colleague mr edwards about seven minutes into my presentation as long as you know you have twenty minutes total for your side we understand you very good piece of very proceed and what i'd like to invite your honour's attention to  us the judge excluded certain evidence received which which the defendants wanted to offer as to what they had been told on the grounds of  and that the suchness counsel should have tried to offer on her behalf retaining to the events that arose from the prosecution of mr hardie not for any tax crimes and instead for money laundering it was not excluded merely because it was cumulative it was excluded because it was hearsay and just as your honour's noted that was erroneous there were additional erroneous rulings that excluded evidence is being cumulative as well that had to do with the excluded on hearsay grounds all of the evidence that mr hardee wanted to offer about his state of mind based on what he was told and what he heard his attorney alexander silver say al conduct for which he was prosecuted and convicted here was entirely legal and mr hardy relied on that he also had expert testimony quote unquote expert testimony that he wanted to offer from third party professionals to the effect that following income tax returns is voluntary basically this case the erroneous rulings and the type of evidence are exactly the same type and the errors are exactly the same errors that were corroborate to defend his version of events is if anything were to live and what took place during that conference that was tape recorded and government lost the tape for some strange reason but still the transcript was there and on the transcript attorney basically turned on her this is brief extensively and i don't know how much time the court wants to devote to rehashing the the unfortunate series of events that led to her attorney moving to the first amendment right of the advocacy part of it i think there are two parts there's always the first amendment struction properly not given and the answer is no it should have been given because there was evidence in the record that mr there was no evidence that he did know how these letters were being you know i beg your pardon that he did not know how the letters were being used there was no evidence that he did not know how the letters were being used but i don't think that matters if that was a an issue certainly argued about it in the press with the senator for hawaii and with the internal revenue service and others you you have in the excerpts of record the the newspaper articles which were basically letters to the editor to that effect so he is opinion was entitle to consideration by the jury as to whether or not it was criminal under brandenberg and and furthermore whether or not it was an advocacy of any type of unlawful behavior reading the letter itself i won't find mr restore to say break the law don't follow a tax attorney follow my instructions he says it's my opinion that you don't not like the mccoy case which i cited in my brief where you had the gang member who's telling another gang out of how they can be a more effective gang even mccoy couldn't the was sufficient to base criminality so i'm relying principally on on freeman and on hammerschmidt in caldwell and of course pointing out to you that if you look at the facts which i the objection was to the statements made by attorneys filberts that was what the district court was basing the rejection of the of that was the only instance in which the district court said on structuring and money laundering the one nine hundred ninety two trial because the court concluded that there was a substantial risk of prejudice or risk of confusion the and the evidence was cumulative the court made very clear in said as we excerpt at pages forty six to forty eight of our brief that the one of the major reasons the court was excluding the close testimony was that it was cumulative to what defendant had already testified as we also argue in our brief defendant had testified that beginning in the early one nine hundred seventy s and certainly by the middle of the one nine hundred eighty s he had already decided that that he was not a person required to file taxes but to file tax returns or pay taxes whatever additional persuasive value this would offer in terms of establishing any showing his claims good faith belief was more than outweighed as the district court made clear in its careful for three analysis by the risk of the attorney who argued the moran case so i'm relatively familiar with how we lost and we lost based on the hearsay so exclusion of statements as hearsay which were not hearsay that's not this  case harvey's own testimony in terms of his beliefs his claimed leaves was the best evidence he was able to testify about the heat was he testified that he was not convicted he had not been convicted of any crime so he four agents made it clear numerous on numerous occasions that they were not there to offer they were not allowed to offer information advice or legal advice to defendants defendant testified at length about the statements their court properly concluded that anything additional by its including the transcript was going to be cumulative in nature and would serve no useful purpose moving on to ortiz if the court is not only sold opinion letters for profit he was also the trustee of gina harvey's trust defended hardy's father's trust that's it i'm seven of the transcript page fifty five he was paid in cash by personal stuff not for his opinion letters he continued to make mistakes and misrepresentations about what he had been told even after so know that senator in a way and others that specifically directed him to cease and desist he was doing far more than making than merely engaging advocacy he was an active participant could you explain a bit further how he was an active participant we know that he filed he also there's a strong indication that he was a tax return preparer as an occupation the fact that he didn't tell his clients that guess what there's this wonderful thing i can tell you you don't have to pay taxes or file tax returns it's a strong indication that he was well aware that what he was doing in the conspiracy was criminal i'm not quite sure i understand that argument if he prepared the tax returns he has no responsibility for being sure they get file