oh and before you get started mr sheets i note that you represented your client under the criminal justice act in court which is to frank you for accepting that appointment logic that i'm going to hope will convince you that mr castro deserves to have his case overturned was a case in your brief judge i think that my client sent that to the court i was not able to verify that and i would ask that i be allowed to if it's not in there that i be allowed to so it's not listed in your list of authorities but it's not listed in the all that were there that's what i was concerned about and i believe he may have followed but i'm not sure well yesterday a transcript showing that in fact miss laverty did file a motion for a directed very did in the us government's i am sorry at the end of her presentation of the words the government got done they asked if she was going to proceed with the defense and she felt she had made an oral motion to the court and i received a copy of it i don't think that cures my claim of ineffective assistance of counsel but i wanted to make sure the court was aware of that counsel doesn't that just prove the point that the records are insufficient under rect appeal i mean it's not clear to me what the record is here i mean suggestion is made that there were no objections to hearsay the government sites at least twenty instances of hearsay objections there's no record that i know on the motion for counsel to withdraw at least i'm not aware of anything before the court that one of the elements of your ineffective assistance claim this issue of counsel didn't explain the hearsay rules i don't think there's any record on that doesn't that isn't out just kind of prove isn't this kind of the test case or the ideal case for why we don't address ineffective assistance on direct appeal judge a i really study that issue and one of the things that i looked at was the fact we have a motion to withdraw twice and the court rather than even discussing it or making a record like you say it's that divisiveness of laverty is representation and and it's that fact that you've got a defendant who is fighting not only the prosecution and his life is affected for up to twenty years but you've also got a lawyer he's fighting with us and who is not cooperating with and he's not english speaking person and i believe that the record really comes from the record that i have and like you say it's minimal because the judge doesn't explain his ruling the judge doesn't talk about the judge doesn't let mrs la allegations well and that i understand but all of these allegations that i have made are apparent from the record that is made especially when you look at the interrogation by miss la and her failure to introduce such factors as his my client's alleged participation could not have lasted more than one and a half years and this was conspiracy was based on sixty seven years of conspiracy theories but you agree right that if you join a conspiracy late in the conspiracy and the government crusie elements you're on the hook for the entire conspiracy that and that's the law and i agree with that  i think that more i'm going to move to my nd argument because i think that my second argument is that they brought in i believe nine people they wanted to tie them together as a single conspiracy the reality is that these people not only didn't know each other associate but there are within the conspiracy according to the record there was at least four quote conspiracies occurring and when you take this type of case before a jury and you set these nine people out there and the only people who testify are people that are within one of the one of the conspiracies and deals with three others and then you've got another guy that is part of a conspiracy and he testifies just about my client to his benefit and then as you go through the names uke this separation is very evident from this record that the conspiracies were separate and one in one case one of the conspiracies castro actually attempted to join and he was rejected and that's out of the mouth of the medina who testified so how can you have a conspiracy of commonality when you have conspiracies that are are people kicking and other those were the things that were of concern to me and i and i think that there's so much there were so many issues about that there the fact there are mult there is no cooperation to any testimony and it was hearsay and clearly the court can look at it and say oh this was this is hearsay and this record indicates it's hearsay and then if it's not cooperated how do you rely on it because it's among it's actually just a bunch of where the hearsay rulings of the district court appealed they were not your honor and that's one of the things is there's the record is very very incomplete on any action being taken by miss laverty for the protection of her client which of course goes to the issue we talked about earlier i was you know there was just no there was no common leadership there was no one person there was no one group and conspiracy law doesn't require that yeah how do you have conspiracy when you don't have people that deal with one another you don't have any conversations for heaven's sakes in this case my client they'd they know only didn't look at castro they didn't get a warrant for him they didn't try to sell to him they didn't  him he was preferable to this entire procedure and when you go into court under these circumstances and you're trying to express your defense another just theory of defense is look i am not part of this but you never have the opportunity to do that because the judge has said this is what i'm charging with this conspiracy all of you together and the individuality of that type of case my ability to defend as an individual is crushed because suddenly all everybody is there and nobody if you look at the testimony of these various people that testified they don't say there's a the distinctness of these conspiracies and i looked at the what was going on but there's no common evidence there's no distinct evidence counsel is insider momently how conspiracies are proven i mean you're you're really going to find a contract of agreement between a criminal conspiratorial it's generally going to be evidence of circumstance and tacit agreement as opposed to express statement that's right and you would think that if there was some type of agreement you wouldn't have one of the medina group coming in and saying we would let castro in you'd find that he said oh yeah he was one of the guys and he was isn't that just when the evidence indicated he played a specific role in the conspiracy right i mean he the government's not required to prove