good morning mia please the court at least for appellant mr gordon hall i will watch the clock and try to save two minutes for a bottle mr hall is subject to an impermissible you beg supervised release condition that impinges on two of his fundamental rights and significant liberty interests that being his fundamental right to free speech and familial association the condition at issue here limits mr hall's ability to have contact with his son benton hall who is also a felon and limits their contact only to normal familial relations and also prohibits them from having any communication or discussion regarding financial or investment matters except as related to the defendant's own care and mr hall  it's sort of an academic exercise to really make that decision right now would it may not at all be relevant come fifteen twenty years from now why should we have to make that decision now your honor we do understand that twenty thirty three is very much in the future but this court has held in weber that a supervised release conditions are part and parcel of a defendant sentence and therefore they may be challenged on direct appeal they can also be modified at any time this specific statutory power now before he actually starts supervised release seems to be unrealistic to me your got your honor again acknowledge that this is very much in the future but this court has again and again conducted the challenges facial challenges to vagueness and supervis to be able to say that that particular condition we're not going to enforce now and leave the other one place and provide that you know twenty years from the how there could be an application to modify based upon who's a lawyer and what the status of circumstances are in the real world at that time i watch you we have the district court and academic determination that we're on the concern is that mr hall does have a process right to have clarity as to what conditions he must follow and sure that may not come for some time as his release date is very much in the future but this court is well positioned now given the timing to look at this and make this facial determination and deal with that efficiently we can strike it down and then you know energetic question i think judge black makes an interesting point about whether we should reach this issue now but assuming for a moment that we're going to assess whether normal familial something that we address that i would like to know what normal means for example if a father decides to want to take his son to the super bowl or some you know extraordinary event another city was there and it's never occurred before would that be a normal family relations or is it is that because it's an unusual not a normal family push your honor i can say that i don't know the answer to that and i think that's why this phrasing normal familial relations is vague because it meets the standard where this court has held its condition is it's where individuals of reasonable minds and common intelligent might have a different application or understanding what would be a valid provision supposed to send something like you can't associate with been far in the matter with any criminal implications something like that that would be valid your honor our suggestion is just that the language normal familial relations be stricken from the conditions that the defendant would read defendant is permitted to have contact with benton hall but is prohibited from any contact discussion or communication related to financial investment matters except related to the defendant's own support so basically reading as it is now except striking the normal familial relations and if you're not careful with that would there be anything wrong with saying from your perspective for saying that he's permitted to maid with his family but family contact can't be used to discuss or carry out any crimes i think that would be suitable your honor i think it's the word normal for the phrase normal familial relations but so long as the condition was clear that conduct was permitted but for discussions related to and furtherance of financial crimes or even broader it is right now which we concede would be appropriate contact concerning financial or investment matters would do away with the concerns of the vagueness or presumably any crimes or presumably any crimes and there's also other conditions of mr hall supervised release that of course require him to not can commit any new crimes this condition goes a bit further in stopping any communications that might develop into a crime and so on i also just to go back to judge blocks concerns about the district court judge here and certainly he did want to create create a condition that allowed for mr hall's ability to speak with his family but still address the district court's concern for the public protection given the financial crimes at issue but the language normal familiar relations does remain vague and just as one illustration earlier this year in united states versus evans this court looked at a supervised release condition where the defendant was required to meet other family responsibilities you would be satisfied if you just said that it's too vague without remained or do you think the matter should be bad i think remaining with instruction to strike but no need for any other hearing or development on the record that would create more i revise struck why why couldn't i guess as long as whatever the best instruction was so that normal familial relations would be  either taken from the condition as it is it could just include in the order the language that the district court could impose no longer including normal familial relations or revise with an instruction noting that there was always remains open your honor as you mention throughout the course of a person being on supervised release i see that i have two minutes left overs are best of my time for  the court my name is lisa janice and i am here representing the app only the district court did not abuse its discretion when in impose a supervised release condition allowing defendant normal familial relations with his son and two time coconspirator the district court is giving considerable deference in its conclusions regarding supervised release and it spent almost an re sentencing performing a detailed analysis of this one provision conditions of supervise release affecting fundamental rights our view carefully and the district court acted within its families in general and what where's the standard and who decides what's normal given the fact that we have obviously all kinds of families in this country and all kinds of things that people do when their families yes  the court was the district court was very concerned in guiding the defendant i understand that's why i do it that's that's the strange part i mean if he if he had a concrete concern which she