it please the court my name is mark amin and i'm with the federal defender's office in fresno and i represent the defendant brett raymer i would first like to make a brief correction to my brief and that is that his release date from time please in this case requires that the court construe three different words in the statute communication threat and person and i've already agreed whether or not  requires the use of words and i would like to focus today beginning with asking the question that even if a communication can be based on conduct under the statute whether the conduct here was a threatening communication and in doing so i think it would be helpful to distinguish between a threat on the one hand and to fighting on the other have a threat being a and expression or communication about a future harm as opposed to a fright which is instilling some sort of a present fear let's suppose that if someone leaves a package which looks like real dynamite attached to an alarm clock harm which would be a violation i'm sure of another statute but not the mailing of a threat you say that's that like i'm things are just that i'm saying first it has to have language and alternatively even if it doesn't have language it has to be a communication of a harm yet to come that that is in the nature of the threat of saying something you know by words or conduct that something's going to happen as opposed to the doing of it if i sho someone that's not a threat that shooting someone into me sending it if that were the actual anthrax that would be the doing of it that isn't the threatening to do it you know have these cell phones where you can take a picture and instantly communicated someone takes a picture of someone else's daughter with a gun pointed at their have been since that to someone else is that a threat something that will as opposed to d dictionary definition of to frighten is to markedly disturb with fear to throw into a state of alarm or to make afraid or to terrify where as here assuming we get past the words problem and just focusing on if is there some sort of communication here the question then is what sort of communication with there be in the factual context that we have here we have a direct evidence of my client who said that he meant nothing by it he wasn't thinking so there's some sort of zero intention at half point if the court were to look beyond that to look at a larger context and read more into it than my client admitted at most there would be some sort of a boo factors some sort of scare with nothing behind it which would really be a fright a temporary fright without payment from apartment parking ticket all together in the envelope with the cornstarch this was a completed transaction nothing more and there was no suggestion no comment no nothing about any future if anything in to me a little less interesting but easy way out here although it is clear as a government points out that in general federal statutes referring to the word person can mean all sorts of and of these in the context of  statute it has to mean a natural person and we know that because of the other uses of the same order not only in the statute but in the very sentence where it occurs three times in the same sentence the word person a person in relation about physical things here that's what congress is talking about and that's really all that's raised by either side in this case either that that although person could mean something in other contexts here it has to ample threat to in fact that person with anthrax if you shoot somebody is not a threat to them when i point the gun it's a threat your honor yes when you point the gun yes and that's exactly what happened here the gun was pointed to well something that the person was threatening to do after the anthrax or the powder was who they were simply threatening to infect the person with anthrax they had done everything they were going to do yes they had taken the steps to do that and then they completed that action when the person know i don't know joe i don't have to complete the threat and a lot of good things to do something else and i'm threatening to shoot it was then what is good threatening that you're going to do the person with anthrax what are you going to do you know what you don't see the difference between the requires that the threat be addressed to any other person yes or what you have any case law that says person includes the city of modesto perking citations division do something to affect their stock value as a common threat these days that's a threat to the corporation that's a threat to the person of the corporation th and judge coyle appropriately found that that necessarily is the reception of the letter of the city of my guess that was comprised of persons that necessarily mr raymer dropped that white powder in the envelope he knew at the other end a person was going to open up the l know formally if one corporation acting as the corporation sent a threat to another corporation that would be one person under the dictionary act threatening another person then when it says whoever and then addressed to any other with certain software program to it that they'll institute a hostile takeover the example probably better the other way around the microsoft board sending the communication i finish my question your government's position is that whoever includes a corporation and that the phrase any other person also includes a corporation that's the government's  i would just like to point out your honour's that if the government is correct about corporations and it is and so on we're still stuck even in the absurd position that we could otherwise be in construin statute we have the phrase addressed to any other person it would be rendered completely meaningless it would have no meaning whatsoever and it's essentially being written out of the statute and rules of interpretation would completed murder there could be violation many other offenses but simply not a communication of a threat and in this case there wasn't it was not only not anthrax it was a harmless