[00:00:03] Speaker 00: Good morning, your honors, and may it please the court. [00:00:06] Speaker 00: My name is Madison Bathke, and I represent the appellant, Jasmine Sanchez. [00:00:10] Speaker 00: I would like to reserve one minute for rebuttal. [00:00:13] Speaker 00: This case arises from serious civil rights allegations. [00:00:17] Speaker 00: Mr. Sanchez alleged that a correctional officer broke his arm in four places and that prison staff then denied him medical care. [00:00:25] Speaker 00: The district court screened his complaint and determined that he had stated colorable claims, claims serious enough to proceed on excessive force, deliberate indifference, and retaliation. [00:00:37] Speaker 00: yet before those claims were ever heard on the merits. [00:00:40] Speaker 00: They were dismissed with prejudice. [00:00:42] Speaker 00: Not a request to defendants not after repeated misconduct. [00:00:46] Speaker 00: But Sue respond to after a single missed case management conference at the very outset of his case how many strikes that your client have gone into this case, I believe that my client had 4 strikes heading into this case, but it was properly screened by the district court. [00:01:01] Speaker 00: The reason that Mister Sanchez missed that conference makes the dismissal all the more troubling critically the night before the case management conference a prison guard told Mister Sanchez that he would die if he had. [00:01:12] Speaker 03: Well that's what he said correct. [00:01:14] Speaker 03: I mean that that's what he said and the magistrate judge heard from him right right. [00:01:21] Speaker 03: and the magistrate judge heard from the correctional officers correct correct. [00:01:27] Speaker 03: Heard from your client at the hearing saying that with regard to the correctional officers he was considering homicide right he did say that. [00:01:38] Speaker 03: and the magistrate judge made a finding that he believed your client was not telling the truth, right? [00:01:48] Speaker 03: Correct. [00:01:48] Speaker 03: Was that a finding the magistrate judge was entitled to make? [00:01:52] Speaker 00: It was certainly a finding that the magistrate was entitled to make, but the district court, because the magistrate recommended dismissal with prejudice, the district court was required to conduct a de novo review of that determination and consider all of them alone factors. [00:02:06] Speaker 01: Council, what sanctions do you think the magistrate judge should have imposed for your client missing the case management conference, if any? [00:02:14] Speaker 00: I mean there are certainly other options you could have given him a reprimand a a simple warning. [00:02:19] Speaker 00: A conditional order perhaps to get counsel before continuing with the case. [00:02:23] Speaker 00: But the important thing to consider here is the fact that that the 5th Malone factor focuses on whether the court explored less drastic sanctions before dismissal and here it didn't the availability of those lesser sanctions were never legitimately considered. [00:02:37] Speaker 00: I'm not sure. [00:02:38] Speaker 00: I'm not sure. [00:02:38] Speaker 00: I'm not sure. [00:02:38] Speaker 00: Mr. Sanchez was never warned that dismissal was a possibility. [00:02:41] Speaker 03: The court like I said, the court found that less drastic sanctions would not have the [00:02:57] Speaker 03: they didn't mention the homicide threat but it's there on the record and the magistrate judge finding that your client totally made up this story about officers threatening to kill him when in fact he simply refused to go to the hearing. [00:03:14] Speaker 03: So how is that abusing discretion? [00:03:18] Speaker 00: Well, the district court was required, regardless of those credibility findings, that the credibility determination doesn't move the needle on the Malone factors. [00:03:25] Speaker 00: So regardless of the credibility determination that the magistrate judge made, the district court was still required to go back and conduct a de novo review of the record. [00:03:34] Speaker 03: Even though your client did not file something denominated in objection to the R&R? [00:03:42] Speaker 00: It's our position that my client did file objections. [00:03:46] Speaker 03: Is this in the document where he said the magistrate judge was trying to ensure his death and must be related to the defendants? [00:03:55] Speaker 00: Certainly, that is one of the filings that we think constitute an objection, especially under the Supreme Court's precedent in Castro and then the Ninth Circuit's precedent in Mayshack, where pro se inmates are supposed to be afforded significant leeway [00:04:10] Speaker 00: when having their filings construed. [00:04:12] Speaker 