good morning your orders in may please the court my name is kevin little and i represent the appellant's in this case pamela motley and the family members of sandy rego's i'd like to reserve a two minutes of my time for a bottle on as many women in the united states live constantly in fear of violence from their partners or ex partners domestic violence is the most prevalent let let yet at least enforce crime many victim women are denied services that the violence against women act in analogous state laws provide for and then a number of women like cindy rego's and pamela have their lives ended are reparable damaged because the police disregard it now so we understand the generalities here what specific evidence can be looked to in this case to support your theory your honor in an equal protection case there are a number of ways in which discriminatory purpose and effect can be proved you know what i'm asking give me some specific pieces of evidence that are in this record yes ron one way in which you can prove bias is in a domestic violence context massaging mystic and hostile comments this court has s balustrade case that that constitutes strong evidence of an intent to discriminate against victims of domestic violence and also women in this case we have a number of comments we have comments where off certain told miss motley after husband it chased her into a cul de sac and threatened to kill her he said while his motor was running and he was still in his vehicle these guys only do this one percent of the time we also have evidence that another fresno police officer took an ambulance called an ambulance back that was taken to rate this victim then received medical assistance and brought her back to the scene to interrogate her in front of her perpetrator telling her she didn't look like a rape victim we have evidence in this case your honor that an officer told a victim who had a domestic violence restraining order that most of us we don't like dealing with these sorts of orders we have evidence your honor that another domestic violence victim was told when she showed an officer bruises on her back that those could have been self inflicted we have evidence your honor that miss ray goes it was told after she was choked in her own apartment by someone who broke through the door she was told ready he was criticised about her choices in men and said if you continue to associate with these type of people you're crying wolf and we're not going to help you you know i don't have i have made quite a list from your record and i think it is very complete the legal question and then have is this is not a actual policy isom it's a de facto case that we're looking at is yes and you know and it would help me if you can talk about the standard we use because there obviously is conflicting evidence which would suggest the denial  d you know summary judgment motion to dismiss anything short of a trial if there is conflicting evidence including some of the evidence that's not contradicted so how many how much  think you need so that you don't fall into that trap of it being isolated evidence your honor i think domestic in equal protection obviously the nature of the evidence that's needed to get the trial depends on the context in leave versus america county which was a selective enforcement class of one case this court required specific evidence that that individual ready not only that there was an indication of bias toward him but that other individuals were prosecuted however in a domestic violence context neither this court nor other courts have ever required a group of women to do essentially and an audit of a police department to prove that in all other respects that they follow their policies and that they don't act with similar disregard for all victims of crime indeed as this court set forth in the excuse me in the floors vs morgan hill case evidence that a department has policies and professes to comply with those policies we can hold them to that they can certainly if they choose to but isn't but isn't the burden on you to establish they had notwithstanding what's in writing there is a policy to discriminate against victims of divestment vesting violence yes your honor isn't that why we're here and it is and under the case law including the c s cold of all of the cases we've cited you can prove that in the domestic violence conduct through context through anecdotal evidence and we have tons of anecdotal evidence in this case you need it do you need evidence that others are actually treated more favorably or differently and do you have any of that evidence did you present a new that evidence to the district court that for example men who are victims of crime are treated differently or those who are victims of other types of s crimes are treated differently yes we did your honor and as a matter of fact in two of the domestic violence situations that were presented to the court the motley incident the pamela motley incident on the th of march it was shown that in the report which is an exhibit on summary judgment she was labeled as a suspect when a person came to her house after he found out that she was divorcing him tried to pull off of her her wedding ring off her hand yank her off the porch injured her and simply because there was a faint bite mark on his hand it was deemed to be mutual combat and she was also labeled a suspect in that report that is and incident that shows that there is more favorable treatment under like circumstances for men than for women similarly your honor in the case of miss anderson was one of our de clans she  arrested for making a phone call in violation of a restraining order to her former significant other who was similarly restrained she was arrested even though she had evidence her bills that she didn't actually make those calls and on the other hand he was not arrested under very similar circumstances because an officer told her well you know someone else could have been using her phone did  offer any statistical evidence to the district court we did not offer any statistical evidence ron do you need statistical evidence i think that if domestic violence victims were required with all of the calls for service that police departments receive every year over a number of years if we were required to essentially do a full department audit that would be an insurmountable burden for any plaintiff in this type of case and moreover do you think the jury the jury would want to know and i'm assuming that we would have claims against individuals and also a policy claim that we would be presenting to the jury the jury would want to know number one in the various instances of alleged violations by the individuals as their evidence as to each one of those incidents that they acted discriminatorily either on the basis of domestic violence victim status  female status and in the case of the agency itself whether there is a de facto policy that the fresno police department  lot engages in lax enforcement and actually endorses the lax enforcement of the domestic violence laws and policies what is the evidence that the police department endorses your honor there testified that not a single fresno police officer is ever been retrained counseled are disciplined based on a failure to enforce domestic violence laws or policies however we have a public statement from the police chief himself who says well there are many officers in our department who just don't get it when it comes to domestic violence well perhaps you are one of the reasons they don't get it is because they know that there's no consequence for their failure to get in furthermore we have one evidence a policy is also statements of supervisors decision makers and the like in this case we have the deputy chief saying in the aftermath of it goes as tragic death he told