conformity with the rules of may please the court i like to focus my argument today on whether it was reasonable for the government to end its search because a criminal trial file was empty the district court's conclusion that the search was reasonable was based on the government's generalized claim below that because the file discouraged the government no longer possesses the documents do you have any knowledge or courage to be you know it's not clear on this record what parish means and whether and hers does not mean necessarily that there requested documents were destroyed it's not clear to us whether something on this record whether the documents might have fallen into an exception to the purging policy or my simply he needs to point out and he pointed out several times that the record was not sufficient to establish that the government had performed a reasonable search including because the government did not search its former records system and did not contact a usa hamilton who prosecuted mr johnson's case without the government is required to establish that it pursued all of the obviously in the record and signed them in some way so how do we even know that they were any students of all if the government wants to rely on the fifth on the argument that the documents don't exist then the government needs to show that it performed a reasonable search to identify whether the documents existed in any of the police and it's possible that the raleigh police department acted as a customer again for those documents that's why we suggested that it's important for the government to submit the policy for its record keeping on the record in order to overcome the generalized claim roland palencia because it's possible that a prosecutor's office has made an arrangement with the raleigh police department that initiated the investigation in order to preserve important documents on the appeal of the best argument that the government can muster to explain the absence of these documents is that  persian policy as a quote possible logical explanation for their absence that's not enough to establish that there was a reasonable search under valencia and quite a generalized claim of destruction or not preservation cannot sustain s judgment and here we don't even have a generalized claim of destruction on preservation we only have a possible logical explanation for the documents absence we don't have any  if there were no witness statements at all then it doesn't matter whether it was her mistress because i'm not sure i will respond in rebuttal but the the government it's the government's burden to establish that if these documents were never in the government's his action or that they were at that that they never existed then the government has to search all of the places that are reasonable that are likely to contain the documents on this record the government hasn't done so this was contained documents it contains it indicates what files a paralegal should go to just search for documents so i imagine it to be said why should i do a decimal system where it is a map that lays out where the files are later located so if they merged into the new system and they found documents in the new system wide with a look at the whole system because it's not clear that it's not clear what happened in the migration there what is mr jones's case according to two declarations on the record was persian closed on january twentieth mention ninety seven when he was when i was down the date of sentencing and then another declaration says that his case because his case was pending it would have been migrated to the new system but it is not clear that his trial file was migrated or that that it was something of what was pending and what was migrated on this record and if the file was proven closed even assuming that the trial file was perching closed that do explain that the documents are not located elsewhere ok thank you thank you there are plenty of cases that require a search even though it has much less than a guarantee of actually yielding anything right yes or whether this is a there's a and implicit and sometimes exploits of balance of the burden of the incremental search and the probability of finding something and at least from what the brief says and what you said the burden of this particular if the question terms on whether the research of promise would be a burden i think the record reveals that it may be either current management systems information management in the us or just ignore carolina didn't even know that what the predecessor system was that's because the migration occurred over twenty years ago to go back to such a lazy system for information when when the information appeared to be ported into the new system the information is there you know whe search but i agree that the court and the record this is not there as to what the burdens are because the district court didn't believe that that was necessary to establish reasonable miss of the agency search and again that's within his is yes you question of my colleague on the other side in and i would say that the record is not exactly clear as to what the term purge means but i think we know what it doesn't mean it doesn't mean that the files were completely destroyed because they were apple able to gather the files the physical files and review them and there is in the record indications that file folders continue to exist in those folders and that the contents were reviewed so there was substance students filed not just merely shells of already well so i think later on in desire declaration it adds another verb that i think may be that exactly the issue wasn't fully developed in the record before the district work but also your honor it provides a logical logical explanation and i think the reason that it was noted in these three in the probation office is response to objections from mr jones made its it knows that in regard to the existence of man statement and again that i think the reason that we're staying here loosely to mean knows the probation but but moving closer on is that the requirement to go and talk to a government employee hinges on the task of one as you know pacino right where maids someone with a close nexus to the documents  this was information on appeal in order to sustain an order granting summary judgment below second there was no claim that the documents never existed and i'm not in the government does the government actually provided information out of people i didn't see that  their response brief the government accepts that the documents existed and that their search didn't turn up the documents after they performed a search of the alliance system but it's the government's burden to establish that they searched all of the places that are likely to have your point is know i'm not sure you're on our back or i don't think it makes a difference that the issue is whether the government performed to reasonable search in order to find a document on this record the government has not that it searched all of the places likely to turn up the documents the record if the government knew is there and the government doesn't want to contact you i say hamilton then the government needs to establish that that contacting her would be a burden or unfruitful by the government hasn't done that on this record and the record isn't clear about where she works at in general this this record is not enough to establish what would happen if