00: Here, before the 14-day deadline, Mr. Sanchez submitted three separate filings that serve the same function. [00:04:19] Speaker 00: They contested the recommendation of dismissal, specifically the harshness of the sanction and the underlying credibility determination that led the magistrate to even consider a sanction in the first place. [00:04:30] Speaker 01: What in your view are the factors that would suggest that if a de novo review had been performed, that the outcome would have been any [00:04:39] Speaker 01: Different and I mean, and does that matter? [00:04:42] Speaker 01: Does that matter here whether we think the outcome would have been the same? [00:04:46] Speaker 00: Yes, Your Honor, certainly factor five, the availability of less drastic sanctions, which I already touched on. [00:04:52] Speaker 00: Because the court never considered those lesser sanctions and because its reasoning was rather circular, this factor weighs strongly against dismissal. [00:04:59] Speaker 00: And then moving to factor three, the risk of prejudice to defendants. [00:05:04] Speaker 00: Here there was absolutely none. [00:05:05] Speaker 00: Prejudice under Adriana International requires that the plaintiff's actions impair the defendant's ability to go to trial. [00:05:12] Speaker 00: And the court specifically stated that delay alone is not enough. [00:05:16] Speaker 00: Here, Mr. Sanchez missed a single telephonic case management conference at the very start of his case. [00:05:22] Speaker 00: Defendants had to attend that conference. [00:05:23] Speaker 00: It lasted about 7 minutes. [00:05:25] Speaker 00: And then they had to attend a 20-minute show cause hearing. [00:05:27] Speaker 02: Was, had there been any discovery conducted at that point? [00:05:30] Speaker 00: No. [00:05:32] Speaker 02: And the case management conference was, what was it, about a month after the service of the complaints on the defendants? [00:05:38] Speaker 00: I believe so. [00:05:38] Speaker 00: I'm not quite certain on the timing, but I think it was. [00:05:40] Speaker 02: So fairly early in the process? [00:05:42] Speaker 02: Correct. [00:05:43] Speaker 02: And Judge Denny mentioned, you know, memory loss and availability of witnesses as factors in the prejudice analysis. [00:05:52] Speaker 02: How would you, what would you respond to that? [00:05:55] Speaker 00: I think that the memory loss, in our view, the memory loss argument doesn't have any merit here because all of the evidence that was available is in, because our client is in custody, all of the evidence in the case is in Endoc's custody and it's probably not going anywhere. [00:06:13] Speaker 00: If there was a risk of prejudice based on that, the evidence going missing, it would be in Endoc's control, in Endoc's custody, and Endoc would be responsible for that evidence. [00:06:24] Speaker 03: Is there in your view any sanction that the district court could have imposed on your client for what the district court found was lying to the court about the reason he had missed the hearing and accusing, according to the district court, by lies, [00:06:48] Speaker 03: serious criminal conduct on the part of correction officers. [00:06:53] Speaker 03: Is there any sanction that the district court could have imposed for that? [00:06:56] Speaker 00: Certainly. [00:06:57] Speaker 03: What for example? [00:06:59] Speaker 00: I believe that an admonishment would have had an effect. [00:07:02] Speaker 03: Don't lie anymore? [00:07:03] Speaker 00: I think that well based on the fact that Mr. Sanchez then filed subsequent filings that indicated that [00:07:09] Speaker 00: that corroborated his previous testimony that correctional officers were threatening him, had destroyed his property, et cetera. [00:07:19] Speaker 00: I just think even if we take all of those credibility determinations, declining to consider less drastic sanctions simply because a litigant is incarcerated, [00:07:29] Speaker 00: would mean that no prisoner could ever qualify for a lesser sanction. [00:07:33] Speaker 00: That approach would effectively write the fifth Malone factor out of the analysis whenever a prisoner is involved, and I don't believe that's the precedent that this circuit intends to adopt. [00:07:43] Speaker 02: Can I ask this? [00:07:45] Speaker 02: He works, you know, Sanchez works and receives wages. [00:07:50] Speaker 02: What about having to cover costs or a fee or a fine from the court? [00:07:55] Speaker 02: Was that an available sanction? [00:07:57] Speaker 00: certainly was and it was not actually considered by the magistrate judge and that's that that's our position on this appeal is that it [00:08:04] Speaker 02: to make these discretionary, these credibility findings