davao ninth circuit out the number eighteen five zero zero four one this is a hearing in connection with mr voce request to represent itself on appeal and we are conducting this conference by diddy oh from san francisco from the headquarters of the ninth circuit by video and mr hall was appearing in the pasadena courthouse and here in san francisco i have a courtroom the proceeding today is being recorded so in the event that there's any need to have a transcript that would be possible i don't think that's going to be in the cards for this hearing so mr bro i'm going to engage in a colloquy to make sure that you understand the dangers and disadvantages of self representation on appeal and i'm going to be asking you some questions so i'd like to begin by rove mr bode you have any physical or mental impairments that would affect your ability to participate fully in knowingly in the proceedings today no i don't or you were under the influence of any drug or alcohol no are you able to hear me and to respond freely yes good in response to your request to represent yourself in this appeal the court has authorized me to conduct this hearing to make sure that you understand the dangers and disadvantages of supper presentation on appeal and that your request is knowing intelligent and unequivocal you understand that i do you have the right to counsel if you cannot afford to retain counsel your entitle to have counsel appointed to represent you at government expense the court also has discretion to allow you to represent yourself if your request is knowing intelligent and unequivocal and is not intended to delay the proceedings on appeal in determining whether the court will allow you to represent yourself the court will first inform you of the dangers and this event edges of supper percent ation on appeal second inquire whether the issues on appeal are so complex that the assistance of experienced appellate counsel would aid the court in deciding the case and third inquire whether granting taishan could unduly burden the court or undermine the integrity of the outcome you understand although i do you also may withdraw your request to represent yourself and in that event you may  retain counsel or have counsel appointed to represent you if you are financially qualified i also well the however permit the appointment of standby or visor of counsel so you can represent yourself and simultaneously have counsel represent you understand that i did all right  so i understand that you are a licensed attorney and that differentiates this proceeding from nearly all the other ones i do with defendants who want to represent themselves so let me begin by asking you just to recite your education in your job history and the whole bit about your experience i did see that some of that information is included in your two thousand and eight correct yes that's correct and but before that you had done years of workers without legal work but not as a licensed attorney correct yes that's correct and what the what was your practice what did your practice consist of over the past ten years that in large part on my review of your notice of motion in motion for bail pending appeal i think you have proven that you can articulate the issues that you wish to raise in a manner that's satisfactory for the court to be able to decide the case and i also understand that you're a lawyer so you are so familiar even though you haven't any appellate practice i think case law i have to go through the process of advising you of the dangers and disadvantages of suburbs and taishan on appeal i suspect you're aware of much of this but i do want to make a record that you've been informed of this so that you are so that i can represent to the court that your request is knowing as well as intelligent and unequivocal so i'm going to go through this same kind of litany that i typically go through with with those people who appear before me who are untrained in the law so some of this may be said somewhat elementary for you and so i just want to let you know that in advance and i expect you know some of the first and appeal is different from the trial proceedings occur mainly through written submissions the briefs and those briefs have to comply with specific court rules and if you represent yourself you will be expected to comply with those rules and your appeal could be dismissed if you fail to comply do you understand that i feel on appeal you must obtain interview the transcript of the trial proceedings and identify the potential legal errors committed to trial the issues on appeal are limited to addressing what actually occurred at trial and the court of appeals will not consider new evidence in a direct appeal like this one identifying the appropriate issues requires legal knowledge appears to cade analytic ability to fail to identify a legal issue you may be barred from raising the issue again you understand that you are also required to support any assertion of error with legal authority that means you must be able to research and i stand the provisions of the constitution federal statutes and rules and the cases from the  levin courts that have discussed that particular area of the law this test requires familiarity with legal research techniques and legal writing you understand that i believe there are also strategic determinations that come into play in any appeal for example you might identify a large number of issues but only one or two of which may have real merit if it takes judgment and experience to know how many issues you should raise if you raise too many you may undermine the strength of your strongest issue by hiding it among a number of weaker issues this is one of the kind of strategic determinations that experienced appellate attorneys  know how to navigate through you understand that concept i think it often is difficult just to understand the analytic components of the issues on appeal but even if you master that task it's extremely difficult to convey that understanding persuasively in writing to judges who have only limited time to read and study the briefs appell lawyers including if you were financially eligible those are appellate panels of appointed counsel spend years developing and perfecting a skills but if you represent yourself you have to accomplish the same task without that incarcerated which is usually the case i'm not going to go through those kind of impediments and eat them so long as you are not incarcerated you'll be able to communicate with the court if you are incarcerated of course that you may or might happen may or may not have assistance in the facility where you're incarcerated and your ability to communicate with the court may not be as free and convenient as a lawyer would have you understand that in addition to the written submissions the court allows oral argument typically ten to twenty minutes pursue it in some cases not every case but the oral argument is now opportunity for the parties to ensure that the judges understand the arguments it's also an opportunity for the judges to ask specific questions about the proper disposition of the appeal where a criminal defendant is represented by counsel the court often allows oral argument where our criminal defendant represents himself or herself the court rarely argument but relies typically just all right so mr on let me ask you is there anything else that you could think of that e p thing might be helpful to add to this colloquy concerning the dangers and disadvantages of s brief you have a month or so before that report date it's conceivable you could get a briefing before then and that would at least address the issue of the opening brief but then of course the government w ok ok so so let let's spend a moment now talking about briefing schedules have all has the record been completed or are all transcripts prepare for the hearings yes yes all right i have you familiarize yourself with the federals of appellate procedure and the ninth circuit rules concerning the briefing schedules and the process of briefing the case yes and all right so i don't think it's necessary for you to await a ruling on bail pending appeal to file your brief and i mean you could file your brief regardless of whether you are granted bail pending appeal those are kind of separate inquiries that the court would make so  since your now contemplating and least being able to file your brief before that april twentieth day it seems to me that it would be in your best interest to plan to do so so that in the event that this court does not grant bail pending appeal you would look at least have an opportunity to complete all the work and submit that opening brief which is your most critical document that i'm going to have in this case stay the surrender date and i'm i'm not sure i can and i know where to find out this information but it's not right at hand so but i do i do want to see if we can set  ok i'm going to set the ordinary briefing schedule on this case recommended that occur and then we can that can be adjusted if necessary depending upon the bell motion recommendation out to you and give you a chance to file comment your objections in this case however since i'm recommending that i'm going to grant or recommend that the court grant your request and in the interest o moving this case along probably i would propose that i file the report a recommendation served on you and it's actually sent it to the judges immediately without taking any time any additional time is that acceptable to you yes that's fine all right ok so we will proceed along those lines i'll prepare a report of recommendation probably within a few days and that will be filed it on the docket and so you will see that i expect that the court will adopt my recommendation and then we'll just move forward rove you have any questions i do not at this time ok mr on anything further from the government all right thank you very much for appearing today and this matter is submitted pending the