[00:00:07] Speaker 01:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:00:08] Speaker 01:
May it please the court?

[00:00:09] Speaker 01:
Elizabeth Richardson-Royer on behalf of Yvonne Lattimore.

[00:00:12] Speaker 03:
I plan to reserve... Speak up a little bit.

[00:00:14] Speaker 04:
You look closer.

[00:00:14] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:00:15] Speaker 04:
I plan to reserve three minutes... Just move the mic up.

[00:00:18] Speaker 04:
I hear it.

[00:00:20] Speaker 04:
There you go.

[00:00:20] Speaker 04:
Okay.

[00:00:21] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:00:22] Speaker 01:
I'm planning to reserve three minutes for a bottle, but I will watch the clock.

[00:00:25] Speaker 01:
This morning, I plan to focus on the district court's erroneous denial of Ms.

[00:00:29] Speaker 01:
Lattimore's motion to substitute counsel Mike Hinkley, despite an irreconcilable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship.

[00:00:37] Speaker 01:
This court has a set of three factors to look at when reviewing a district court's refusal to substitute counsel.

[00:00:43] Speaker 01:
The adequacy of the district court's inquiry, the extent of the conflict between the client and her attorney, and the timeliness of the request for substitution.

[00:00:51] Speaker 03:
Counsel, as you very well know, irreconcilable differences are one thing, but trial tactics are quite another.

[00:01:00] Speaker 03:
And at least from what I'm seeing here, Ms.

[00:01:03] Speaker 03:
Lattimore

[00:01:04] Speaker 03:
She wanted to tell him what to file, what documents and witnesses to call, seemed to be a matter of trial strategy as opposed to irreconcilable differences.

[00:01:14] Speaker 03:
What am I missing?

[00:01:16] Speaker 01:
I think certainly there were disagreements earlier on in the attorney-client relationship about strategy.

[00:01:23] Speaker 01:
The list of questions she sent Mr. Hinckley in December, months before trial, is an example of that.

[00:01:30] Speaker 01:
She gave additional disagreements in support of her request for substitution.

[00:01:35] Speaker 01:
But I think the crux of the conflict was that these two individuals could not communicate any longer.

[00:01:42] Speaker 03:
But she did that with every, I mean, ultimately, we're talking six lawyers.

[00:01:46] Speaker 03:
She did that with everybody.

[00:01:47] Speaker 03:
And she complained to the state bar, how can it just be irreconcilable difference unless she can't get along with anybody?

[00:01:54] Speaker 01:
Well, so there were six lawyers altogether, including Mr. Hinckley.

[00:02:00] Speaker 01:
It doesn't explain why the FPD office withdrew.

[00:02:04] Speaker 01:
We don't actually know what that conflict was about.

[00:02:06] Speaker 01:
We know that the conflict with Mr. Funk was different than the conflict with Mr. Hinckley.

[00:02:11] Speaker 01:
She got along with Mr. Plotsky fine.

[00:02:13] Speaker 01:
Mr. Plotsky withdrew because of medical or personal reasons.

[00:02:16] Speaker 01:
So she had a lengthy period of time with Mr. Funk where she was getting along fine with him.

[00:02:23] Speaker 01:
The complaint that she made was not right before trial.

[00:02:26] Speaker 01:
And then she had a lengthy period of time where she got along fine with Mr. Plotsky.

[00:02:29] Speaker 01:
So I don't think it's clear from this record that she couldn't get along with anyone.

[00:02:33] Speaker 01:
And in fact, she got along fine with Mr. Hinckley until their visit on April 4th when things really fell apart.

[00:02:39] Speaker 03:
Whose burden is it to show irreconcilable conflict?

[00:02:44] Speaker 01:
Well, it's the defendant's burden when she's asserting that her rights are being violated.

[00:02:49] Speaker 01:
And I think that she amply showed that here.

[00:02:53] Speaker 01:
Mr. Hinckley's representations to the court, they were not communicating any longer.

[00:02:57] Speaker 01:
There was a total breakdown.