in this sort of impromptu hearing or calling of witnesses. [00:08:26] Speaker 02: One of those witnesses is an actual party in the case, Lieutenant, I'm sorry, [00:08:31] Speaker 02: I'm not sure. [00:08:33] Speaker 02: I'm not sure. [00:08:39] Speaker 02: I'm not sure. [00:08:44] Speaker 02: I'm not sure. [00:08:47] Speaker 02: I'm not sure. [00:08:50] Speaker 02: I'm not sure. [00:08:52] Speaker 00: I'm not sure. [00:08:56] Speaker 00: I'm not sure. [00:09:01] Speaker 00: that the magistrate lied on in order to say that Mr. Sanchez was not credible. [00:09:04] Speaker 00: The district court itself found Mr. Sanchez's claims to be color and he deserves a chance to prove them on the merit. [00:09:07] Speaker 00: So we respectfully ask this court to reverse and remand said his rights can be found. [00:09:09] Speaker 00: And I think that the magistrate's words were did you hear yourself threaten Mister Sanchez and that was the end of the inquiry ended right there. [00:09:15] Speaker 00: That was the credibility determination that the magistrate lied on in order to say that Mister Sanchez was not credible. [00:09:22] Speaker 00: The district court itself found Mister Sanchez's claims to be [00:09:31] Speaker 00: to be heard. [00:09:31] Speaker 00: Thank you. [00:09:32] Speaker 00: Thank you. [00:09:33] Speaker 04: Thank you, Your Honor. [00:09:44] Speaker 04: I'd like to thank the court for allowing me to present my argument on behalf of police defendants. [00:09:50] Speaker 04: My name is Chris Davis. [00:09:54] Speaker 04: I guess what appears to be a misconception. [00:09:57] Speaker 04: Lieutenant Rigney is not a defendant in this case. [00:10:00] Speaker 04: He's not a defendant? [00:10:01] Speaker 04: No. [00:10:03] Speaker 04: Officer Chet Rigney is a defendant in this case. [00:10:06] Speaker 04: Lieutenant Rigney, who is his father, as she correctly identified, is not a defendant in this case. [00:10:13] Speaker 02: I understand the defendants to be Chet Ridney, Lieutenant Curtis Rigney, Warden William Rupert, Warden David Drummond, and Associate Warden Tashina Cook and Dr. Jerome Hicks. [00:10:23] Speaker 02: Is that incorrect? [00:10:27] Speaker 02: Those are the defendants in this case. [00:10:34] Speaker 04: Oh, sorry. [00:10:37] Speaker 04: I misspoke. [00:10:39] Speaker 04: It's been a while. [00:10:39] Speaker 02: So let's get on with this question. [00:10:41] Speaker 02: Why would it have been appropriate if he's saying his life is threatened to attend the CMC, the case management conference, is it fine for the magistrate to have called a party as a witness in this credibility determination when the claims seem to go into the litigation itself that St. [00:11:01] Speaker 02: Joseph's filing against these defendants? [00:11:03] Speaker 04: Well, but he was an eyewitness to the proceedings that he went down to the proceedings to get Mr. Sanchez and bring him to the case management conference. [00:11:15] Speaker 04: And so, therefore, he had to be called. [00:11:17] Speaker 02: But there was another non-party witness that was there that was able to testify. [00:11:20] Speaker 02: Right. [00:11:20] Speaker 04: But the thing is is that the court would want to have all the witnesses that were there that had partner testimony to provide. [00:11:27] Speaker 04: I don't think you say, well, we're going to exclude somebody because they're a part of the case because [00:11:33] Speaker 04: clearly even though in part of the case you're entitled to testify at trial. [00:11:37] Speaker 02: To me it seems to call into question whether the magistrate's impromptu hearing might usurp what might be tribal issues at trial if this were to go forward. [00:11:48] Speaker 04: Well, except for they weren't testifying about the things that happened in the past. [00:11:51] Speaker 04: They were only testifying about things that happened with respect to why Mr. Sanchez refused to come to the case management conference. [00:11:58] Speaker 03: As I understand the transcript, the fact question the magistrate judge was dealing with was, did the plaintiff simply refuse to come, or did the officers threaten to kill him if he came? [00:12:12] Speaker 03: And the people who testified were people who were eyewitnesses, including the plaintiff. [00:12:19] Speaker 03: I don't know that the plaintiff was under oath, but they all described what happened. [00:12:25] Speaker 04: And in fact, so I guess that's a good point that, you know, that taking that same issue, then that would disqualify Mr. Sanchez from testifying to the hearing for the same reason. [00:12:36] Speaker 03: But on a different, moving to a different topic, why would the district court have acted appropriately here in your view without having considered