all but we appreciate you being with us in this way and we've had a little bit of an adventure this morning we lost one last telephone contact with cygnets of your argument uninterrupted and get us as kind enough to help us keep track of the time she is going to let you know when you are two minutes away from e we'll get underway with the united states of america versus one carlos there's a distinction about knowing the facts of a prior offense and knowing that a conviction qualifies as a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence and the latter of which involves a legal question requiring obligation of the so we know from where he and this is very critical one in a status such as misdemeanor domestic violence involves a legal matter the government has to prove the defendant knew that law so here i think suffice to say cause and that really is the heart of the dispute between my friends on the other side because the government would like to reduce this to a factual question about whether mr johnson knew the facts of this prior offense the existence of it and its conduct but we know ok thank you i'm wondering what what is your best case for that because it seems to me that the precedent indicates that the defendant needs to know is a fact but not the law and and i'm wondering what you're relying on for the notion that he has to know the actual  congress defines a status or an element of the offense using a legal component just a they didn't refer to the government has to prove that knowledge of the law and the reason that that makes perfect sense and why it should be extended here is because it aligns exactly what the concept of this underlying basis of fair notice and distinguishing between the critical element that makes one's conduct legal and otherwise innocent conduct firearm you can infer from that that they know their status so what's really significant about this case is that we have the district court which is the fact finder and i want to point the court to that sentencing on soc seventy three dollars page seventeen said quote this is an unusual case and that it isn't often individuals end up before this court charged with something they can genuinely say they did not know was unlawful and the court very down on the basis of that fact and the reason that i'm emphasizing this is because we are talking about a reasonable probability of a different result and prejudice under the standard view this is quite frankly an outlier case it's very it's very un uncommon for the argument or at least the import of the supreme court's decision he doesn't need to know all that have a convict a person convicted of domestic violence even though it's a misdemeanor under federal law he's prohibited from possessing firearms there right yes that's correct what he needs to know is his status that has he falls within nine hundred and twenty two june that his conviction qualifies as a misdemeanor jail so if that's if that's all the information that's going to be presented if we remove that aren't we going to be right back where we are now i guess i'm having a hard time seeing how he's prejudice but i guess what i'm trying to understand in your argument is what more does the government need to show other than the circumstances to which he pled guilty which that's all that i think i understand the concern and i would point again back to  because here this issue was also put forward the government again made the same argument that it would be very difficult to prove knowledge of status especially when any includes a legal component and there he's court made it quite clear we prove knowledge the same way like he's really was a straightforward statutory text decision about plantar what the government needs to prove is that he knew the exact status that pretty written is all the government needed to prove that the offense qualified as a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence so now the government needs to put forward facts that he knows that and there's a couple different ways thinking about this argument and i practice we know that they do this and they quite often do this there is either decision but tell us this is a categorical question it's defined by the elements of the offense so it really distilled down to this point does he know that his offense has an element that meets the councilmen definition other why would that be enough to conclude that he knows that he has been convicted of a crime of domestic violence but i'm still not getting an answer the question of what more does the government have to show the government has to include that legal that that one follow up question if you don't mind absolutely if the court allows more the government house to show is that that he understands of the conviction falls within this category it may be a different way of saying that it's not gonna gory but category is domestic violence so what are you talking about besides domestic violence the category there being because that don't want to take it that far we know that he's makes it clear that he doesn't and i will not deny that no way that an offense qualifies as a misdemeanor crime the domestic violence is often a messy question but again this is this is exactly what he is telling us was also talked about to know the elements about offense involved at the minimum touching putting those two pieces of the puzzle together is how you would know your offense qualifies as a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence otherwise all you know are the facts  certain elements of those initial charges of violence so he he needs to understand the legal aspect of it the sense that it involves common law diminished touching or otherwise to fall within this category otherwise he is lacking the legal component and just picking off on my last point to my time's expired is that it may seem like worth writing a needle but it's the same needle that the supreme court di that johnson had been convicted of an offense that constituted a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence a fact he has not challenged until today and that he knew that he had been convicted of such an offense at the time that he possessed a firearm that is al study point here now in his brief johnson did in fact say he had to know that he had that he was prohibited from having a firearm and said that that was evidence that he didn't know his status but were conflating two things  go with the rule that johnson is advocating no one would ever be convicted under nine hundred and twenty two dollars g nine because no one in state court is going to say i know my domestic battery equals the legal definition of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence they're just t completely separate and inquiries johnson knew he was convicted of battering his wife that's enough under castleman and so he knew his status so the question is not whether he knew that he met this legal definition and we don't need to come up with statute of conception that he or she had been can had been convicted of that offense and separately it's