the final piece on for argument this afternoon or this morning we're still in the morning is united states versus  decision and ruling on a motion for a sentencing reduction this court has confronted this issue on several separate occasions and most importantly it's addressed the issue in christie in christie this court held that reasons were required for that particular circumstance it carved out a narrow exception suggesting that reasons may not be required and circumstances where you get a proportional sentencing reduction that the error would be harmless because you could infer the reasons from the record and that relied on an unpublished decision following those decisions the supreme court issued its decision in childhood's may so in that particular case no further reasons were required outside of the a o two forty seven form  it was a disproportionate or non proportional sentencing reduction in that case however to reach its conclusion the supreme court could have adopted a number of different approaches it could have adopted the tenth circuit's approach in that case saying that well new reasons are never required this court in christie did not agree with that and the supreme court while it didn't decide it didn't rely on that russia now the supreme court also could have said well there is something special about whether something is proportional or non proportional but even in non proportional cases we can infer the reasons from the record but what the supreme court actually did was say that there isn't anything magical a proud proportionality first it's difficult to figure out when a sentence is roughly proportional but it also said that when a district court imposes a sentence what it's doing is considering the guidelines but also the thirty five fifty three a factors is the fact that there's nothing magical about proportionality cut for you or against you i believe it cuts for us so the supreme court decided only a very narrow consider more reasons so the only thing that i really read into charges may said is that it would be inappropriate to rely on proportionality but everything else about that this court has said it's still good law so in christie it was really focusing on pretty much in every case reasons would be required and we had a pretty full as i recall a record for full sun sentencing proceeding when  this particular case is when he went through the factors originally what he focused on was mr stadio as risk of recidivism and following that we focused on all of the programs that he did following the imposition factual dispute about how extensive was where his efforts every ability asian indeed in the government's brief i could get such as three times the stadio had four disciplinary tickets at first for not going to work and the comment was that we never provided any explanation for this and i disagree i think we did our explanation was that mr stadio elected to be in protective custody for his own safety and that when he was in protective custody he couldn't actually he couldn't work and that creates a factual dispute what how to read that or what what do we infer from those facts that he elected to be in protective custody suggesting that governor judge thompson didn't actually considering i want to know and what i think the public needs to know is how he in fact consider it one of the quotes from christie it was quoting a seven circuit case and it's not what it circuit case that is it's not sufficient to say that i have considered these things we want to know how they were considered the reasons i mean what what i believe that means is not saying that i it's tailoring those factors to this particular individual decision just a findings about his conduct in prison and how that bear on his original analysis is not coming pretty close to the talismanic incantations which we say district judges don't have to engage in well i think the form are those sufficient in the context of a reason but what i think that the distinction is yes in the ordinary case but i think the distinction would be in cases where you really are focused on assessing how this person is going to perform outside of prison that those particular facts bear or bear importance and bear mentioning or discussion and i reserve the rest of my time so you may have mr thomas thomson acted within his discretion in using the a o form to explain the reduction of mr saadi oh sentence from twenty years to sixteen years indeed for two reasons present in this case the circumstances of this action provide a more straightforward analysis than even that in chavez mesa first mr saadi is conduct after his sentencing is materially worse than the defendant inch of his mesa and second judge thompson decided to enter a reduced sentence along proportional grounds for those two reasons this case falls well within the abbott ambit of the supreme court's reasoning in chobits mason tackling them in order first m both completed a number of your old prison programs and courses i took under took other positive steps while in custody but where mr chavez mesa violated one prison disciplinary rule for improperly using another inmate's phone number mr saadi on four occasions refused his work or programming assignment with the result of ending up in disciplinary segregation for more than one year wouldn't have been helpful the judge tommy thompson just said of course and there's no dispute from the government that it may be a better practice to provide an explanation whenever sense reduction decision is made but as mason has made it clear that the law does not require such an