that he was the ringleader of the entire oh no that he interacted individual he with every coconspirator got to show that he interacted in a with a group of conspirators are with some other persons who were conspirators who may have even interacted with the others but in this case a rap is and my client neither one of them interacted with medina because medina's group was outside of them that was cicero and but below and and morale is who were in that group and there was never an interaction but if you just throw a group out there and you say well they were in the same geographical area and we've got evidence that they all had a dope connection the cocaine connection well they must be working together i think you have to at least show that there is something that intends that they're working together that they're sharing some type of d source because if you don't then i can say that well those folks back there in a conspiracy to listen i mean i can i don't know that i don't i can't rationalize that thinking that we use this and we make them so that it gives that appearance but we don't have to prove it and i'm going to  mia please the court counsel my name is amanda myers and i'm an assistant united states attorney for the southern district of iowa and i'm here today to represent the united states i would st like to start my argument to address the  evidence there was looking at the record in light most favorable to the verdict a reasonable jury could have concluded that a conspiracy was reached in twenty million eighty two thousand and nine between individuals that are called in the brief as the medina group who are out of wisconsin to sourced large amounts of cocaine to the quad city area into the muscatine area in the southern district of iowa there was evidence presented at trial that the defendant as of the summer of two thousand and fourteen was obtaining amounts of cocaine base from an individual by the name of bisi ente menace and it's interesting because the trial testimony shows that going to mr humanise obtaining an amount of cocaine approximately nine ounces in the summer of two thousand and fourteen so that just to be clear the record shows that castro knew the cocaine that he was receiving team from the medina group honor and so the testimony was basically that mr jimenez quantities of cocaine were wrapped in a particular manner and they did a search warrant on an individual by the name of mr mori ndaa and discovered amounts of together in obtaining amounts of cocaine they meet with an individual by the name of mr caronna and that st meeting is because the defendant and mr reese pay want to sell cocaine however as it turns out crime has already obtaining large amount and he says i get better prices and so in turn what happens is the defendant in a recent can begin acquiring amounts of cocaine from crimes so there is testimony that there is a specific discussion in reference to the source of the cocaine and what happens is that mr karanka brings out his cocaine and shows it to the defendant and it's wrapped in this distinctive manner shrinkwrapped with black electrical tape and the defendant said hey my other source mr jimenez his cocaine is also wrapped in such a fashion so certainly there is evidence at trial from which a jury could have concluded that the defendant did know the source of the common source of cocaine from his one source mr jimenez and his nd source m are coming to him and want to purchase larger and larger quantities so he says you know i don't want to be involved in this anymore let me just introduce you to them directly at the conclusion of that meeting that's not what's going to happen medea doesn't want to work directly with the defendant and mr castro i think the appellant for uses that fact to show that certainly he could have been involved in a conspiracy right because the media group quote unquote rejected him and i would argue to this court that basically pursuant to the con we case that this cited in the a police brief a single conspiracy may exist even if the participants and their activities changed over time and i think that is what was going on here certainly the medina group is not saying you can never buy cocaine from one of our distributors somebody that we're giving large amounts to and then that you can't continue to buy from mr karanka just simply that i don't know you i don't trust you well enough that i'm not going to be delivering to you directly there was certainly no evidence that was introduced at trial that would have suggested that the medina group said no you can't buy any of our cocaine appellant argues that the government did not prove that the defendant was involved in this conspiracy during the entire time that was alleged in the indictment but that is not what the government is required to prove at trial  certainly just simply looking at the jury instructions that were provided to the jury is that the government government my show that the defendant intentionally and voluntarily joined an agreement where cocaine would be distributed and that he must  at some time at some time while the agreement is in effect and certainly the whole sure case that's also cited in the appellate brief basically states that once you join a conspiracy you assume full responsibility even if you join at a later time so certainly the case law indicates that the government doesn't have to prove that in two thousand and nine he was active he just has to the government must show that at some time while the conspiracy was in place he did join and in this case the st action or the testimony that the jury heard was that the st action of the defendant participating was the summer of two thousand and fourteen and that it continued all the way through the summer of two thousand and fifteen i think it's also necessarily have any impact on the jury verdict in this q all of the testimony that was presented to the jury all revolved around the time frame where he was actually actively participating so there really wasn't any testimony  trial where it was clear that the defendant had stopped participating and then additional evidence was brought in after that point so certainly i don't feel that that he was number one i don't feel that the evidence showed he was entitled to that beyond the scope of what was charged in the indictment where they went to mr fullerton to respond the defendant wanting to reengage in the distribution of cocaine together wanting him to purchase amounts i think that certainly suggests that during the entire time frame he was an active participant i missed far as a sufficiency of the evidence in regards to drug quantity and that is an issue that is also raised by