may please the court appellant thomas did not willfully obstruct justice therefore the two point enhanced mean should not have applied at his sentencing the key word is willfully i think the crux of this case is that there is just no evidence in the record that blount or thomas were together before trial and there is no evidence that blount or thomas prepared their testimony in some way shape or form what you have is blount testifying and blount testifying in a way that is inaccurate the inaccuracy in this particular case are not enough blount had been a drug dealer his whole life and the enhancement says specifically that you cannot give the enhanced meant as a result of confusion mistake or faulty memory the testimony at trial was essentially a defendant who was you know warning him about  that mr long's testimony did not help thomas and because this key link i mean you would think that one of the biases that would be explored by the government would be did you prepare your testimony with mr thomas before you came to court today and that question was never asked and because that question was never asked it's difficult to reach from the record that's presented whether or not thomas and blount somehow willfully got together and somehow managed this testimony in a perjury is fashion and i would just state that  these transactions that occurred a number of years previously blonde had been a longstanding drug dealer dealing for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times and the key things that come out on cross examination of thomas to be specific was these tapes they confront i'm sorry the the key thing that comes out in the cross examination of mr blunt is that the government plays these tapes and during the playing of these recordings of these various conversations blonds memory is refreshed and blount clearly says well member he is absolutely but there's a slight wrinkle here and i just want to point it out to the core generally we apply this enhanced meant when a defendant gets up and tells a whopper and the judge looks at them and says you know you look you told  defendant and i'm going to charge you with two more points and give you obstruction of justice what we have here is a different wrinkle we have a guy named blount who gets up and tells a  it's not the defendant the defendant is the attorney and you have a problem there or will a pro se defendant ever be able to call a witness where every little miscue or every little mistake is somehow going a little mistake he knew what was going to happen least that was the opinion of the district judge and i just don't i think that requires a tremendous number of inferences to get to that particular place of the primary inference being that somehow thomas and blount got together and rehearsed this testimony before it was presented in open court surely mr thomas has some idea what boiled was going to say before he called in his defense thomas prepare your testimony did you go over records before you came to court today those questions were never asked and you can only infer that the reason that they want to ask is that there was some type of trial strategy that was being used by the government and they didn't want to ask that question but now they're stuck with it the for the judge to say that he believes that they are on the same floor at the m c c that's just clearly not enough under this these circumstances judge delap was the factually correct you know they were i don't know good bye i don't know like i was i have no idea i contested this at the sentencing hearing there was no effort made to clarify or records brought in that clarify that they were in fact on the same floor or that they talked to each other or things along those lines it was just that you know because these guys knowing each other then they must years that's correct but i mean i don't know how much contact they had over thirty years i could meet someone when i was in grade school and see him thirty years later and i would say well i don't know why that necessarily means that he gets an obstruction of justice and handsome and he's a pro se litigant he's a lawyer he's allowed to call witnesses and i just think that if if if this is going to be the rule that if every witness is going to be that's called by the defense is going to be scrutinized and minute detail you know we do give the district judges some credibility some credibility germination wins right you do but i still say that that was clear air because he says he believes that thomas and blount were on the same floor without any evidence he just believes that of the second the second issue is recently added to pro se representation thomas decision to represent himself pro se was not voluntarily i just wanted to talk about the standard of review briefly the standard of review has been abuse of discretion and also de novo at different times in the seventh circuit i think that since united error that is structural well how many times do you think he was in total to be hiring and firing lawyers six where you have six was the fourth lawyer but i think that to apply numerical analysis just does not go deep enough i think that if there is no so you think it could be ten lawyers could be twenty lawyers well of the temple lawyer if there is a substantial conflict substantial conflict as it was ridiculous never you never in the trial you'll get up and say well i had another cough i don't know i don't get along with these people i need another one maybe i'll get lucky  revolves slowly around this bridge is proffer which is protected by a protective order thomas wants this to determine whether or not he is going to enter a plea of guilty or whether he's going to go to trial he's not able to see this proffer from mr bridges the primary witness against him and because he's not allowed to see that he's not really able to make a wise decision about whether to go to trial or whether the plead guilty the final order the final real war move you don't seem to have any concern whatsoever for the need to get these trials over with