seeks can and should be granted based soley on rulings already made and this court's prior opinions this court and the district court thus have jurisdiction to expunge mr mehta talls arrest and conviction records under both prongs of kukkonen your argument only about jurisdiction correct that is all the court needs to decide in this case i think whether there is jurisdiction to expunge that whether vindicate its own authority there's not much daylight between that and granting the petition to expunge because well when the district court be in the best position to determine that i first bet that's certainly a ruling given the equitable thrust of the petition why would we have jurisdiction we have five circuits saying that courts don't have jurisdiction to gr expungement in those kind of situations that's correct your honor i completely agree that courts lack stay of privileges twenty years if i asked lack of other convictions i mean it may or may not be the case i have no idea that's correct but it certainly is an equitable petition your honor those are equitable arguments in this dramatic h and he also makes a legal argument was certainly the way well that was certainly the way the district court looked at it but circumstances which of which is where there's an inaccuracy or mandating expungement of d n a records where a military conviction is overturned but here i don't see any we you know we decide the case but if we have no statutory grant of jurisdiction from the congress to create jurisdiction can we don't have would be the widest extension of ancillary jurisdiction that i could ever imagine i agree with your honor that this court does not have jurisdiction to consider mr mehta tells equitable arguments i'm only arguing your honor that has nothing like this you know on our four other circuits have devised in applied a rule holding that where a conviction has been found unlawful where a conviction or arrest has been found unlawful  that petition they've done and done that in the same rulings where they've denied jurisdiction to consider equitable arguments and there's a right the fourth circuit had to this is before my time but as i understand it the four circuit had to twice instruct that this conviction be vacated first and then again like no we mean it when we said vacate the conviction we meant the conviction so your client's argument would be sort of reading from the legal part of his petition look the charges against him were dismissed the police did not have probable cause or circuit court of appeals instructed to exclude the evidence and so the argument would be not on the merits i'm not making a merits argument at all but that jurisdictionally speaking the fourth circuit been or the courts can vindicate their under both but the courts that of that have spoken directly to this matter have generally rolled under kukkonen pronk to that's correct and then i have a question i think i do think i understand your argument on jurisdiction you said that you thought there was very little space between jurisdiction under that wrong right and the merits but i thought that the case that was to the contrary that even assuming a conviction has been created is still quite an exceptional remedy to expunge the records there is actually not to expunge unlawful convictions and arrests for a particular purpose and what we're going to look something like agree just police misconduct in a case like this exactly your honor but and but there's nothing in the petition that really alleges doesn't sound to me like that agree just police conduct the way it is this court has found that his entire criminal proceeding from the moment he was arrested until the end of his second fourth circuit appeal in two thousand and two none of that had any grounding in any legal foundation whatsoever so in a certain it is weird right because there can be a major fourth amendment violation and yet the physical evidence is the physical evidence it doesn't cast into any doubt the reliability of the conviction right it's it's an unusual it's it's an unusual and of constitutional violation because you can find a constitutional violation that can be clear as day as parents or circuit was here and it still doesn't call into question the fact that he was caught with his chemical and all that evidence that there is a it's an unusual case for expungement where you have a constitutional violation that has not in fact cast into any doubt the reliability of the conviction perfectly accurate or a move so it says the record so your original disposition has been overturned the case was thrown out by judges or the record is strictly speaking accurate a to the factual steps of what happened it doesn't change the fact though that the entire meeting was awful less and less transparent or just simply trying to hide the ball from everybody i guess he wanted conviction expunged in order to get a with the general rule that courts don't have jurisdiction to hear expungement petitions in this case it's somewhat unusual because not only was both his arrest and both of his convictions were vacated in fact twice but there is already a court ruling so holding so it no additional fact finding or court consideration is necessary to decide whether they were a mom you are not starting up a court ruling go down to the court ruling holding that the convictions were unlawful would need to be expunged along with a face so every every every judicial decision up holding a constitutional right in vacating a conviction should  hereby here after being expired knowing maybe they won't even be president at that point no your honor only in circumstances where a person's entire criminal proceeding was invalid and where it is already that happens a great deal of su a rheumy this doesn't we don't have a ancillary jurisdiction here it does not meet the can come on and off the actors that decision was emphasized it was a unanimous decision it was written by justice scalia it was emphasizing right at the outset the federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction this isn't factually interdependent it's fourteen years after the dismissal of the case and twenty years supreme court is a court that has some respect for formality and those the concept of ancillary jurisdiction extended in the absence of statute to a situation fifteen years after the remedy in this case and can i ask what you mean when you say it's equitable because i think when i when i am using that term in this context i am saying there are two different grounds on which you can seek to have a conviction expunged and one would be for equitable reasons i've had a clean record it's a lawful conviction but for equitable reasons you should anyway and the other is no i