[00:02:58] Speaker 01:
And by the time of trial, there was no communication between these two.

[00:03:02] Speaker 01:
He accused her of lying.

[00:03:04] Speaker 01:
He accused her of manufacturing evidence.

[00:03:06] Speaker 01:
There was a total lack of trust from his perspective.

[00:03:10] Speaker 01:
And from her perspective, she also felt that he was lying, did not have her interests at heart, and was not preparing a defense for her.

[00:03:18] Speaker 01:
And so in terms of the conflict, this is the kind of conflict that this court has found repeatedly justifies substitution of counsel.

[00:03:27] Speaker 01:
And this was a request that was made in a timely manner.

[00:03:30] Speaker 01:
It was three weeks before jury selection, plenty of time to substitute counsel.

[00:03:34] Speaker 01:
The only quibble that I make with the district court's inquiry is that the court didn't inquire how long new counsel would need to get up to speed.

[00:03:42] Speaker 01:
But there were almost four years of delays that were not attributable to Ms.

[00:03:46] Speaker 01:
Latimore.

[00:03:46] Speaker 01:
prior to this, including the trial court's schedule.

[00:03:50] Speaker 01:
And so whatever short delay might have been necessary for new counsel to get up to speed really is minimal in the context of that lengthy delay.

[00:03:59] Speaker 03:
One of the strongest cases for the United States is Mendez-Sanchez.

[00:04:04] Speaker 03:
How do you distinguish that case from this one?

[00:04:07] Speaker 01:
In that case, the lawyers were clear that they bore no animosity toward their client.

[00:04:13] Speaker 01:
They were still able to communicate with him

[00:04:15] Speaker 01:
reasonably well about many subjects.

[00:04:17] Speaker 01:
There were some things where when they tried to talk to him, he shut down and they felt that he just didn't want to hear what they had to say.

[00:04:24] Speaker 01:
But they were clear with the court that they bore him no ill will.

[00:04:27] Speaker 01:
They were happy to continue their representation and they were able to do so and to continue communicating with him substantively in many areas.

[00:04:34] Speaker 01:
So that case is really different from here where Mr. Hinckley is afraid for his livelihood.

[00:04:39] Speaker 01:
He's not returning Ms.

[00:04:41] Speaker 01:
Lattimore's calls.

[00:04:41] Speaker 01:
She's not communicating with him.

[00:04:43] Speaker 01:
They're accusing each other of lying.

[00:04:45] Speaker 01:
It's a really different scenario in terms of the breakdown.

[00:04:47] Speaker 03:
Let's assume for a moment that the district court had extended the pretrial motions deadline.

[00:04:52] Speaker 03:
What motions would Hinckley have filed?

[00:04:55] Speaker 01:
That I don't know from this record.

[00:04:57] Speaker 01:
And I think that's the problem, is that the deadline to file motions came during a time when Mr. Plotsky was functionally not representing Ms.

[00:05:05] Speaker 01:
Lattimore on January 7th.

[00:05:08] Speaker 01:
He texted her to say that he was withdrawing for medical reasons.

[00:05:11] Speaker 01:
He was not able to file these motions, even though he told her that he would.

[00:05:14] Speaker 01:
And then when Mr. Hinckley wanted time to file the motions, the court said no.

[00:05:18] Speaker 01:
And so we don't know what he would have filed.

[00:05:19] Speaker 01:
And I think that's the problem here.

[00:05:21] Speaker 04:
It's a problem.

[00:05:22] Speaker 04:
But how do you show prejudice in the absence of any filing in the district court saying, look, I wanted to file X, Y, and Z?

[00:05:29] Speaker 04:
I mean, that's the difficulty here.

[00:05:33] Speaker 04:
You can't just base prejudice on speculation.

[00:05:37] Speaker 01:
That's true, Your Honor, and I think the only motion that was discussed by multiple trial counsel was the motion to suppress.

[00:05:44] Speaker 01:
Right.

[00:05:44] Speaker 01:
And the government asserts that that motion is baseless, but I don't think we have enough in the record to know.

