juveniles the supreme court established the principle that for purposes of sentencing juveniles are constitutionally different from adults that principle is supreme court requires that the sentencing court take into account youth and its attendant characteristics when recently seen in sentencing a juvenile defend it but in this procedure because while it is true that miller does have a substantive constitutional role as mcgovern marie noted and i think as this court noted in dana that there is a procedural component and that procedural component requires the court to affirmatively look at you and it's a tenet characteristics and the reason for that is that simply looking at the thirty five fifty three factors is not enough in these cases when you're court your honor you cannot tell by that statement whether the district court is taking into account the circumstances or the environment that mr friend grew up in or if he's also taking into account just the simple fact by itself well your honor i think certainly the district were allowed the parties to put on their case prior to the sentencing hearing there are dozens of pages of sin seem pleadings and exhibits and then we had the sentencing hearing and certainly the district case but in addition to allowing the parties to put on their evidence the court also has to make specific findings as to any non frivolous argument that the latitude in the extent of the explanation of the sentence but of course that's going to depend on the circumstances of the case and again as the government even acknowledged in its pleadings this was not a typical case by any however when considering the youth and its attendant circumstances or attendant characteristics and deciding whether or not a juvenile is the crimes committed by the juvenile then di why i think that the constitution requires that the constitution requires an affirmative finding on the record if a juvenile defendant is not permanently encourages such that a sentence of life without rules appropriate then there has to be some finding on the record that the juvenile the finesse when the crimes of the defendant represented the transient maturity of you is there no other option we've failed that  by the court of the purpose of that is so that this court and any other appellate court can look at the decision that was made by the district court and be able to determine that the district court the firm never responded to the headhunter that the judge hired but the point is that by the time it became clear that judge mcmillan would not work for either one firm's the damage had been done so to speak so  the actions had already occurred with the contacting of these firms in this case you have the district judge whether he personally sought to interview for the f b i director position or attorney general before attorney general jeff sessions was appointed he was acting deputy attorney general before deputy attorney general rosenstein was appointed and he was also the acting assistant attorney general for the national security division so all of these national security division the u s attorney's office and the f b i are all agencies of the department of justice and the u s attorney's office  and again your honor if you look at the mcmillan it's really about the public perception if someone were a reasonable observer were to consider all of acts in this case with respect to the district judge on a saturday going up to washington d c at the request of the highest ranking members of the department of justice and state of decline that perception or something that a reasonable can take into consideration like to start with the recusal issue council was just addressing and as i understood the defendant's argument in this case the role of the u s attorney had a special place or decision on the court said in this on page three six three of the appendix that the court had no discussions with mr bent concerning the f b i director ship and he did not participate in the interview with the attorney general in the deputy attorney general now you can have the defendant's claim morph into a much broader more counter or rule that says a district judge or federal judge who's under consideration i see the president for an appointed process position and hasta recuse from all cases involving the united states party that would be a dramatic change in how courts have purse have viewed recusal and would equate a judge moving from the judicial branch in the united states government to another position the united states government is being like applying for a position in a law firm and there isn't a case that says that and i don't think the historical practice supports that if you look at examples to take specifically the example of you know directorship you have you have plenty of examples of judges becoming  i think that's right and if you take it at that broadest level you know the parties really haven't offered the court any kind of briefing on that that is really all that helpful and thinking further about the issue there is some precedent from the supreme court and a stretch where judges are serving on the sentencing commission and the court there specifically considered a judge's big potentially influenced by the president's  i'd like to focus on the failure to explain as i understand that's really kind of what the defendant has put the most emphasis on the argument here and the the district court did address each of the point and interested the defense to make really three arguments the first was they were given about miller that the special status of juveniles that's on the second would be that he committed this offense with this family and the family's very dysfunctional the third  hearing the district judge heard arguments from the government about or heard the government discussed pepper that says you can consider post sentencing rehabilitation and then on joint appendix page four fifty the court said i'm going to hear any evidence related to relevant conduct or the defendant's correctional adjustment in the interim then the court started hearing that evidence and one of the government one of the defendants witnesses was d player and the judge interrupted or asked a question of the doctor lawyer and said how do you factor in in your analysis the fact he was in a controlled environment doesn't some way affect your judgment conclusion as to how you would react if you were not in a controlled environment that's joint appendix page five zero three that question is directed at ok you're telling me that this  is not as dangerous as as you might think that he has undergone post sentencing