a less drastic as opposed to the most drastic sanction? [00:12:58] Speaker 04: You mean as far as the- Dismissal with prejudice. [00:13:04] Speaker 04: As far as the, as far as you mean the magistrate judge? [00:13:07] Speaker 03: The magistrate judge and then the district court adopting the R&R. [00:13:11] Speaker 04: Well, if you go to the West Coast District Court, this court held that the time and money spent in preparation, sorry, that's the wrong one. [00:13:22] Speaker 01: Well, and just, and if I might add on to that question as it's related is not only, you know, with this sort of the, [00:13:32] Speaker 01: the most drastic sanction, but as if I understand the record correctly, there was no warning. [00:13:38] Speaker 04: well it okay and so let me get to that not only did the same chest the donald sanchez willfully disobeyed the district court's order he lied and that's a sanction that's that cannot be contradicted because it's clearly because there's it's not clearly erroneous and which cast out not only on his integrity and willfulness to follow this court orders and pursue litigation in a fair reasonable manner as set forth in valley engineers that's this court's holding in valley engineers which [00:14:03] Speaker 04: opposing that council doesn't contest. [00:14:05] Speaker 04: The magistrate does again outline possible lesser sanctions at which the court has gone through and properly found that no lesser sanction would deter Sanchez from willfully disobeying court's future orders, which finding is conclusive because it is not clearly erroneous again. [00:14:21] Speaker 04: And that's the moment. [00:14:24] Speaker 01: Council, what here tells us that there was a serious consideration of whether less drastic sanctions might serve [00:14:33] Speaker 04: Yes, and that's it. [00:14:34] Speaker 04: The magistrate judge outlined each and every one of the possible sanctions that the courts have gone through, all these sanctions that he said none of these sanctions could go through. [00:14:43] Speaker 04: I could go through all the 18 findings of the magistrate judge with this court. [00:14:48] Speaker 04: It seems that they're fairly familiar, but the court's gone through and says he went through that [00:14:58] Speaker 04: He consistently went through, he says, no sanction less drastic. [00:15:05] Speaker 03: You're talking about ER 42? [00:15:07] Speaker 04: What? [00:15:07] Speaker 04: Yeah, ER 42, right. [00:15:09] Speaker 04: No sanction less drastic than dismissal would be effective. [00:15:11] Speaker 04: Sanction is an intimate inmate. [00:15:13] Speaker 04: And so payment of defendant's fees and costs is expensive, preparing for attending [00:15:17] Speaker 04: the case management conference and the stroke cars orders is not practicable. [00:15:20] Speaker 04: In other words, he doesn't have any money to pay any monetary sanctions. [00:15:23] Speaker 02: Can I ask about that? [00:15:23] Speaker 02: I mean, counsel, your friend on the other side raises the point that if that were the case, that would wipe out prejudice analysis for any incarcerated person who's indigent. [00:15:35] Speaker 02: He receives minimum wages. [00:15:37] Speaker 02: Why wouldn't a sanction of covering court costs or some other fine have been an available lesser sanction? [00:15:45] Speaker 04: Because, well, if you go through the record also, you can look at Mr. Sanchez has 10 cases where he's a repeated filer, and you notice that he's had several strikes on his record. [00:15:58] Speaker 04: And so he doesn't have any money. [00:16:00] Speaker 04: The court's recognizing that he just has this... Is that in the record somewhere? [00:16:04] Speaker 02: What? [00:16:05] Speaker 02: That he doesn't have any money, is that in the record? [00:16:07] Speaker 02: Well, that's because, that's the reason why, yeah, he's, he's... But my question is, he receives wages, he's got a, he's got a, you know, he may or may not have any money, but I don't see Judge Denny inquiring as to whether there's an available sanction. [00:16:21] Speaker 02: He just kind of took it for granted that because he's indigent pro se, a lesser sanction of a fine or covering court costs would not be available. [00:16:29] Speaker 04: But the thing is, Your Honor, I think that that's enough evidence for the record to support his findings. [00:16:35] Speaker 04: And that's the thing is, you've got to say that you would have had to make a determination, or the district court would have had to make a determination, that this was clearly erroneous. [00:16:44] Speaker 02: But he didn't make a finding that there was no money here. [00:16:48] Speaker 02: So we're reviewing the prejudice analysis under an abuse of discretion standard. [00:16:52] Speaker 