[00:05:49] Speaker 02:
Well, let me ask you this.

[00:05:51] Speaker 02:
Let me ask you a different way.

[00:05:52] Speaker 02:
We know what evidence was put into trial.

[00:05:55] Speaker 02:
What evidence that was put into trial would there have been a motion to suppress or some other motion that would have been successful?

[00:06:04] Speaker 01:
Well, the motion to suppress

[00:06:06] Speaker 01:
had to do with her statements to law enforcement.

[00:06:10] Speaker 01:
And so to the extent that your honor is suggesting that we have to show that the outcome of trial would be different, I'm not sure that that's the standard here.

[00:06:18] Speaker 02:
I understand, but what evidence was submitted in the evidence, what evidence do we have in the record where there would have been a realistic motion to be filed?

[00:06:28] Speaker 01:
I think the record is unfortunately not well developed on that point because Mr. Hinckley was told

[00:06:34] Speaker 01:
He said, I want to look into various pretrial motions and the court said no.

[00:06:37] Speaker 01:
I understand that.

[00:06:38] Speaker 02:
I'm saying taking the evidence that's there now, looking at it in hindsight, what evidence would have been subject to a legitimate motion to suppress?

[00:06:46] Speaker 01:
I think that the trial evidence wasn't the subject to the motion to suppress.

[00:06:51] Speaker 01:
We just don't really know what the evidentiary picture would have looked like if more pretrial motions had been litigated.

[00:06:57] Speaker 01:
And so I think the fact that the deadline came during a time when she was functionally unrepresented and then

[00:07:04] Speaker 01:
Council was told not to even look into those motions.

[00:07:06] Speaker 01:
I think it's problematic just on its face.

[00:07:08] Speaker 01:
And because he didn't look into it and didn't file them, we don't know.

[00:07:13] Speaker 03:
You said you wanted to save roughly three minutes.

[00:07:15] Speaker 03:
Do you want to do that or you want to keep going?

[00:07:16] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:07:16] Speaker 01:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:07:17] Speaker 03:
Very well.

[00:07:18] Speaker 03:
All right.

[00:07:19] Speaker 03:
Let's hear from the government.

[00:07:23] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:07:23] Speaker 00:
May it please the court and initiate for the United States.

[00:07:27] Speaker 00:
I also want to start with the denial of the substitution mission here, as my colleague on the other side did.

[00:07:33] Speaker 03:
Council, can you move closer to the microphone?

[00:07:36] Speaker 03:
It's not coming in well in the courtroom here, so if you can either turn up the volume or speak out louder, please.

[00:07:42] Speaker 00:
I'll try to speak louder.

[00:07:44] Speaker 00:
Is this okay?

[00:07:45] Speaker 03:
Better.

[00:07:47] Speaker 00:
The district court here did not abuse its discretion in denying Lattimore's motion to substitute counsel, nor did it violate her Sixth Amendment right in doing so.

[00:07:57] Speaker 00:
The court's thorough inquiry, its timing of the motion, and the extent of the conflict all supported the court's decision here.

[00:08:07] Speaker 00:
We want to touch briefly on the adequacy of the inquiry.

[00:08:10] Speaker 00:
There's two purposes for this.

[00:08:12] Speaker 00:
One is to create a sufficient basis to make an informed decision.

[00:08:15] Speaker 00:
And the other is to ease the distrust and concerns and questions of the defendant.

[00:08:22] Speaker 00:
The court did both here with its inquiry.

[00:08:25] Speaker 00:
Over the course of two hearings, it asked multiple questions, both open-ended and specific, to try to drill down into the source and the nature of the extent of the conflict between Ms.

[00:08:36] Speaker 00:
Lattimore and Mr. Hinckley.

[00:08:37] Speaker 00:
These hearings showed that the court clearly understood the governing legal standards.

[00:08:42] Speaker 00:
It understood the law, the cases, and what it needed to look for.

[00:08:47] Speaker 00:
It reviewed multiple filings from Ms.

[00:08:49] Speaker 00:
Lattimore.

