the shocking thing about this case is this is one of the few examples where a judge truly did abuse her discretion in relying solely on the seventy day speedy trial calendar that congress had issued and denied a reasonable request for an adjournment in order to properly investigate the case mr wright was arrested july twenty eighth two thousand and sixteen he was tried sixteen and he was his trial started october several times during the period between his arraignment in front of the district court and the start of the trial trial counsel asked for reasonable adjournment in order to investigate witnesses in order to investigate a six pack photo id that a victim had identified another party and to investigate  zone after the arraignment he was aware of the victim's statement however it's very hard to investigate when he was unaware of who the victims were the government did not turn over their identities until i believe about two weeks prior to trial and even at that point it's very difficult in the lead up to a trial to adequately investigate to talk both of these victims had attorneys i believe trial counsel was able to track down one victim but there were two victims in this case and he was unable to even speak to the other so i think that the fact that the government did disclose that there was a different idea and everything at arraignment while helpful is not the most useful information to investigate when you don't know who did the wrong and he was given the names on september nineteenth which was a thursday trial was october third i know defense counsel is very of the row but that suggests that everybody is sitting waiting for this call these other attorneys may not have called them back on this i'm not sure but this information needs to be investigated more than a one initial call to an attorney the investigator tried to go to one of the victim's apartments to see if you would be willing to a seventy day speedy trial schedule this is a simple case well part of the problem with it being a simple case is you don't really know that until you're at able to adequately investigate i agree that on its face it's obviously not a securities fraud case or a complicated case involving a large drug trafficking organization that does not mean it should be inadequately investigated a long drawn two da that they found that the second part is also unjustifiably vague to lead to a yes or a yes or a leading question it is a leading question and i answered yes i please the court my name is matthew roach i'm an assistant united states attorney in the southern district of new york to represent the government in this appeal i also represented the government in the proceedings below and first going to start with the trial of german issue and then all moved to  twenty four see force clause and risk of force clause there was no abuse of discretion here a judge could probably from the beginning of this case at the arraignment made clear that this was a firm trial date that this was an exceedingly simple case with very little discovery  defendant had ample opportunity to investigate including the statements of the victims which she was aware the defendant was aware of two days after that arraignment and to this day that if an out that's correct your honor but the government provided the names more than two weeks at at least two weeks before trial which was sufficient time for the defendant to investigate that in fact the defendant did investigate the victims and was aware before a trial that they were simply going to plead the fifth and would not be available as witnesses  the standard here is not whether the decision was quote unquote reasonable the standard is whether judges are prone to made an arbitrary decision that substantially impaired that offense and clearly that's not what happened here the decision was not arbitrary because the case was exceptionally simple when judges are prone it was presented with an application to adjourn the trial two weeks before she did not immediately deny it she took it under advisement the defendant then had an opportunity to submit the basis for that adjournment request judge soprani considered it and then articulated a basis for denying it at the pretrial conference and that basis was eminently reasonable it was that whether she gave the defendant two weeks a month three months this trial was not changing and the information with respect to the victim in this case was not changing and she had amps that defended ample opportunity to investigate that so there was none arbitrary the decision there this decision also did not impair the defense let alone substantially impair that offense the defendant had this government recognises that the mind is obviously a substantial opinion and affects this case the government recognises that the my i addressed section sixteen b which has identical language in one twenty four c's risk of course clause i  can report that the solicitor general is in the process of considering to maya and considering whether and how the department of justice will continue to defend the one twenty four c risk of force clause going forward it said the maya does not address the really honors thank you there were two victims in this case while victim one they played the only one victim one did victim to i don't believe was reached yet was the lawyer reached for victim two i do not know your honor but there were these two victims to assume that a case is very simple just because on its face at a t it appears so begs the question it's going to be very simple if you don't have adequate opportunity to investigate the seventy day trial schedule was just insufficient based on all the different factors that the defense counsel was dealing with with the two witnesses with the different i d s and the request for an adjournment was reasonable thank you thank you will