a challenge that we can prove we can argue that it qualifies and that's where the categorical approach come well your honor i just want to on that point that was something that was discussed in the context of litigation basically saying i'm going to be a light sentence because we genuinely didn't know what didn't he know that you weren't allowed to have a firearm that's not the was convicted a florida domestic battery has never argued that that's the status that we have to prove because under tatham and that satisfies g nine so that comment was not made during his stipulated bench trial it was made  domestic battery that qualifies under councilman and so i think that provides us support in that regard your honor and again the status and if we look at in particular the tricks case that's the case that mr johnson himself  the law doesn't apply where you honestly don't know all of the facts that would put you in this ahead of category so trig unlike johnson he was not represented at his state court trial where he was charged with battery he wasn't even charged with domestic batter was just charged with battery there is nothing in the record to show that he knew he had been convicted of that he was pleading guilty to a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence that is a common law battery against someone with whom he had a domestic a relationship so there he can plausibly say i didn't know just as a defendant in rehab could say i didn't know or they jampolis that the court case where someone is brought here as a child and says i didn't know i was  committed this crime he admits he committed this crime and he knew he committed this crime so in this kind of situation the two questions really are the same and in a lot of other cases they're not going to be and i want to if i can go back to the unlawful user of a controlled substance i didn't cite this in the twenty eight there's a colorado case that escapes me right now that's really helpful because it talks about this person really was ignorant of his status he was someone who had used marijuana in a state where it was illegal d on the question of a false statement that turned that he was an unlawful user so that's another example of someone who can plausibly argue i don't know my status but the important thing to distinguish here is what the status  eight the consequence of belonging to that category is not the status that we have requires we have requires that you're in this status not that you know you're not permitted to have a firearm and what i was getting out before in the tricks case tricks and i don't know if the court has any questions on the indictment question on the indictment issue whether or not it states an offense i would just point out that in mr johnson's reply he argues that the indictment doesn't even charge him with an offense and i would submit that for the reasons we discussed in our brief the cases to which he cites don't apply here because those are cases where someone pled guilty to a crime that was knowledge as you know congress concerned here was to protect women from further violence including violence by death point that's being made here congress does have that goal and that's important business robin rising down but as a matter of practical application i mean the way that you're suggesting maybe i'm misunderstanding but it sounds like the way you're suggesting this needs to be applied that you're saying that we have page says we need to be applying is that the defendant must know must be able to conduct the categorical analysis himself and understand that he qualifies and it's simplest terms what the government has to prove is knowledge of my prior convictions qualifies there are multiple ways to do that knowledge is often prove the circumstantial evidence and the run of the mill case like  actually mr johnson did not know the collateral consequence of this conviction it's hard to list them in that battery without placed him within a category under federal law and in fact our records suggest that mr johnson had no idea generally i mean just from the standpoint of fairness it's an appealing argument but if we apply that generally i don't see how i don't see how what you're saying would not mean that the government would have to demonstrate as a person knew that he or she qualified under the definition of whatever the status was which then would require him or her know how that  this i think this was actually a big concern and where he is because this goes to the knowledge of the law component as a practical matter most cases that come before the court there will be situations and which the used the way that i understood you to argue a day was to me to understand that you qualify as a misdemeanor and for a crime of domestic violence you would need to know that whatever you  he had a prior conviction and then he would have just been told your fence qualifies that doesn't require his another categorical approach but he's on notice there are other ways the reason that we're emphasizing the categorical approach here is because of the record that we have and as you comments unfortunately people that tend to have the semester violence often are multiple run ins with the law so they could have other situations where they've been in federal court and are told or just flat out told the suspense  down he pled to touching are striking the real question then is the touching or striking needs the counseling definition that's because i could know a lot of my facts but for a lot of reasons and the supreme court has just all you would need to know is that you've committed an offense then the government can prove that it qualifies one way or another that's not that was flatly rejected what actually needs to happen is the government needs to prove that you knew you were in the country  of a crime involving domestic violence and that's exactly what we have here respectfully judge solomon in that position talking about knowledge of the law the supreme court said you did have to prove the elements of the offense  a firearm and i thought you said at the beginning of your argument that you weren't reading the right for the collateral consequences here is it falls within this federally created  for the government to say that all you need to know is your offense and we get to prove what our qualified that renders with these on a ten this is the same discussion we're having is what the concern that you're raising and i don't deny it is the concern justice alito is raising but the irony is that the dual interest that congress is trying to emphasize congress made it clear and maybe if i can conclude on this kind of global point might bring it home it's just supposed congress created twenty two g ten of anybody who and created a new category of crime a moral turpitude defined in a certain way that i committed bank fraud or something which would simply not be enough i would have to know what qualifies as a crime of moral turpitude there's there's an extra loop and that's not a stock to a question along if that's the collateral legal question