the officer who should shot the perpetrator albeit belated that don't you shouldn't feel bad because with the men given the minute that she was dating this was bound to happen or words to that effect it's in the record i think it's around page one thousand and fifty dollars or so that also the case where they made an implication that she would be crying wolf if she were to report yes that's correct and that was and that i think is very good evidence that the statements of the policymakers trickle down to the officers because we have two very similar statements one made by a patrol officer officer in them that you need to reconsider your choice than men essentially but then we have a similar very similar statement by the deputy chief the nd in line at the entire police department who even after this poor woman is shot and killed says pretty much the same thing would you want to reserve your remaining time your sean to respond to plato's council's argument the district court made it very clear that anecdotal evidence alone is insufficient to establish an equal protection claim you either have to submit some sort of  study or some specific evidence of how similary situated people are treated differently here there was no such evidence there is no evidence as to how the fresno police department treats male victims of crime versus female victims of crime or how they treat victims of crime other than domestic violence versus victims of domestic violence here plaintive is is  is expecting trying to defeat the summary judgment just on that inference but that's not enough on a motion for summary judgment and the district court made that clear there's no there was more than in e here i mean it's cases of discrimination it's rare you find such categorical statements by the other side like we have here like my officers don't get it  are where we should be in sexual assault cases and then officers making direct statements about well she's calling wolf or discounting a woman because of the kind of people see things out with these are fear these are not so much anecdotal as they're fairly concrete statements are they not yes i mean it's these alleged statements are highly disputed but but but nonetheless we dispute about work the police chief said the police chief the one who said the my officers don't get it is that in dispute i don't but i think that was part of the evidence that was referred to in the brief that wasn't actually cited in the separate statement based quite a bit of evidence here that's been spoken about that was not actually in the separate statement that the district court would have reviewed for example a lot of all of the details of the other women that was not gone into in detail in the mosher summary judgment i'm just trying to test you on your assertion that these are alleged facts and that they are in dispute do you dispute that their statement that mr little told us about was made or not made i was trying to find the exact reference to that specific statement that as i said there were there were a few things that were referred to review and we have well record in front of us to make a determination as to what we have and my discomfort with this is because some things are disputed  judgment well as as we pointed out these are just a few data points out of hundreds of thousands of crimes i mean we could just as easily get there was no effort made to actually determine how other victims of crime are treated by th by fresno police officers which what should that kind of evidence have looked like well there could have been they could have asked for details on how  victims are the perpetrators of domestic violence how were the rates of arrest and prosecution versus other crimes none of that is brought out i mean the point is they have to be treated differently than other victims of crime there's no evidence of that there's there's no evidence that there were given well what if there's a series of evidence is sufficient  that there's that they don't they have a policy but the defacto policy is not to follow the policy only not if we believe that the case law doesn't support that that the cases are clear there has to be at least some evidence of how other crime victims are treated you can't just come in with this is how i was treated this is how a few people were treated there has to be some sort of policy or at least in effect well what about not following the policy and there's no evidence of this other than the few comments that were made everything that the officers did here was discretionary as terms of rest i think the point there their main point is that they weren't arrested but there's and there's no mandatory no officer breached any mandatory duty to arrest no but if they were treating individuals differently and it's also if they were treating victims in a way that violated the policy that says something doesn't it i can't make it you know but we're not here to make that decision we're just looking at this fairly significant mass of evidence details isn't that really for a jury to decide so you can make the argument you just made well this is their time to put the evidence before before the the district court and again there was no evidence as to how others were treated that's that's the crux of the can you help us with his other evidence that the comparative evidence yes your honor and i would like to point out from the floors floors versus morgan hill decision which was an equal protection claim that also came before this court on summary judgment tell us what where is it no it wasn't the evidence of that i that i mentioned that in very similar situations that miss anderson and her significant other one was arrested the other wasn't the ensign of march  she was deemed to be a perpetrator under circumstances where someone came to her house and attacked her but at the same time he was not deemed to be he was not arrested even though he under the law they're supposed to determine who is the primary aggressor and moreover yawners in every single situation that you have before you this is not a situation where you have to show necessarily that there were de mayo domestic violence victims who were treated differently or other victims of crime which look at the council how do you define the group you contend was denied equal protection constitutional in this case are women and domestic violence victims but those are two separate groups that is correct around and this court has allowed claims from both of those groups to proceed domestic violence victims in the women eighty five percent or more so even if you want to include men in that in that group the fact that officers have a demonstrated hostility towards a group of people who are overwhelmingly female just because there are a few men who are also thrown and that does not negate the circumstantial inference of the discriminatory intent against women and really given the technicalities of where we are here in this particular constitutional claim that you're bringing don't you have to establish that men were treated more favorably than women your honor or at least offer significant evidence to establish that we have offered evidence or are they two and says anecdotally that we've shown and also as in the floors vs morgan hill case where the court didn't require evidence that nine l g b t students ra also harassed are that that harassment was can down the court this court found that repeated instances of harassment of l g b t students in spite of an anti harassment policy that was general was sufficient evidence to allow that case to go to the jury here we have evidence that and an admission from the fresno police department that we enforce we follow law we enforce crimes we are an excellent agency but yet we have evidence here that they were far from excellent thank you thank you