would like to have it expunged because it was unlawful and  it seems to me he is making that do you agree that he is also making that that second argument that this should be expunged because it was an unlawful conviction i agree that he's making ok argument i do not agree  that he's correct that it takes it from a legal request that it takes it from an equitable request to a legal or a class puts it in this category where something like or other circuits have said although we cannot perhaps you equitable reasons we do have jurisdiction to consider a motion to expunge and on woful conviction and we would be the first circuit to say that is wrong we would say that right well first of all the circuits that have said that  so in united states versus feel so i don't think i'm not sure understanding so that the question was well whatever you call it equitable legal because i think i also agree that there's a little bit of fuzz in the law here but i had thought that the sixth circuit said that there is an exception for motions challenging an unconstitutional conviction or an illegal arrest or otherwise based upon a constitutional jurisdiction is not to be found in the phone and and the jurisdiction is not to be found in statute and in fact there is no claim under any statutory provision that expungement would be prior conviction or was there some other disqualifying factor where he denied staff privileges because of some other disqualifying factor or were there people denied staff privileges in hospitals for off as a reason so don't but that seems to me those matter seem to be collateral to the case not factually dependent upon the case a separate proceeding not necessary to the vindication of the court's authority because it's judgment simply seems impossible under this under under these circumstances because we would be adding an implied remedy to the remedy that congress has supplied which suppression and that balances privacy interest and individual interest against public interest and that's an implied remedy but it's all of it's it's accepted but to add an additional implied remedy the congress hasn't acted on top of the suppression remedy which congress didn't act were which was which no interest which was a remedy which balance out these interests it's up to congress to balance our exam trust or maybe the supreme court but to add one implied remedy over another and why remedy the absence of any action from congress and when it's well outside the  i'm sorry if you wanted to comment but i'm if you were to just assume for a minute not to read anything into it that i thought the district words did have ancillary jurisdiction over a motion to expunge on an unlawful conviction is there any other ground on which we could affirm or do we need to reach a jurisdictional and i mean what if i thought hypothetically that the district had jurisdiction but there's no way this guy should get  you could still affirm on the grounds that there might possibly there some jurisdiction but there's no jurisdiction in this case but we have to reach  if an order of expungement is granted doesn't everything sort of disappear well i think you can see by we are in the briefing we are able to cite cases granting expungement i also did an additional last last search and there are additional have found in your extensive research that are under the second exception talked about in can can can can no i have found absolutely not and i think we're back where my colleagues question to you was do we really know  versus field is amicus attempts to distinguish it but it is incredibly close to mr meditators case and they found no jurisdiction amicus his argument is that because the arrest which was the first encounter between the police and mr maraton all lacked probable cause that the entire proceedings are therefore a legal and should be expunged is exactly what happened in united states versus  cause and in that case the court held quote the suppression remedy fully effectuated the district court's rulings that the f b i agents violated feels constitutional rights because the granting expungement on the basis of legal erroll they've left for exceptional circumstances and not simply be asked without probable cause or an illegal search which is wrong it is they are in courts exist of indicate those they didn't reflect any they didn't indicate anything about whether the individual was actually guilty or not but how would you get to this can't be a case or expungement just all right the kind of circumstances that would just justify even if we had the authority to create a set of circumstances that would justify their not here we did it here we'd be doing it in every case we would enacted the statute on our own i agree with your honor and i would also just add that the legal portion has not is that look as i read the cases and you can tell me if i'm getting something wrong there ought to be jurisdiction to consider expungement when it comes to unlawful convictions because we can imagine the egregious case where would be required to vindicate the court's authority and i can't remember which circuit it was but they talked about a case where the government had arrested black voters on their way to the polls and now they had these and the convictions or i guess the arrests were not prosecuted but they had these arrests on their record and the court thought in a case like that it's not enough to say you have to let these people go we have not been degraded our authority by doing that we're going to have to do more we're going to have to expunge the record of the arrests in order to vindicate the constitutional rights issue that's not this case this doesn't look to me like that is this case and so what i'm trying to figure out along with these other circuits is if i am just assume for a minute i am persuaded by the reasoning of these circuits that there could be cases where vindication of the court's order under the second prong would require expungement i don't think this is that case is there a cases that you're talking about this case jurisdictionally is still distinguishable because there has been a complete vindication of mr meditators rights under the fourth amendment by suppression the difference is that the supreme court and i quote this court in brooks first the city of winston salem has rejected the proposition that a defendant possesses a liberty interest in avoiding prosecution upon less than probable cause in those other and therefore the remedy is suppression but in those other cases there could be a case with a personal right that was not vindicated by suppression so what they mean by that just of those cases but that's not but we don't have here illegal arrest exactly but the claim here is that