very complicated issues and we very much appreciate the careful analysis and thoughtful arguments you've offered us we are greatly appreciative will take this and revising it so why don't we turn to the rd ca on our argument calendar today united states versus lock it twenty dash nine hundred and thirty nine are and we have let's see mr mclaughlin are you here for the ask the odds are always good that i'm going to make a mistake so you can both hear each other i trust yes your honor ok so mr mclaughlin you had ten minutes of which you had reserved three minutes for  d position your honor is that mr lockett sentence is procedurally unreasonable because the court relied on unproven allegations of domestic violence mr lockett was charged probation brought a violation complaint against him and had eight specifications six of which dealt with the domestic violence allegations the resolution of that was he agreed to plead to specification number eight which was a resisting arrest allegation for which he had been convicted in despite that the government and its presentation at sentencing spent a substantial amount of time you know a plaster and square pages by my count anyway going through the gory details of the domestic violence  and i think it's fair to characterize that it was the heart of their sentencing argument in terms of why the maximum sentence of one year should be imposed on this tour lockett the operative question then becomes did the court rely on those unproven  allegations and the coroner clearly and we concede disclaimed reliance on it and a couple portions of the sentencing transcript but when you look closely at the sentencing transcript it does and specific way of looking at pages thirty five and thirty six of the appendix in the context of judge sidel pronouncing the maximum twelve month sentence the references he makes clearly are to the domestic violence charges and she makes references to being concerned mr lockett is going to harm other people submit that can't be reverenced i think frankly other than the domestic violence charge and more specifically she says i understand why the victim in this case is afraid of mr lockett was the victim in this case the domestic violence charges again we're not trying to duplicate it admitted to and so when the judge says the victim in this case that  our perspective your honor is that it is not that it was preserved the defense counsel after the government's lengthy reliance on the domestic violence charges started out his argument by saying that it would sufficient to take us out of plain error lab counsel would you be able to address the question of why the peelers not moot is it not true that mr locke arguments for mootness and i appreciate the research they did because they pointed us to the williams case for the one of the lambs case and because of the unique factual posture of mr lockett's case it falls  another federal sentence for two sorry other federal charge two thousand and seventeen escape charge and so he was detained on that charge starting in august of two thousand and twenty and his supervised release term sentence didn't expired on november tw twenty so if the court agreed that the judge relied on the permissible considerations and remanded and if the judge then gave a shorter sentence then that would increase the chances of that time spent in jail from august twenty two november twenty being credited against what he's going to get for his escape charge sentence and that's what it says no one can you clarify for me he was saying he was arrested i thought he was charged my to prison and he wouldn't have been arrested while in prison right i mean they might have lodged an arrest warrant as a detainer which could have been executed upon his release but  detainer imposed and there would be arguments made for credit for that time if he wasn't given credit against another senate the revocation says that he was serving so no you know what i'm i'm trying to understand he was serving his prison sentence for the violations who has released so i guess i'm not quite sure how he would have been in some sort of pretrial detention mode at that point instead of having simply an arrest warrant launches to detain or so that the event of his release had things gone properly he would have then been taken into custody and placed into pretrial detention but that's not the situation i thought actually  then what happened under three thousand five hundred and eighty five right is that they all merge into one when you have multiple sentences that are all being served you know consecutively that you can't ever find the point where one starts and one ends and you can you can sort of be opi will move the date back or forward of when the nd sentence starts when you don't have contact you via the two  sentences you're not in the william situation i mean your father was i guess released accidentally it sounds like from the return in some respects that was great and you got to go on the lam for a while and in some respects it turns out it was bad for him because now you don't have a single and sorry if i'm missing the point because in williams he was serving a twenty one month sentence for the surprise released problem the same way my guy was serving twelve months for his supervised release problem while serving that single individual and only sentence mr williams had charges filed against him he had not yet been sentenced on those that was going to be in an eventual sentence which is the same thing i have with mr lockett he hasn't yet been sentenced on the escape charges which frankly came from two thousand likelihood that he will get credit against that on his prison sentence for the escape two thousand and seventeen charge is my understanding of how that would sugar off and so that so and i think that the government  she correctly considered the appropriate factors i think that this argument that a this and my response to that your honour's is that she certainly makes statements indicating that she would like to give him more time but i would just point the court to the context of those statements in the context of those statements again revolves around her concern that he may commit violence to his victim in this crime again if you will that is corrected that domestic violence can be considered then maybe she'll go ahead and do something different obviously there's no guarantee is one way or another but i wouldn't read her comments the comments need to read and read in the context of what she would say thank you thank you very much want to return to the government mr langberg you have ten minutes would you like to proceed yes your honor thank you please the court my name is jim lineberger and i'm an assistant united states attorney in the southern district of new york i represent the united states in this appeal and i represented the united states in the court below this is an appeal of a sentence that has already expired mr lockett completed the challenge sentence more than four months ago as a result he has nothing to gain from a favorable decision here it is impossible for this court to redress mr lockett's alleged injury the case is therefore moot and must be dismissed and i'll just address at the outset the argument regarding the the escape case and explain why it is extremely speculative that the defendant would have any benefit in that case based on what this court decides and st is the reason mr mclaughlin referred to which is that judge cy bell in her decision and in the transcript made absolutely clear that she was imposing the maximum sentence that she wished she could impose a greater sentence and that's in conjunction with her saying she was imposing that sentence while disregarding any domestic violence allegations so if if this case were remanded to her it's very clear what would happen she would again disregard the domestic violence allegations and impose a twelve month sentence the same sentence as last time but there's there's even more reason to think that the prospect of the defendant getting any benefit from a favorable decision here  speculative and that is because it's speculative that he would receive anything greater than time served on the pending escape case and just provide the court with some more information about that case  case has progressed there came a point where the parties had reached a plea agreement and due to the coded pandemic it was dangerous to do such a plea in person so as the court knows  the elements of the cares act are satisfied then the plea can go forward remotely one necessary finding for the plea to go forward or mostly is that the police cannot be further delayed without serious harm to the interests of justice  the the basis for defense counsel's request for a care act finding was the possibility that that mr lockett would receive a time served sentence on that escape case and and judge carious granted the cares act finding on that basis so i think from those particular facts there is you know judge harris concluded the time served sentence was likely enough that the plea could not be further delayed without decide that issue because regardless of you know whether it's plain air or harmless error it's very clear that any alleged error is harmless here because judge side bow would clearly have imposed the same sentence regardless of any alleged reliance on the domestic violence allegations everything i heard said it like speculation as to what he's going to get and not to what he does so i don't think that changes the calculus under the footnote one thank you thank you very much to both of you is very helpful for  versus barnes we are taking those under submission and that wraps up our calendar for the day let me thank not just counsel for their participation in this remote argument but also our courtroom