[00:08:50] Speaker 00:
gave her ample opportunity to present all her conflicts or supposed conflicts, and it inquired into each of these.

[00:08:59] Speaker 00:
And based off of the court's inquiry, I think it's important to see what exactly is the nature and source of her conflict.

[00:09:07] Speaker 00:
So Ms.

[00:09:07] Speaker 00:
Lattimore made several allegations as she had the letter with the 16 conflicts, for example.

[00:09:13] Speaker 00:
And a lot of those primarily were disagreements that she had with Mr. Hinckley about the witnesses or documents to subpoena.

[00:09:23] Speaker 00:
And my colleague on our side points out that Mr. Hinckley had a concern about the bar complaint.

[00:09:31] Speaker 00:
I think the timing of the events here show that this was a concern that was dissipated by the time that it went to trial.

[00:09:39] Speaker 02:
Well, let me ask you this.

[00:09:41] Speaker 02:
Wouldn't the fact there's a pending bar complaint cause an attorney like Mr. Hinckley to be walking on eggshells and be maybe not as open and honest with his client because he's concerned about whatever he says could be used in a bar complaint against him?

[00:09:58] Speaker 00:
I absolutely agree that it can be a very challenging situation.

[00:10:02] Speaker 00:
I think this court has recognized that even a pending bar complaint against one's attorney is not sufficient to raise a Kyler v. Sullivan conflict of interest claim.

[00:10:12] Speaker 00:
Because ultimately, it depends on whether or not it affects that attorney's ability to defend the client at trial.

[00:10:20] Speaker 00:
And here, what we have is a record that shows that Mr. Hinckley, despite these challenges, despite the court denying the motion to substitute,

[00:10:27] Speaker 00:
went forward and presented a more than adequate defense for Ms.

[00:10:31] Speaker 00:
Lattimore.

[00:10:31] Speaker 02:
Well, doesn't the attorney's ability to communicate with his client factor into his ability to represent the client?

[00:10:39] Speaker 00:
Yes, Your Honor, the communication is very important.

[00:10:41] Speaker 00:
But I think for a Sixth Amendment chronic type of claim, it has to be a complete breakdown.

[00:10:45] Speaker 00:
And if you look at the evidence in the record here, you see that

[00:10:48] Speaker 00:
Um, the communication still continued.

[00:10:52] Speaker 00:
Um, I think there were Ms.

[00:10:54] Speaker 00:
Latimer herself in a later filing, uh, in the record files, multiple, uh, text messages between herself and Mr. Hinkley.

[00:11:02] Speaker 00:
And these are in two ER 74 to 107.

[00:11:06] Speaker 00:
And so these are text messages that occurred between August to 2022 until that April 4th meeting.

[00:11:12] Speaker 00:
Um, and these show that the communications between them.

[00:11:16] Speaker 00:
were communicative.

[00:11:17] Speaker 00:
They were cordial.

[00:11:18] Speaker 00:
Latimore is constantly making demands of him, asking him for documents, asking him to do certain things.

[00:11:23] Speaker 00:
He's responding in a very generally agreeable manner.

[00:11:26] Speaker 00:
He's patient with her.

[00:11:27] Speaker 00:
There is one point around March 29th.

[00:11:30] Speaker 00:
This is at ER 101 to 104.

[00:11:33] Speaker 00:
Latimore makes

[00:11:35] Speaker 00:
Again, a bunch of demands and kind of a backhanded comment about his 30 years of experience and how he should know better.

[00:11:41] Speaker 00:
And he tells her, hey, no reason to be mean.

[00:11:44] Speaker 00:
And then when she says, well, I'm not being mean, he says, OK, I'm sorry.

[00:11:46] Speaker 00:
I was sensitive.

[00:11:47] Speaker 00:
Let me get these things for you.

[00:11:49] Speaker 00:
I mean, this is, again, you see the nature of the communications you see after these April 14 and April 17 hearings.

[00:11:56] Speaker 00:
after Judge Cousins denies the motion to substitute.

[00:12:01] Speaker 00:
There's continued emails from Ms.

