morning on this may please the court i am mark angelou to be representing the plaintiff and the appellant national coalition for men and james les meister as the court knows this case is a constitutional equal protection challenge to the sex specific requirement that men and only men have to register for the selective service we're here today on appeal because the district report district court held that the case is not right because it was not certain whether and to what extent women would be allowed in combat and also because it found that the harm to a minimum the decision was wrong for three reasons and all the arguing all three are like to briefly state them first the court relied on a six month old military our opinion it was also right when the court made no it was hardly use this point if that's what you want to vent out skip that part we now have documents filed by the department of defense but the selective service indicating very clearly women will be allowed in all combat roles and as you said your honor the case is right i was right i said that there were different circumstances well  not the circumstances your had been changing ever since the roster decision at the time of the roster decision one thousand nine hundred one men were not allowed in any combat roles as we know since that time even before the two thousand and thirteen directive what the department of defense has said so clearly all i want to do is clarify this as i understand it the district couldn't make any merits ruling another words didn't say whether if women are in combat government can't recall protection principles of a selective service good morning may it please the court son you make me feel for the government judge gould i'd like to start with your question if i may this case is no more right today than it was when it was before the district court seat the political branches are currently in the process of deciding the degree to which the changes that have happened since the time of the supreme court's decision in roscoe are render women equally situated to men for purposes of the draft but it would not be appropriate for this court to send to reverse and send back to the district court for a sense that whatever the circumstances were at any particular time might mean they might win the marriage or might lose the marriage but it doesn't mean that it's it's not right but another words the circumstances or whatever they reaching the merits decision and rosco what was crucial to the court's consideration with congress's findings on the extent to which women and men were similarly situated with respect to the draft congress in this case notwithstanding the secretary's announcement last thursday that they had all the there is no assertion in the complaint of any injury whatsoever and i mean i understand that right distance standing or close and i expect to argue standing and maybe that's what you should be doing but calling it right just doesn't seem very helpful but i understand that there is an issue as to whether they really have a problem and i'm happy to hear about i agree with you your honor there's some relationship between the hardship prong of rightness and the standing inquiry to the extent there is an injury and redress ability which in this case there neither the standing inquiry of course has particular importance in the court applies it with special rigor in a case where the plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of an act of congress here if you'll refer to the complaint you'll see that there is no assertion of any injury makes this case interesting and difficult is that in all likelihood the ultimate remedy if they were proven correct would be that they would still have to register but woman will too but but they do have  of an injury i e we have to register if we were a woman i did would have to register that's their assertion i disagree with your you your honor i don't think that that's a fair reading of their complaint what we know is that mr left meister one member of the national coalition for men has registered he doesn't say in his complaint whether or not his grievance is associated with some sort of feeling of stigmatic injury but the point further is that of course the relief that he sought would not redress that injury even if that were the injury that he and the national coalition for men were relying on what he asked the district court to do was to order women also to register and so that wouldn't change anything about the fact that he either that he either that he has already registered or prospectively going forward about his obligations for that reason too there is no hardship to mr less my search of the national coalition for men for deferring adjudication of this case until such time as the political branch that has expertise in these questions into whose factual findings on these questions i do understand policy level very strongly why you know it might make sense for the courts not to wander into this right now but i don't understand and that might be a question of granting a stay while this issue is being considered in congress or something like that but i don't understand why that has anything to do with the question of right just for standing i mean another words  decision at that time now whether you put this in a rightness doctrinal box or you conceive of it as the exercise of the district court's discretion not to enter a declaratory judgment i think the point remains that only one of the political branches that has expertise and should have the opportunity to express a judgment on this issue has weighed in with its belief about what the policy should be what will happen next is that congress has thirty days as do most of the changes thirty days of continuous session with respect to some others and i'm happy to distinguish between those of the court is interested to review the secretary's proposed policy change that policy has not been implemented and congress further recognize and this is in ten u s c six fifty two that of course the question of women's eligibility to serve as a categorical matter in combat positions is related to the constitutionality of the men only selective service registration requirement and when we are on the precipice of the very sort of debate that was so important to the court's decision on the merits and roster that would inform this court's consideration of the merits question indeed that might obviate the need for the court to address the constitutionality of the selective service registration requirement at all i submit that it's not appropriate particularly in a case where the plaintiffs lack standing for the court to reach out and decide the constitutional merit plain to me i mean obviously if they lack stedding then it's not appropriate anyway so let's just talk about standing for the for the time being explain ordinarily in a equal protection case or theoretically the remedy can run either way either men don't have to register a woman to have to register right or i mean that's just way for protection works usually it's not very likely that the conclusion is going to be that everybody has to register in the since it's been this instance that's likely to be the case how does that influence the standing well here as you say your honor the specific relief they request singled out because of a man they have an alleged dignitary interest your honor to the extent that they even get close to making that sort of injury argument they do i mean there are so i know this happens all the time but suppose i was to take a racial example instead i was just it was a law that said black people have to register white people don't and there was a lawsuit or and you say which you say something different your honor for purposes of this case the point is that the relief  your honor that's certainly not our position in the court standing decision in this case need not embrace that in order to rule for the government but that's when we'll know because here and i don't mean to be obstructive your honor but i do think it's important to focus on the complaint that was actually honor i'm looking to his relief to inform because this is such a bare bones complaint what it is that his injury the injury he believes that he suffered excuse me even is and so the relief that he sought would not redress complaint so that's a supplemental excerpts of record patronized by the actual resaw it doesn't say that pardon me the actual relief prayer for relief does not say that well your honor i think it's fair to read the prayer for relief in light of the more specific allegations but it doesn't make any difference in this case because even that i don't understand him to be asking to be stricken from the rolls the injury the only thing that could conceivably amount to an injury that he's certain