he simply as a no if he was preparing as a as a business he sold he paid he was a paid return preparer for people who properly filed and prepared returns right  fact that he did nothing criminal about that nothing no in fact we encourage that we're happy when that return preparers do that now it's the fact that he was not telling his these clients where he was premature and that there was this wonderful system that you could purchase from the research would certainly but believe that that's an inference of the jury can draw you the strongest evidence of course is that he was preparing which he was preparing opinion letters for for pay you sense at page at page one forty one of the government's excerpts of record we have a letter sent you prepared for mr ortiz that to be sent to an employer verifying that one of his clients was exempt and did not have to have the income tax withheld from or from her fail to give the first amendment as instruction your honor we believe that that instruction was covered by the good faith instruction given by the district court if the defendant believed for whatever reason that his conduct was not  this was mere advocacy and there was nothing and that whatever else went on with these other activities and the research foundation of the trust and all that sort of thing did not include him he certainly made that argument but the l isn't even untitled well you need all your e mail on his theory of a case he made the argument that the evidence didn't support the arguments the evidence was that he she did more than merely advocate he sold the opinion letters believe and what the defendants theory of his defense is i'm not sure i entirely understand the question your honor your point to evidence which showed more than mere advocacy correct but of course isn't it up to the jury to determine whether that evidence is valid or not it is and they could do that with respect to the good faith belief good faith defense instruction if you believe for whatever reason that he was not conspiring to defraud that his actions did not cost you conspiracy to defraud the jury could not have found him that he acted willfully and therefore could not have convicted him so you're just relying  general good faith instruction well i'm relying on that in addition to the other the other evidence that we that we show the points that he did more than merely advocates if the court has no further questions the government will rest on its brief or thank you c will hear from mr edwards thank you judge first of all trustee of gene hardy trust there was no trust agreement in the record there's no way to connect what whether or not the trust arrangement was legal or illegal anything there's no connection to the research foundation guilty knowledge although all the stuff that the government is arguing that the jury heard was a proper jury consideration i said so in my reply  only after first amendment struction had been given and it wasn't that was the wrong here truth whether or not mr ortiz believed what he said isn't the issue in the first amendment it isn't in the good instruction because he didn't believe that he didn't have good faith but the first amendment permits you to have an opinion unless you insight and that lawlessness with it unless you intend to it doesn't say that you got my brief but are in a nutshell and i don't want to take too much time away from my colleague my client offered his opinion to anybody willing to accept it and got paid for it a little bit from  thank you are i just going to respond to a few of the remarks that the government made such as that mr hardie had quote decided that he was not required to file and as a result of this so called decision was locked into cement and can change his mind or be influenced by subsequent events which simply ignores the human condition i mean mr hardy's decision that he was not required to file was something that he had to revisit every year at least once a year and he was filing his annual statements but the evidence that the district judge excluded was crucial to mr hardy's and was so nice and for that matter mr kalends conclusions i can't speak for mr cassidy because i don't know whether to what degree he relied on it but the key to the prosecution against mr harvey was not the fact that it was a money laundering sting and he was acquitted but rather that at that trial the evidence was a deuced in excruciating detail about mr hardy's quote anti tax activities that he was selling this reliance defense package that he wasn't found in tax returns that he was encouraging other people at least to study this material and t reach the same conclusion but the key to all that in terms of hardy's belief and the suchness belief was the government declined to prosecute and conceded in fact the statements that mr harvey wanted introduce what were testify to facts and circumstances that lead them to believe that they were not required to file income tax returns it was for the jury to make the determination with a credited such testimony or there was another  remark made about the wonderful system you could purchase in research foundation by the government in connection with mr ickes well the wonderful system was a system that only was to be used by people who were likely to be prosecuted for willful failure to file their all kinds of skill year it is an inconsistency in every aspect of the defense and in the prosecution of the case and that's why these nuances had to be allowed before the jury and the government also said well mr hardy was allowed to testify well mr hardy's testimony was actually largely excluded and on page one of the reply brief that was filed on behalf of hardy killing and cassidy and which new sutton joint we detailed all the evidence that was excluded erroneous led by the district court including mr hardy's desire to subpoena the agents the the the other evidence and i have touched on it that the judge ruled was rank your say were these statements that were relevant to the good faith defense and the ira as agent evidence likewise this is exactly the same type of evidence that was excluded from the prosecution in the miranda case and that's why this court should reverse these convictions any questions from any honor's no questions counsel thank you thank you counsel the case just argued will be submitted for decision and the