SAGAYDAK V  GONZALES   ORAL ARGUMENT OF TOM YOUNGJOHN
Channel: Tom Youngjohn
Date: 2012-07-10

This is Tom Youngjohn's Oral Argument before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case SAGAYDAK v. GONZALES. This was an appeal of a case that I had lost in front of the Immigration Judge ("IJ"), and then had also lost before the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA"). The Ninth Circuit "publishes" only 4% of its decisions, making them "precedent," that is making them the "law of the land," literally. The Ninth Circuit published this decision, making it a precedent decision, and, yes, making it the law of the land. One of the things this decision has been said to stand for is that: "IJs and the BIA  are not free to ignore arguments raised by a petitioner" or his lawyer apparently. 
Yesterday, I tried to upload the full twenty minute recording of this Oral Argument, but YouTube said it was too long. This is just as well. The government's attorney sounded a heck of a lot smarter than me, on my oath. The federal government has some damn bright people working for it. I was damn lucky I won. I also had a brilliant law grad assistant help me with the Opening Brief. Yes, I carefully supervised her, because I knew the issues that I wanted to address. But darn it, SHE asked ME if she could highlight the main issue that the Ninth Circuit ruled on! I believe her name was Amy Klosterman (It's been a long time.) Thank you for your help turning my words into legalese in that brief, Amy! You are now an invaluable resource to the Federal Government!