here is that he is required to register and he has registered even the release that he states in his prayer for really want to everybody else is a member of this organization your honor we don't have any information about any other member of this organization that would allow us to conclude that they have standing of course it's incumbent on the organization to provide facts about an individual and identified member of their organization who would have been able i can't just say we have people who are we we have an organization of men i don't know exactly what they said but if they did say it they could eventually say we are an organization we have people who are over eighteen and who are required to register for the draft either have or haven't well your honor first of all that's not what they've said and second of all to the extent that they would like to say that i remind the court again that the dismissal here was without prejudice there is nothing that bars them or any other plaintiffs in the circuit from filing a properly framed complaint in the district court and proceeding on that basis but again here we do also defended i want to correct any conception of the government less than vigorously defending the rightness say that the membership is composed mostly of males many of them age eighteen to twenty five  who will be aged twenty five and many of them off and have showed her loved ones who are males and age eighteen to twenty five so what's the problem of course your honour's we pointed out in our brief it's not the case that every man aged eighteen to twenty five needs to register look the standing inquiry the assertions that would have been required not a demanding standard the point is only that they must do more than they did to establish that they have article three injury they have not alleged an injury they have not sought any relief that would regress that injury and so even if this case were ripe or there were some question whether the district court appropriately exercise discretion not to consider the merits at this time the order of the district court should be a firmed and that affirm and would not preclude mr less meister or any other plaintiffs from challenging the selective service registration in and in a future complaint framed with the appropriate assertions the counsel relief they sought so this complaint unlike hundreds i must have seen in practice now we have some language in the prayer asking for like such other relief as the court may think appropriate the fourth item in the prayer for relief is any other relief that the court deems just but the point your honor is that the court should not enter the broad and sweeping programmatic that relief that could be encompassed within this prayer which i think the court should not rely on to the exclusion of the more specific allegations but in any event for this court to order sweeping relief in parallel or is an order in anything all we're doing is ruling on a rightness question then let me be more might look like of course we would prefer speeding in that case without the benefit of the factual findings by one of the coordinate branches with responsibility and to whom deference is owed in their actual size of expertise in national defense and military affairs certainly think that would be the better part of valor and of the district court if we went sent it back to him to tell everybody to cool it for six months or or or a year while congress considers this because it's right on their docket right now yes your honor but to standing from filing a new complaint either in six months or today what we don't have any and so give me an idea of what they'd have to say to have standing your honor i can't commit because i don't know what other things they might say but the point is it wouldn't be very hard for them to offer that or they are hard and what we should do is send it back to two men to complain no your honor of course the plaintiff is in here arguing that they tried to amend their complaint and that the district court denied it and that that was somehow improper problem is that they didn't say you know i i have a dignitary interest in not being treated differently from women and have people have the government know where i am all the time just because i'm a man they didn't say that but they could say honor so they didn't say that and that's the important point and even if they had said of court said that of course they would need to address cases like alan vs rights and to prove that they are affected in a concrete a tangible if pushing away because that is what article three requires the district didn't have that before it in this case and so for that reason alone it's proper for the order of the district court to be affirmed ok thank you thank you  i have to sometimes restrain myself when i hear anybody say that there is no harm going on when somebody is forced to be an on call warrior for the state because of their gender now in this situation we're not just talking about equal protection men are subjected to find prison minutes to just lose can't get federal jobs they can't get federal loans and those inverses bush we've seen when men actually did lose their federal jobs and you don't have any plan to who didn't register you know the she'll say if you i'm sorry but you need to take did register in the elgin versus bush case that we cited in our brief there were men who lost their federal job years later in life because they hadn't registered when they were young but when i was like you don't allege that you have any members who although subject to the requirement are refusing to register because they don't that's correct but let's also look at what happens if it's not just that they've registered they have to continuously report their whereabouts or where their residence is to the government for six years that's not just a matter of registering to suggest that less master doesn't have standing just because he's already registered completely ignores that fact that he has to continuously report and in fact the lower courts in the roster case acknowledged that and they could completely threw out the argument that there was that there was no rightness in this case the district court  terms of whether there is a standing to complain about the registration requirement even though i mean i assume you would agree that the ninety nine point five percent likelihood that the remedy is going to be ok women have to register too if you win i'm not that there's nothing that there would be that the harm would be diminished just because men have to still register of woman do because that's not the only remedy that the because that the military could have used they could read there are several remedies and one of them would be to read ikeda now for us to decide that that's very unlikely is really speculative we weren't given the right the right opportunity to do discovery to even find out what the position of the military branches was and even to this day we haven't been given that opportunity even if  that's right they had until may of two thousand and thirteen but i thought they have now that they've decided to come back question they have to receive something to report about the constitutional issues that's correct but even to this day we haven't seen a bio and i believe it's in thirty days but your honor we should be given the right to do discovery to find out what the exact status of of the of the new directive is that was issued back in two thousand and thirteen as well as what the opinions of the military branches were they each had to submit a detailed report to the department of defense explaining why we worry about what happened two thousand and thirteen where we were having last week well i'm talking about even to this day if if their argument is correct that even now it's not right just because there are still some further developments to girl which i completely disagree with but even if that were true we should have a right to do discovery in order to find out even right now what the status is we don't know now what this how many combat roles are open to women and how many are not we don't know what the positions of the military branches are what they wrote in their report we know it's not that i think this is zero a little for the looking but as we know we know that fashion but right now the position is that all combat jobs are open to women oh well that is correct i agree entirely i think if her position were correct that it's not right now because there's more there are more development to go i that were true we should have the right to do discovery this case should be remanded even if that were true i'm only covering my bases but i was calling to her argument i fully agree with your honor position that it is right now i see percent was right