the appellee the government would argue that there was more than sufficient evidence to show that the director defend it was directly involved in the distribution of five kilograms or more of cocaine and that would have been via the testimony of mr fullerton basically he stated that toward the end of tw fourteen all the way through the very end of july of two thousand and fifteen he was purchasing large amounts from the defendant the st two months he was purchasing approximately nine ounces at a time and then after that time frame it was always approximately eighteen ounces he was going every week to every two weeks and the final combination was a purchase of fifty ounces that would have occurred at the very very end of july perhaps the very beginning of august  certainly that testimony alone certainly shows that the conspiracy involved i have kilograms or more that doesn't even take into consideration the reasonable forsee ability of the other members of the conspiracy and one of the individuals that was involved he was he was in possession of four seven kilograms himself one of the other individuals who testified a julio cesar hernandez he was also obtaining amounts of cocaine from humanise which was one of the sources of the defendant he indicated he was receiving three to four kilograms per month from mr humanise and so he assumed that mr jimenez must himself have been getting at least five dollars to six dollars because he knew that mr jimenez had other customers so certainly i think it would be if it was reasonably foreseeable to mr hernandez it certainly would have been reasonably forseeable to mr castro that this conspiracy involved by a kilograms or more of cocaine being that he was utilizing two separate individuals who were obtaining from the same source the issues raised in the appellate as brief as to the ineffective assistance of counsel and i would just like to address those briefly i would suggest that there are several issues that were raised by the appellant in the brief that really the record as  noted is not really accurately developed at this time there was a discussion on the record in reference to the motion and lemony the docket entry at three hundred and seventy five dollars shows that there was  discussion by counsel there's a name of a court reporter on the top of that docket entry those transcripts have not been provided or prepared for this court's review and in addition as to the motions to withdraw there was also leave and there was a discussion held on the record in reference to those motions to withdraw and there was also the name of the court reporter indicated on those docket in trees those transcripts have not been ordered or provided to this course i don't feel that at this point it would be appropriate for that to be reviewed also participation in jury selection and also pretrial contact there's just simply nothing in the record here from which a decision can be made on those issues at there are certain issues that are raised that i do feel  the record is sufficient at this time one of those goes to the hearsay objections and i think it's really important when you read the entire transcript and some of those are noted in the  argument it was clear from my review that the defense counsel objected pretty much any time there was any your say how potential that came in i think the record sufficient for us to  a direct appeal i do your honor and the reason why is because every time that the defense counsel did object to hearsay there was always an appropriate ground to admit that and i would just note specifically in reference to the jury selection issue those parts of the transcripts have not been provided to the appellate court for review so i think the whole record has not been developed and that is clear i think  far as the motion for judgment of acquittal obviously there was one transcript has been provided another issue that was raised is that the defense attorney did not challenge the p s r and in fact when you look at docket number four  she basically say is my client's innocence and doesn't admit to any of this stuff and the only thing that she concedes is if you find that the defendant is responsible for fifty seven kilograms then the base level of offense thirty four hours is appropriate but she's not conceding that he was responsible she certainly makes clear and her objections that she that he's innocent or she feels that he's innocent i think the other issue it there's a sufficiency of the evidence portion as far as his participation in the time frame about participation but that's also raised in reference to ineffective assistance of counsel and i think that that's something that based on this record can be decided by this court because simply if in consequential it the government wasn't required to prove that so there really can be no ineffective assistance of counsel for feeling to argue that the government could have possibly meant its burden because he was perhaps out of the area during a certain portion of the  conspiracy looking at the record and in the light most favorable to the jury verdict there is sufficient evidence to uphold the conviction in this case and there certainly isn't anything in the record before the court that would show that counsel was ineffective rebuttal judges i my biggest concern is that when you talk about docket entries and i went and i asked to make a thorough search i found no docket entries related to these apparent side bars or discussions or hell i also want to note that i i truly believe that when a defendant is being judged there has to be some type of direction from the court that they need to be judged individually and they need to be given the opportunity to be judged based on the facts that applied to them i also note that  have to show some kind of a common plan design or scheme and i don't believe that any of that was shown by the proof in this case and i think a fair reading record that i'm correct i believe that also in the  theory of of the defense of this man that when you have an attorney and i don't know if she was sick at that time i don't know if she was affected by it but if there were objections on hearsay that should be in the record that i received and i should have a fair opportunity to judge that actual record and that would be developed on our ineffective assistance claim under two thousand two hundred and fifty five dollars correct i do so i understand  i actually think that consul for the government is wrong when she talked about certain statements are made if they were made they were not made in this record they may have been made to the government privately i don't know but the record is clear that there