[00:12:03] Speaker 00:
Lattimore to Mr. Hinckley about the trial.

[00:12:06] Speaker 00:
This occurs in 2 ER 61 to 62 and 64 to 72.

[00:12:09] Speaker 00:
There are still communications between them, even before and after that motion to substitute.

[00:12:14] Speaker 00:
So this is not a complete breakdown here, despite what Ms.

[00:12:17] Speaker 00:
Lattimore is claiming.

[00:12:19] Speaker 03:
Let me ask you this.

[00:12:20] Speaker 03:
After Mr. Hinckley replaced Mr. Platsky due to his illness,

[00:12:25] Speaker 03:
The government has stipulated that Hinckley ought to receive additional time to prepare potential pretrial motions.

[00:12:33] Speaker 03:
Since the government agreed to that, can you concede the government really couldn't be prejudiced based upon the delay that would have been represented by the pretrial motions?

[00:12:45] Speaker 00:
Senator, I don't know if it's so much about prejudice of the government here.

[00:12:49] Speaker 00:
I think ultimately there was just no showing of good cause by the defendant.

[00:12:54] Speaker 00:
I think that's a problem.

[00:12:55] Speaker 03:
I understand that, but what I'm asking is haven't you really conceded that had the delay been granted, you would not have been prejudiced?

[00:13:04] Speaker 00:
It's hard to tell because we don't know what motions would have been brought and that burden is on the defendant.

[00:13:10] Speaker 00:
I think Judge Ray pointed this out aptly earlier with my friend on the other side, but Lattimore's answer is that she doesn't know and yet it's her burden to show that.

[00:13:21] Speaker 00:
And the fact is the evidence in this trial, this was about government fraud.

[00:13:25] Speaker 00:
So the majority of the evidence in this trial were government documents that were obtained by subpoena.

[00:13:29] Speaker 00:
There was not a single bit of evidence that was obtained either by a Fourth Amendment search or even statements that Ms.

[00:13:35] Speaker 00:
Latimore gave to law enforcement.

[00:13:38] Speaker 00:
Early on in this case with Ms.

[00:13:41] Speaker 00:
Taylor, what the record shows is there was

[00:13:43] Speaker 00:
Some disagreement about a motion to suppress and this Taylor said on the record, she tried to explain to miss Latimore that there's nothing to suppress when.

[00:13:51] Speaker 00:
Essentially, I think the issue was Latimore had said that she believes she should have been Mirandize when the marshals picked her up for her initial appearance.

[00:14:01] Speaker 00:
But then she didn't make any statements there.

[00:14:02] Speaker 00:
So there would have been no statements actually to suppress that would have given a basis for a suppression motion.

[00:14:08] Speaker 00:
There's otherwise no other indication what sort of suppression motion would have been brought.

[00:14:12] Speaker 00:
I would also say that with suppression motions, I mean, this was years into litigation.

[00:14:17] Speaker 00:
This

[00:14:19] Speaker 00:
There is some prejudice once we have a suppression motion that's raised years after that supposedly unlawful search or interview or whatnot.

[00:14:27] Speaker 00:
And so again, I can't tell for sure whether or not there's prejudice, but the difficulty with making some sort of assertion is that we don't know what rule 12 motions would have been brought.

[00:14:37] Speaker 00:
With regard to the motions in Lemonee, the other pre-trial motions, the government did agree that those could be filed later on with Mr. Hinckley's appointment.

[00:14:45] Speaker 00:
And Mr. Hinckley did file multiple motions in Lemonee.

[00:14:48] Speaker 03:
Since Lattimore raised the issue of filing pretrial motions at the March 18th and April 19th status conference, March 18th pretrial motions, there was a stipulation and then March, April 19th, 2022 status conference, why should Lattimore's entitlement to those pretrial motions be reviewed for plain error?

[00:15:12] Speaker 03:
She raised the issues, right?

[00:15:15] Speaker 00:
Well, she, so I think we have to look at the way the request was raised in the language there.

[00:15:20] Speaker 00:
So, first of all, the deadline had passed in January.