02: So we're not dealing with clear error here. [00:16:54] Speaker 02: We're dealing with the magistrate's determination that there was not a lesser sanction, which the district court adopted. [00:16:59] Speaker 04: And Your Honor, I would respectfully disagree that it's not an abusive discretion standard, because there are no objections in the record as the court's already identified. [00:17:07] Speaker 04: There are no objections. [00:17:09] Speaker 01: But Council, I don't think that that's correct. [00:17:13] Speaker 01: I think that there were objections to the recommendations here. [00:17:17] Speaker 01: I mean, I'm looking at ER 31 to 32, and he says, Mr. Sanchez says here that [00:17:28] Speaker 01: Judge Denny is trying to ensure my death by trying to dismiss my case, knowing that my life is in danger. [00:17:34] Speaker 01: So I mean, the Supreme Court has said that we have to liberally construe documents filed by a pro se litigant. [00:17:44] Speaker 01: That's what we have here. [00:17:45] Speaker 01: I don't see why the language that I cited isn't [00:17:47] Speaker 01: an objection to the suggestion that the case should be dismissed. [00:17:51] Speaker 04: First of all, you have to go through and you have to look at the title of the document. [00:17:55] Speaker 04: Because the title of the document says he wants a video. [00:17:59] Speaker 04: That's normally a motion that would be handled by a magistrate judge, not the thing. [00:18:03] Speaker 04: What you're asking them, OK, what you're asking the district court to do is that it needs to analyze every filing. [00:18:09] Speaker 04: And in lots of these cases, and especially in Mr. Sanchez's case, [00:18:13] Speaker 04: that he's a repeated serial filer. [00:18:16] Speaker 04: And so he wants to go through these things with a fine-tooth comb and go through it and say, hey, geez, there's a line in here that may possibly be an objection. [00:18:22] Speaker 04: I'm going to construe this as an objection. [00:18:25] Speaker 02: So your argument is that the district court wasn't required to read these laborious filings from Sanchez? [00:18:30] Speaker 04: No, especially when Mr. Sanchez was specifically instructed on how to file an objection. [00:18:34] Speaker 04: He was specifically given specific instructions on how to do this. [00:18:38] Speaker 03: And the title of this was essentially, I want a video. [00:18:42] Speaker 04: That's right. [00:18:42] Speaker 04: I want a video. [00:18:43] Speaker 04: So it can't possibly. [00:18:45] Speaker 04: And then again, it's in the, for example, in the [00:18:53] Speaker 02: So can I just ask, so then you're resting on the, because the caption did not say objections to the R&Rs, that's dispositive? [00:19:03] Speaker 04: Not only that, but in each of these filings, Sanchez never disputed any of the findings of the magistrate judge. [00:19:09] Speaker 04: He never, including the finding that Sanchez had lied, he never mentioned any factors analyzed by the magistrate judge, much less dispute that the magistrate judge erred in his legal analysis and never disputed any of the four factors they were dismissal. [00:19:21] Speaker 02: He's saying that Judge Denny doesn't believe him and that Judge Denny is helping put his life in danger. [00:19:28] Speaker 02: I mean, and he's calling out Judge Denny by name in the filing. [00:19:33] Speaker 02: Why isn't that a... [00:19:36] Speaker 02: How do we give liberal construction to a pro se filing? [00:19:38] Speaker 02: It sounds as if you are suggesting that we don't give a liberal construction to a pro se filing. [00:19:45] Speaker 04: No, but even liberal construed, it has to reasonably apprise the district court that the magistrate ruling is being contested. [00:19:51] Speaker 04: Nothing in his ruling says that he's contesting the actual dismissal. [00:19:55] Speaker 04: He doesn't mention that he's being contesting the actual dismissal at all. [00:19:59] Speaker 04: And that's the Simpson case. [00:20:00] Speaker 01: And that was a pro se. [00:20:03] Speaker 01: But counsel, again, [00:20:06] Speaker 01: the filing refers to the dismissal. [00:20:08] Speaker 01: It says essentially that his life is being threatened by the dismissal. [00:20:13] Speaker 01: I mean, I share Judge Sanchez's question of what else can we require if we're supposed to liberally construe these documents? [00:20:23] Speaker 04: Well, I respectfully disagree. [00:20:25] Speaker 04: Well, that's what I'm saying. [00:20:25] Speaker 04: What you could expect is something that's entitled objection, especially when the magistrate judges have told you this is how you do it. [00:20:32] Speaker 04: I mean, it's not like it's kind of like the with motions for summary