not spent months i would but i don't understand the conflict over the bridges proffered he's not entitled to that before trial as it well is not entitle to it because of a protective order that was entered by the judge and then he's not entitled to see with the that's a matter of right under the federal rules of criminal procedure well in order and of i mean we talk about the late unnecessarily did they we could they could technically i guess provided at the end of direct examination but you can imagine what type of problems that would cause in the building if we i know continue each time now counsel i understand that but in terms of whether mr thomas had a legal right to the bridges proffer i don't see where that a sound foundation for the sort of the right to a new lawyer well that was one of the issues specifically that was addressed and judge firemen ordered specifically brand strat or to take the bridges proffer over to thomas and go over this proffer with him and that issue is never resolved and because it was never resolved that i don't think that the chords analysis i mean they kind of hit the high points of what you have to do for a forever hearing but i think you know in this particular sr way should they should've dug deeper unless anyone has additional questions that included will thank you thank you jay didn't you were the fifth counsel in this the district court did not abuse its discretion by declining to appoint the defendant a fifth different attorney nor by accepting the defendant's request to represent himself a trial with respect to the numbers question judge pos judge was extremely patient and he did not in fact say this is number five you're done he actually went through a very involved inquiry with the defendant trying to find out what his issues were with respect to mr branstetter the defendant didn't have any other than some general disagreements about a motion to dismiss the indictment that his attorney did not believe was appropriate some discovery requests and there was an order that the defendant could not take the proffer back with him to the m c c as you might expect  we don't want cooperators written statements and signed affidavits going back to the m c c would be passed around but he was privy to the information and he had a variety of other discovery materials he had all of the overhearing over here recordings he had draft transcripts now he complained that he didn't have final transcripts but he actually had the recordings of the evidence themselves in addition your honor the judge asked him the one point are is there any other basis f dissatisfaction with your attorney and he defamed it came up with a general i don't trust him but under this court's prior wings that's not enough he didn't come up with a specific reason for that distrust and certainly the record in this case in the record before the district judge was that they did have some degree of communication now it was certainly strained at imes and to the extent there was limited communication it was the defendant's refusal to meet with his own attorney which he acknowledged to the district court he did he said i didn't meet with him i don't want to communicate with him that was the defendant's choice and even throughout his attorney said i'll be ready for trial he's got a trial bill casey although obviously he's making it more difficult than he should there's no indication that the breakdown was such that it prevented an adequate defense realistically the district judge was amazingly patient with his defended in repeatedly entertained his requests and kept an open mind about his requests for new counsel even if it would have been his fifth now with respect to the obstructing enhancement the district court's factual determination that the defendant knowingly presented the false testimony of his codefendant in front of thirty years was not  erroneous there were numerous references in the record that support the court's determination significantly the defendant was present in the room when domingo blount pleaded guilty and refused to acknowledge the defendant's involvement in the drug trafficking organization the mr blount's attorney initially when he gave his factual basis talked about the defendant thomas involvement blount refused to accept that and said no no no i won't highness was the or thomas they were both it was shortly before the scheduled trial they were to both be tried together initially allowed pled guilty thomas and branstetter were still in the room and blount said i'm not going to implicate thomas a short time later thomas motion to continue his trial they explicitly made reference to domingo blount's refusal to implicate him so it is clear at that point that the defendant absolutely knew the plot was going to cover for him but more importantly as a district judge noted he arranged for the defendant and blount to be housed together so they could prepare for trial now it's true we did not submit the m c c sheets showing they're on the same floor but the just report statement is  the record again these were gentlemen who were friends for thirty years and it's preposterous to think that the defendant would have called his friend of thirty years to the stand to implicate him of course he knew the plot was going to make statements on his behalf and contrary to what counsel says these aren't mit picking statements mr blount said that thomas was never present at these drug deals never provided him security and when he was cross examined and confronted with recording showing that thomas was there blount changed his story of said oh he was there but just to pick up some money from me he drove from the south side of chicago all the way to the north side to get some money he had nothing to do with the drug deals the district court was well within its right to find otherwise and it did the court found that he was there thomas repeatedly and he was there to participate in the drug deals unless the court has further questions for me the government respectfully ask the court to affirm defendants conviction