but but they have what they use when they use the phrase illegal  vs united states being using that phrase the ology if you look down to the bottom of what those cases are stated to that are saying they are all this really extraordinary keys where it's a of the legal proceeding was that is it is case was dismissed but he only brought this claim of fifteen years after all fourteen years after the case was dismissed and it was only after these later but there is this case for expansion was raised only after the equitable considerations that are laid emerge over time and i privileges to find out what harassment he's alleged to find out why he couldn't get the permits to carry the firearms all of these things because there could be many explanations for those things  the equitable grounds allegedly amerge i don't know why i didn't appear equitable manner while the delay your honor may be something to consider at the merit stage but i have seen no cases supporting the idea that there is any kind of end ferenc of delay on whether or not the court has jurisdiction the trigger for jurisdiction is whether or not there is an unconstitutional a restaurant conviction and whether or not there's an extant court yes here are and then you could reach those questions at the merits but i think jurisdiction exists in this case and mr medical's motivation for filing it does not play into the jurisdictional question so on that point you heard our dialogue with your colleagues on the other side yes and the suggestion that we could somehow roll jurisdiction and merits all together in our opinion what you have to say about it's not necessary for you to do all you need all this court is that the convictions were on lawful because of the awful arrest therefore everything that happened in this case was unlawful you would grant jurisdiction in order to vindicate that decree and then you could go ahead and vindicate that decree  to find your stiction and still affirm what the district court did i think it's possible i think at that point you would need to remain and for a consideration of that and why is that because the court reached the merits the court stops at the jurisdictional question this is a concern i have at the petition so i mean i actually do i see the part in the petition where there's two reasons why there ought to be expungement in the first one is this i don't want to label to use but because this was an invalid arrest and conviction yes but there's not a single other thing alleged and santa complained but there's not another thing in your that goes to the question of was this that kind of illegal conviction that might warrant expungement there's nothing about bad faith by the police there's nothing about egregious misconduct there's nothing it just seems that remaining might be a bit futile because there are are there are no facts and here there is no case being made for why there ought to be that kind of expungement i agree that it is sort of asked for is a legal matter but there's just nothing to back it up all the backup information goes to the second request which is just equitable grounds i've kept a clean nose and i need gone and whatever so there have been other circuits mayor the eighth circuit has won smith which states now or from the ninth circuit is another lan from the tenth circuit is another that have granted expungement petitions in the absence of extraordinary circumstances as the government defines them so you don't say you your position is you don't need those kind of extraordinary circus cracked the unconstitutional arrest merits make it easier to conan narrows ancillary jurisdictions so i don't see why those wouldn't be at least remain good authority to the extent they suggest it's hard to sooner and then when you file a petition there's george harrison is part of there are all these equitable consideration you're stuck with that and that's basically what this person was asking in this case if we grant expungement here your honor i disagree that there's no limiting principle i think that field gives a very clear limiting principle which is that if there is no court ruling that already exists holding the arrest unconstitutional then there's no jurisdiction not only do you have to have an unconstitutional arrest or conviction you have to have an existing court order so holding and that i think limits that's a lot no we're not saying no limited principle i mean the fact that they're you know said that you could have ancillary jurisdiction the court cites one to two cases one old one and one new one neither one of those involved  any of the kinds of extraordinary circumstances the rounding up of the people the civil rights group for example that were a measure of the pre con conan really one of them involves a a power to compel payment of opposing parties attorney's fees as a sanction for misconduct and the other one is a contempt order to maintain order during proceedings so there's nothing in co that so we would be going to step further if we would combine if we could still look at can come in and say yes the whole opinion is narrowing this jurisdiction and therefore th conant case law about special cases should be imported into it when we're talking about the second exception we would be reading a reading can can we we may consume the law that's not there well i think that the fact that the is i think off three of us i just guess from i've gotten from oral argument are a little leery of thinking that the person for whom you are arguing not your client would be ultimately intitled to find jurisdiction exists but it should but the petition should be denied on the merits i don't think the district court ever reached that issue but and the further question is is there is there any way that on knees kinds of unconstitutional arrest or conviction is itself an extraordinary circumstance when as a merits case that's a tenth circuit case in which it it was addressing whether or not an expungement could be granted for and for an unconstitutional arrest or expungement i forget which it was but it wasn't about jurisdiction actually reach the merits or not the i don't know how you resolve the jurisdictional and worry without looking at that through i think there's a conflation here because i don't know the state congress notice there are six statutes on the books six there are other statutes that have been introduced to broaden the expungement remedy but they've got nowhere and they've they've  i think it's worth considering that perhaps congress hasn't spoken to this precise issue because the courts that have spoken to it have all been very consistent and they've all been consistent in holding that other stiction does exist here under the court hours i think that's a