firearm while being unlawfully in the united states you know as i wish to reserve five minutes our system of justice is founded on basic  that some of the other people i'm also aware of that i fear not to repeat and i think he's a repeat i understand mr smith was here yesterday i would therefore request three minutes if the court is allocating ten minutes per side possible consequences of a criminal conviction we require notice and an opportunity for that person to prepare a defense i won't go into the facts as a court is already indicated it is well aware of some of the facts but some understanding of the background of how this case proceeded to trial is necessary to truly understand how mr singh was prejudiced in his defense when the district court denied mr singh's request for a continuance as a court as i'm saying was originally pseudoephedrine with the intent to never knowing that or having reasonable cause to believe he was denied a motion for a continuance but the court appointed an investigator to look into the relationship between the person who was at the store and somebody else yes that is and had the continuance been granted what would mr singer have shown how was he prejudice by not getting it continues but you are but what it turned out it didn't it's difficult to say one thing that may have turned up is we did have a good thing a belief that there was a relationship between mr curtis who was the very very late witness in fact i don't have a show's technically that his then invest again mr pointed to determine and look into that relationship yes what was the result the result was that those individuals who we thought might be helpful in making that determination cannot be found during the two days of trial and all during that today might have been found at a later time you're saying i suppose that's possible yes but during trial those people were not found and he said that possibly on the first day i may be incorrect i don't have to look at the records but it is interesting and it's very important to know this was a two day crile at its longest in fact i believe it ended sometime before the end of the second day then i guess you could also look into whether there was such a relationship try to find witnesses but nothing like that has ever come out as i understand it nothing like that has come out that is true how could you say i mean it's you know  in the next week found somebody and said look if we have to continue as we could have got this evidence before the court you have nothing like that on the issue of the relationship between this power mr curtis i have nothing like that ok well what else would as far as the relationship with miss carr mr what else have you developed that you would have been able to i haven't developed any additional evidence but i will point out and it's not well laid out my brief but the main thrust and problem that we were put into is coming into this trial as i've in in my briefing mr singh's defense was based only on an allegation that the government could not prove its very very circumstantial case under those circumstances i certainly had no intent nor did mr singh intend to testify thing in fact was put in a position when are the things had to change he simply cannot let these new allegations go unanswered where he did have to testify and what resulted was the prejudice that we have outlined it was the subject of our motion for a new trial and it's the subject of one of the issues that we are one of the reasons we are requesting a new trial in this case that is that going into mr singh's testimony while my time in my investigators time were spent looking for  witnesses who could testify as to the relationship of mr curtis and this coward there was very little or no time to work with mr saying about his testimony what resulted was the very confusing and quite  damaging that's another way of saying prejudicial testimony that was elicited by the government from mr singh in this case the subject that was the sum that was discussed between the government's attorney  was the subject of a motion in limine which is set out in some detail in the record and which as you can tell from the record was a matter of some detail and some urgency that was discussed between the judge and the government and mr singh we anticipated as you can tell from the record that the very thing that happened might and what happened in that is that the testimony regarding using mr singh's desire to have a firearm in relation to a wholly irrelevant firearm back in february of two thousand and two as compared to his actual possession of another firearm in august two thousand and two was so confusing that mr saying in trying to keep the testimony straight as the judge instructed that it would have to come out stumble any stumble not because he was lying in regards to the firearm front tooth out or from august but because he was confused by the government's questioning which i laid it out in the record i won't go into it but it was set up to start out as very specific question regarding the firearm that was it issue in the case and then it was generalized to in mr singh's mind you can tell from the record if somebody was on the stand struggling with this testimony very well would see the generalization and now all the sudden he's being asked about two not alleging that that crossing at examination it was i will say this it is our belief that the cross examination was misleading and let mr singh down the wrong road but plenty to look into the issues in regards to the witnesses and then also to have the opportunity to consult with mr singh regarding his testimony that's testimony might have come out differently which is in fact prejudice  i mean