[00:15:22] Speaker 00:
And so, at the time of the stipulations, Hinkley, Ms.

[00:15:27] Speaker 00:
Lattimore, they could have requested more time for the rule 12 motion.

[00:15:29] Speaker 00:
They only requested more time for the motions and eliminated pre-12 motions.

[00:15:33] Speaker 00:
Secondly,

[00:15:35] Speaker 00:
The language that Mr. Hinckley uses in his hearing was something along the lines of, I haven't quite discussed this with my client yet, but there might be a motion to suppress, there might be other motions.

[00:15:46] Speaker 00:
And at that point, the court said, well, the deadline for motions has long passed.

[00:15:50] Speaker 00:
If Hinkley wanted to raise an actual motion, he's experienced CJA counsel, he could have filed that motion untimely with us showing for good cause, or he could have pressed the issue at that very hearing.

[00:16:02] Speaker 00:
He could have said, your honor, there is good cause here, I was just appointed, Mr. Paltse had at least medical reasons, whatever his reasons were.

[00:16:09] Speaker 00:
But he didn't press the issue, he didn't to file any court of motions outside of the deadline.

[00:16:16] Speaker 00:
So the court ultimately was never presented with

[00:16:19] Speaker 00:
decision of denying such an entirely motion.

[00:16:30] Speaker 00:
I think just one final point that I wanted to make here, which is with regard to the Sixth Amendment claim, should the court reach that here on direct appeal?

[00:16:39] Speaker 00:
is the Sixth Amendment is not unlimited.

[00:16:42] Speaker 00:
I think the court has made that very clear.

[00:16:45] Speaker 00:
And it's ultimately the underlying premise

[00:16:51] Speaker 00:
that gives meaning is that the Sixth Amendment is here to assure fairness in the adversarial criminal process, and it's about protecting the fairness of that process.

[00:17:00] Speaker 00:
It's fundamentally a trial right, and Ms.

[00:17:02] Speaker 00:
Ladmore here received more than adequate representation and a fair trial here, despite the difficult circumstances and challenges that she had with her attorney.

[00:17:11] Speaker 00:
The Sixth Amendment right, it does not mean that a defendant gets a new attorney every time he or she generates a serious conflict with their attorney and unilaterally causes a breakdown in their relationship.

[00:17:23] Speaker 00:
That, unfortunately, is what occurred here, and Ms.

[00:17:24] Speaker 00:
Latimore still, despite the challenges, was able to receive everything that the Sixth Amendment guarantees.

[00:17:30] Speaker 03:
Okay.

[00:17:30] Speaker 03:
Your time is up, counsel.

[00:17:32] Speaker 03:
Let me ask my colleague whether or not they have additional questions.

[00:17:34] Speaker 03:
I think not.

[00:17:35] Speaker 03:
Thank you very much.

[00:17:36] Speaker 03:
Thanks to the government.

[00:17:37] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:17:38] Speaker 03:
So, DeVince, you have a little rebuttal time.

[00:17:45] Speaker 03:
You say Richardson Royer?

[00:17:47] Speaker 03:
Is that the right way?

[00:17:47] Speaker 01:
Richardson Royer.

[00:17:49] Speaker 01:
Sorry.

[00:17:49] Speaker 01:
That's a mouthful.

[00:17:51] Speaker 01:
I wanted to start just to respond to my colleague's comment that the district court clearly understood the law.

[00:17:58] Speaker 01:
And I think that there are two places when the district court got it wrong.

[00:18:02] Speaker 01:
And I just wanted to draw this court's attention.

[00:18:05] Speaker 01:
At ER 8, the court twice said, despite their disagreements, their objectives remained the same.

[00:18:11] Speaker 01:
And that's really not the test for whether there's been a complete breakdown in communication

[00:18:16] Speaker 01:
an attorney and a client.

[00:18:17] Speaker 01:
The fact that the attorney remains competent or still has the objective of defending the client doesn't matter and that this court has said that in Wen, in Musa, in D'Amore, in multiple cases that the competence, the remaining competence of the attorney doesn't matter.