explanation in all circumstances and in that way it reinforced this court's tw decision and kristie that not all failures to explain will require a rematch so here it's the government's position that it's apparent from the record and the circumstances of this case why judge thompson reduced mr saadi of sentence by four years as opposed to six years one in the primary reason is that mr saddos post sentencing conduct didn't change the scales with respect to judge thompson's original concerns that mr sabio needed to be specifically deterred at the original sentencing judge thompson emphasized his record which included at that point six prior felony drug convictions to firearm convictions and a number of violations of probation as well as other aggravating factors including  the possibility that mr saadi who had lied to a state court judge in two thousand and eight at the time of sentencing and that judge thompson in itself had approached mr saadi whose own representation skeptically given that backdrop the fact that mr s continued to have persistent disciplinary difficulties incarcerated while serving his federal sentence and in particular shortly before just thomson acted on mr side of his motion he had sustained one disciplinary citation for fighting and another disciplinary citation for stealing that those concerns about specific it turns have not been alleviated that they remained in full force so the fact that thompson decided to reduce the sentence from twenty years which had been the midpoint slightly above the midpoint of the original guidelines range to sixteen years so the above the midpoint of the reduced guidelines range is enough for this court to know what judge thompson was doing what rationale was my underlying his censure duction decision so in the circumstances of this case it's the government's view that no additional explanation beyond checking the relevant boxes and filling in the relevant blanks in the form was required given those two factors mr saadi as post sentencing conduct in the proportionality of the reduction this court should affirm judge thompson everything through yes your honor i think the fact that judge thompson's explanation of the original sensing was so folsom is relevant and it is helpful in assessing whether he still believed there was a need for specific returns at the time he entered the sentence reduction order if thompson's explanation had been more terse at sentencing this may present a different set of circumstances here though given the fulsome this of that explanation mr sidey was conduct after having been sentenced and then the proportionality of the reduction it's clear what thomas for a larger client in his sentence now just out of curiosity i don't know the answer to that on the top the top of my head i'm sorry i'll look it up i don't know you know reductions from the mesa the focus at the original sentencing was the seriousness of the criminal conduct what the district court was saying was that methamphetamines are very dangerous they're destructive to the community this is why i think the sentence is appropriate that was its primary consideration so the things that his mesa did while in prison really weren't animating the district court's decision when it was ruling on the sentencing reduction motion i think that's very different than the case here where what would you argue cases when simply pulling out the you are good no there are cases where there are good district court judge has to do more than fill out the a o form when the focus at the original sentencing was at the risk of recidivism and we submitted numerous briefing on the  the well that's not really true it's just a year for example that's correct but i think there are definite a number of factual inferences that you could draw from that and because it is a question of fact and questions or fact are what this records are supposed to decide and they're supposed to articulate how they resolve them to permit meaningful appellate review i think that actually cuts our way in support of my argument i submitted  evidence in regards to rehabilitation are a part of a particular person's conduct in prison so in that case despite it being a proportional reduction they sent it back down for additional reasons i'd also quickly like to address the government cited one case from the third circuit in its own twenty eight a letter johnson in that case the court held that no further reasons were required because the district court provided a po i believe the district court would be able to make a decision based on the papers alone but to permit or couldn't do it here he could do it on the year i'm sure he could do it on the papers alone  that's not the issue what the issue is whether he he explained himself enough to permit meaningful appellate review which includes reviewing for clearly erroneous findings of fact and the issue is that we found definitively yes but the district courts are required by congress to make these findings all the time and every senator is based on the whole record it is and occasionally district courts do abuse back it's a judgment born of you know d o had ten disciplinary tickets and as opposed to the six that were in the record that would be a clearly erroneous finding of fact on which it was basing its prediction about the person's likelihood to recidivate i've run out of my t what would you be arguing to us was i'm curious because i mean you guys deal with these all the time how are you how would you argue to this court that that was a clearly erroneous finding merit you know meriting remain to the