obviously did court was in an unique position that this defendant it was very familiar with him this was his fourth federal conviction and he had used his son in the last two convictions and was he the son was a i get it if you has been released now i understand that we have to have a discussion of what might be appropriate we find through a little bit but i mean i just don't know what they want to burden the district court with an academic exercise which may have no correlation to reality where you know the district court at re sentencing made that exact point the district court at your sixty seven said that the supervised release conditions can be modified in any time so it didn't necessarily right and so that's why we're here to look at the condition now and so could you please address the question i asked as to what is normal yes what it will be normal for if the father wanted to take his their son to the super of or wherever it's been held and some far away city and he's they've never done that before and that's not normal you know most families couldn't afford that and wouldn't do that so what would that be have violation of his supervise release no it would not normally is taking is going with your son to an event so normal would be a common sense understanding something that's acceptable by the general population of what he really i mean you're saying what he meant by normal is non criminal so when he say that because he wanted to put the he wanted to guy the defendant by not getting the conversation started the conversations in the past clearly lead to criminal activity so he wanted to make sure when they go to the super bowl they could discuss something criminal so how do we know he didn't mean to go out covering that i mean this it is for this father is going to do something that he's never done before and his son is going to be really grateful to him and now he's going to start having a conversation that's maybe because the exact example of something that's not normal it's called into a criminal discussion well it is normal to take your child somebody has question a what's the referent point is that normal for this family or normal for them for the world at large it's normal for the world at large how do we know that i mean this is sort of like the johnson discussion right how do we know it's normal for the world a large i mean frankly i would have thought otherwise but who knows because he discussed it for almost an hour the district court talked about it and he said that he wanted to give guidance on not only what is prohibited but what is allowed in the e r seventy one so listen how do we know what's normal for the world at large i mean that's really crazy because we have as i said before all kinds of families some families never go to the super bowl some always go on trips like that all the time so what's normal so it's not about necessarily disco going to the super bowl it's going somewhere with your child and it normal is just has the provision just has to be understood by people of common and intelligence he doesn't have to guess and if he's really concerned he can seek guidance from his probation officer or from the court so he is guiding the defendant on what is permitted not just what is prohibited he really spent first the district court is clearly given a lot of deference and wide discretion in an acting the supervisor at least condition and he narrowly tailored this condition stating that the value of maintaining family conduct is in contact is important but i'm not sure that it would include throwing down all limitation on contact where it is exactly that family contact that resulted in this crime and that said seventy two so the use of normal familial relations was purposeful and it was discussed for me are eighty to eighty four because the defendant did requests at that time that normal be taken out and the court considered taking out the word normal but eventually it rejected it and it rejected i think that the court could do that and it could say that the court had wide discretion to impose a supervisor at least this condition and that if there is a concern in the future that it may be modified at any time because it is so speculative and of course you can always seek guidance from the court or from your probation officer with that said the provision is clear and the district court legally impose that supervisor really can dition therefore it should be affirmed by this court and recall that the court detailed analysis to impose this condition was at length i mean it was almost an hour just on this one condition and it's just for this one child and it's reasonably related to the goals of deterrence it was reasonably related to the protection of the public and of his son it involves no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary to achieve these goals and it should remain as written thank you thank you very  much the government continues to bring the court's attention to the amount of process that was given and the discretion afforded to district court judges and i think what they're suggesting is that there is a gloss on this term that's in that just a question that should be understood to defense counsel raised its concerns regarding the big miss of this condition the district court didn't then list or a numerate the types of things that would constitute normal familial activity that might put that type of conduct that may be a question in some sort of list or context where other terms have been vague sometimes a list does help narrow down or illuminate what is being referred to in an otherwise vague term but there is no instance in my review of the record where the district court said the types of things he considered normal merely stated that he wanted to include that phrasing along with the prohibited types of communications and if i could ask you a question same question i asked your friend on but what will happen in the future your honor i think that precedent really suggests to go the other way and that this court should address the issue now given that there's numerous instances of the ninth circuit reviewing facial challenge in an evans and weber insult era when other cases that are cited in the brief and where the court cited that the defendant shouldn't have to wonder what his condition means up and to the point where his liberty is at stake but the court other or other cases of supervised release i think in other cases the more clarity the district courts and counsel from the government defense counsel have as to what type of conditions are proper is always helpful and it does seem that supervised release conditions are an area that are receiving a lot of review and so more guidance could only be be helpful to you thank you ok thank you very much thank you for your argument and united states forces hall we will take a brief recess thank you