[00:18:31] Speaker 03:
It's very rare to see so many lawyers removed basically at a client's request.

[00:18:41] Speaker 03:
and not have it be deemed a bit of an aberration and certainly not a normal kind of thing.

[00:18:47] Speaker 03:
We've all seen instances where counsel simply cannot agree from the get go but your client filed claims with the state bar as my colleague has pointed out and I think at least two times it was in the process of filing a third.

[00:19:04] Speaker 03:
She just was very very very very difficult to get along with and she was bringing up all kinds of

[00:19:10] Speaker 03:
Basically, she wanted to run the trial, and that's not her role unless she's going to represent herself.

[00:19:16] Speaker 03:
How can we get past that?

[00:19:17] Speaker 03:
I mean, the district judge is in as good a position as anybody to evaluate whether there's a real breakdown or whether there's simply a conflict of roles here.

[00:19:29] Speaker 03:
What should we be doing in this situation?

[00:19:32] Speaker 01:
I think, I mean, the record shows that Ms.

[00:19:35] Speaker 01:
Lattimore had conflict with counsel

[00:19:37] Speaker 01:
The two bar complaints that we know she filed against prior counsel, she filed them after those lawyers withdrew.

[00:19:42] Speaker 01:
So I don't know that.

[00:19:45] Speaker 03:
But she threatened them before, I think, right?

[00:19:47] Speaker 01:
There's nothing in the record to show that.

[00:19:50] Speaker 01:
So I think the fact that she had conflict, it doesn't mean that the court didn't need to look at this conflict still and see the complete breakdown that occurred.

[00:20:00] Speaker 01:
And that complete breakdown had never occurred before.

[00:20:03] Speaker 01:
in this way.

[00:20:04] Speaker 01:
So this is a new and more, you know, they're cursing at each other.

[00:20:07] Speaker 01:
They're screaming.

[00:20:07] Speaker 01:
It's very dramatic.

[00:20:08] Speaker 01:
It's a different situation.

[00:20:10] Speaker 01:
And I think that the court's finding that Mr. Hinckley still shared the objectives of Ms.

[00:20:16] Speaker 01:
Lattimore isn't enough to cure this dramatic breakdown in the relationship.

[00:20:22] Speaker 04:
You know, the way I read that passage was he was talking about a traditional conflict, not the complete breakdown conflict.

[00:20:31] Speaker 04:
You read it differently.

[00:20:33] Speaker 04:
What he said was, he said, he goes through it.

[00:20:38] Speaker 04:
I'm sorry, I was on the wrong page.

[00:20:41] Speaker 04:
For all the disagreements, you've had challenging communications, but he's been confident, and he's not demonstrating a conflict of interest where his objectives are different from yours.

[00:20:51] Speaker 04:
I read that as a traditional conflict, not a conflict based on complete breakdown.

[00:20:58] Speaker 04:
Would you read it differently?

[00:20:59] Speaker 01:
I read it the same way that Your Honor does.

[00:21:01] Speaker 01:
It's that I think that that's the wrong standard to apply.

[00:21:04] Speaker 04:
Well, no, I think he was just ruling out a traditional conflict.

[00:21:07] Speaker 04:
That's how I read the record.

[00:21:09] Speaker 04:
And then he goes on to cite the cases and talk about the rest of it.

[00:21:15] Speaker 04:
But I take your point.

[00:21:16] Speaker 01:
Yeah, OK.

[00:21:17] Speaker 01:
I think that analysis really had no place, I think, in the order.

[00:21:21] Speaker 01:
So to me, it shows that the court didn't quite understand the analysis.

[00:21:26] Speaker 01:
We can disagree.

[00:21:27] Speaker 03:
Your time is up.

[00:21:27] Speaker 03:
Let me ask my colleagues whether either has additional questions.

[00:21:30] Speaker 03:
Thanks to both counsel for your argument in this case.

[00:21:33] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:21:33] Speaker 03:
The case of United States versus Lattimore is submitted.