you've been working with that client for a long time i think i mean this was just their trial right and it doesn't miss trials previously and then it finally came down to this right yes that is true and they weren't unrelated subject matter right  they were unrelated yes in regards to possession of the firearm the firearm was not and what is different it was different i give you that but that that it wasn't completely unrelated as regards to the long arm firearm it was completely unrelated it had never come up in either of the two prior trials nor had even been hardly discussed between counsel during the pendency of those trials and then moving on through this trial which i think is very important to note was only a month or so after the end of the other two trials which were both fairly lengthy trials i see i'm running out of time i would be happy to announce to save some more time thank your hon then possibly make a few points the united states argument would pretty much consistent with a reiteration of the brief so first i would just open it up for questions from the court on any of the issues procedure as far as how the charges were made and how they ultimately came to trial and the drug cases were initially indicted pursuant to the drug investigation that and two there was some more investigation concerning mr singh's legal status in the united states or more properly illegal status once it was determine often severed from drug charges consequently at procedurally when it came down to which trial would go first i believe that there was  this i would indicate your honor in that i was involved i was not involved in trial counsel in this case but i was involved as trial counsel on the drug cases and i believe that in this particular case i am not sure and i can supplement this if the court requires but i believe  and i believe that the alien age was also something that was not referenced in trial in the drug cases  was not prejudice this is an abuse of discretion standard but really under the forepart test concerning whether or not to grant a trial day continuance the most important factor in consideration is prejudice to the defendant and the defendant was through counsel and through counsel being provided an investigator was given the opportunity to follow potential leads whil counsel was in fact in trial counsel indicated that the witness mr curtis had been interviewed prior to trial had been investigators had the opportunity to interview the court granted to defend counsel the opportunity to interview again mr curtis as well as in his cow or during the trial if need be and finally mr curtis as well as ms cowra were inquire during cross examination as to any biased causing relationship counsellors indicated that there was a good face to belief that there may have been some type of relationship yet the only support in the record from that is the statements made by the defendant concerning any improper bias causing relationship and i would submit that the jury considered that accordingly subsequently no further references to the records but actually sets out the exchange between the governments council and mr staying and i would submit that that shows that mr saying in fact didn't in fact opening himsel e finally there was one point that i just wanted to raise your honor on another issue concerning the admissibility of evidence concerning the other trial or or the use of  yes drug drugs and guns here on in the united states the defendant has brought up the united states versus blackstone in reply to the government's position and i would indicate that blackstone would indicate that the that the reason why there wasn't a nexus was because the evidence concerning drugs was limited to paperwork that showed how to make methamphetamine and it was limited to a personal use amount of marijuana i believe in this case which is again more like butcher there was the indication that there had been unlawful  pseudoephedrine whether or not those were ultimately determined his actions were all to minutely determined unlawful in federal court under federal statutes i believe that part of the defendant's defense in federal court was that he knew that he was violating the law yet he believed he was violating state law see that my time is ending and he simply asked the court to affirm the conviction  as my honorable colleague has mentioned that the attention was on the drug charges and that is certainly the case i can assure you in fact because the attention was on the drug charges the simple fact is there wasn't an investigation by the government done until the eve of trial when they knew they were going to trial on the firearm charge in fact they actually question and one reason that they were held off on the gun charge is that mr singh had been convicted of this drug charge you can be darn sure that they were dismissed on the gun charge and this pursuing would be doing a very very lengthy sentence in a federal prison for having violated the controlled substances act mr censure not be panelized for the government having held off to see what happens on a strong case and they did have a lot of hold on and then at the last moment on a saturday counsel is informed of what turns out to be the pivotal witness in the case their entire case was almost put together at the last minute with notice on saturday a trial on monday that this witness will be testifying there was no other choice that mr singh had then to completely reformulate his defense i can assure you that did not happen over the weekend the reformulation in his defense began the moment i received the phone call and it continued all the way through trial and at prejudice mr saying in defending himself thank you