judgment. [00:20:37] Speaker 04: You know, they tell them how to go out and what they need to do to oppose the motion for summary judgment. [00:20:41] Speaker 04: They give them that notice. [00:20:42] Speaker 04: Well, that's not even required in these particular instances. [00:20:45] Speaker 04: But our magistrate judge went out of his way to make sure Mr. Sanchez knew how to do this. [00:20:50] Speaker 02: Can I ask this? [00:20:51] Speaker 02: Why wouldn't a warning have been [00:20:53] Speaker 02: a lesser sanction that was available. [00:20:56] Speaker 02: When Judge Denney warned Sanchez that if he don't appear at the order to show cause hearing, I may recommend dismissal of this case and he showed up. [00:21:06] Speaker 02: So that warning seemed to have worked. [00:21:08] Speaker 02: There was no warning, as Judge Thomas pointed out, that if he did not show up at the initial case management conference, [00:21:14] Speaker 02: the case might be dismissed. [00:21:16] Speaker 02: But if the record indicates that a warning was effective in one instance, why wouldn't it have been effective here as a lesser sanction? [00:21:24] Speaker 04: Because Mr. Sands's willful disobedience and misrepresentation are real. [00:21:37] Speaker 02: But he didn't willfully disobey showing up at the show cause hearing. [00:21:41] Speaker 04: Yeah, but it's not that. [00:21:42] Speaker 04: I don't think this would have happened. [00:21:45] Speaker 04: Well, I can't tell you what would have happened. [00:21:47] Speaker 04: But the overriding consideration is that he lied. [00:21:51] Speaker 04: I think Judge Denning was confronted with this is going to be a case where he's going to consistently do this and consistently lie throughout these proceedings. [00:22:02] Speaker 04: And I think that's a reasonable inference to make. [00:22:04] Speaker 04: from this outrageous lie, and it is, this court has to, that's a conclusive finding, that it's an outrageous lie. [00:22:16] Speaker 02: Conclusive as to what? [00:22:17] Speaker 02: It would be conclusive. [00:22:18] Speaker 04: That he lied about, that the officer had threatened his life. [00:22:23] Speaker 04: That's a lie. [00:22:24] Speaker 04: And under judge's study finding that this court has to adopt. [00:22:29] Speaker 04: So that's the thing that this court has to go under. [00:22:32] Speaker 04: The district court would have to be the one who says it because it's a credibility determination. [00:22:36] Speaker 03: All right, we thank council for their argument and we'll give you two minutes for rebuttal. [00:22:49] Speaker 00: Thank you, Your Honours. [00:22:50] Speaker 00: I just want to briefly touch on the argument that my friend on the other side made about the title of the document. [00:22:57] Speaker 00: The Supreme Court in Castro emphasized that courts can ignore the legal label that pro se litigants use, and they have to construe their filings by substance. [00:23:06] Speaker 00: And then this circuit in Mayshack extended that principle in the prisoner context requiring liberal construction of pro se inmate filings. [00:23:14] Speaker 00: So his argument that there was no appropriate title doesn't have any merit here. [00:23:18] Speaker 03: So if we do that, what specifically did he challenge? [00:23:24] Speaker 03: He certainly, even if we do that, he certainly made a challenge that the magistrate judge who might be related to the defendants was prejudiced. [00:23:35] Speaker 03: Anything else? [00:23:36] Speaker 00: He specifically contested the harshness of the sanction, dismissal of prejudice, and the underlying credibility determination that led the magistrate to even consider sanctions to begin with. [00:23:46] Speaker 00: And it's our position that the district court was required to take those three filings that Mr. Sanchez made within that 14-day window, construe them as objections, conduct a de novo review, and then apply them alone factors. [00:23:59] Speaker 00: Dismissal with prejudice is the civil death penalty. [00:24:02] Speaker 00: If it stands here after one missed case management conference under a credible threat to his life, [00:24:09] Speaker 00: With no warning and no lesser sanction, it sends a dangerous message that prison officials can extinguish civil rights claims simply by making inmates too afraid to appear. [00:24:21] Speaker 00: That is not justice and it is not the law of this circuit. [00:24:24] Speaker 00: We respectfully ask this court to reverse and remand so that Mr. Sanchez's civil rights claims can be heard on their merits. [00:24:30] Speaker 00: Thank you. [00:24:31] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:24:32] Speaker 03: We thank counsel for their arguments and the case just argued is submitted.