rehabilitation of the judges probing that's of the judge's obviously actively considering that question then moving on just where you move   it does have to be addressed and the judge has to consider it and it's clear on this record i think the judge did both by announcing i'm going to consider evidence interacting with of expressed discussion but evidence suggests that it was a sitter this poor that i should be sure to look at right and so it page five ninety nine the district court said right before the defendant's allocution mr friend i've heard counsel's arguments i think that's a general reference there and then most significantly the defendant's elocution really concluded with him saying you know if i'm ever released i'd like to dedicate my life to humanitarian work and the district court responded directly to thought and said you know your desire for mercy it does remind me that each of the victims that you should be lost here is that the defendant sentence obviously went down it was life it went down to sixty five years at the first sentencing everyone agrees the murder of sorn koren fourth was not considered as relevant conduct it was considered to determine that the defendant had sufficient mens rea for the murder cross reference at the second sentencing that murder was taken into account under thirty six sixty one and so what you have is a sentencing where at the recent scene you're adding in an additional murder in this defendant sentence is going down and i think it's also significant that  you have the judge at the beginning of sentencing this is going to the miller point saying specifically that we're here because of miller and gomery then at the very prison that's another reference during the sentencing the court says on joint appendix page six zero one zero two says i'm based upon the record before him judge pin life was the appropriate then when the court later addressed the guideline range court said the guideline is for life but however i think every lawyer in this courtroom understands constitutionality and legal firmness of that guideline is questionable this point and i go  conduct as the government argued alternatively errors armless a number of cases of procedural sentencing error the government has argued that error was armless if the government argued that you're emphasize that if this court looked at the supreme court's recent opinion and chavez may decide it back in june that case although it was dealing with a sentence reduction or thirty five eighty to see to it said look we're we're going to treat this is if it were a recent sing a full the nova recency and the explanation it was sufficient the court said there in one of the points the court made was that the context matters and in this case the context shows that the court did not think that the evidence on post sensing rehabilitation was sufficient to produce a sentence lower than sixty five years and so i don't think that's a harmlessness argument i think that's the how you look at re sentencings and what the court house  say and the court doesn't have to mechanically say i am now considering post sentencing rehabilitation it's sufficient for court to have the argument of sensing rehabilitation  before the court engage with that ask questions that are critical of that tell the defendant in counsel i've heard your arguments and when presented with the post since the rehabilitation say it's outweigh and this yet the sentence going down and so you got demonstrated consideration the sentence did go down and the only thing that could have explained why the son's would go down in this case is consideration of the defendant's juvenile status yes but i think that those are are sufficient in this scase because one of the other things that i would would point out here is that the difficulty of the court's decision  doesn't correspond to sara lee two how much more illumination can be provided by further discussion at the end of the day the court has got to make a judgement call about balancing this rehabilitation against two murders a permanent maiming of a third person and enormous harm to the victims  explained at the recent saying quote the impact of this crime was extremely devastating to our family and it's a nightmare that still exist on the other hand you have the defendant listing courses that he's taken in prison his prison record and there is a limit to how much a district judge can put into words exactly how it balances those two to take out of the record considerations at the sentencing i mean the court can say felix lamb explained in vivid detail how this crime has affected his family the defendant has said that he has engaged in post sentencing rehabilitation and now i'm telling you that as a reduction in sentence from life to sixty five years i just don't know how much more you can expect that actually illuminates here for the court to say it's not as if he can produce a new you know work of philosophical treatise on how you you balance these very broad sentencing factors the court has before it everything it needs to evaluate the judgment call here the evidence of the harm of this crime which was very serious i mean and as really what you have is you've got two murders in a man being plus all the effect on the family members and if you break it down and said twenty five years for one murder twenty five or that wasn't sufficiently explained on this record ask a question of dr blair or the surname mr friend and situational record there was no other finding by the court concerning whether or not the had any impact on the judge's determination of the sixty five year sentence here in this case the court had a unique opportunity to look at an almost twenty year history of someone who went into prison at the age of sixteen and how he performed or how he feared while he was incarcerated and the fact that the district judge did not ask any questions  case but again i'm looking at united states versus blue the court has to make some affirmative finding why if a party  so well your honor it does make a practical difference to follow the law and to conduct a procedure in which the court affirmatively considers youth and its attendant characteristics and especially in this case where  for practical purposes re manning the case back to the district court to make a specific finding about youthen its characteristics and whether or not this offense reflected the trenchant immaturity  is important for purposes of this court and being able to look at what the district court did and whether or not the judge exercise meaningful decision making it is important when we're talking