[00:00:13] Speaker 00:
Okay, the next case is 15-56.

[00:00:17] Speaker 00:
Michael Alan Crooker against the United States.

[00:00:20] Speaker 00:
Mr. Maker.

[00:00:21] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:00:22] Speaker 01:
May it please the court.

[00:00:23] Speaker 01:
Section 3585 normally ties pre-conviction imprisonment to a particular just or unjust conviction.

[00:00:31] Speaker 01:
In more typical circumstances, the statutory scheme would provide for compensation for pre-conviction incarceration in the case of someone unjustly convicted and imprisoned.

[00:00:43] Speaker 01:
This case, however, is atypical, because the time imprisoned here is tied to a subsequent just conviction for the Rice and Threat charges.

[00:00:54] Speaker 01:
And the net period of incarceration for Mr. Crooker is zero as a result.

[00:01:02] Speaker 01:
Mr. Crooker will not spend a single additional day in prison as a result of his firearms offense.

[00:01:10] Speaker 04:
I guess, but for the firearm

[00:01:12] Speaker 04:
charge and conviction and sentence, Mr. Crooker would not have been in jail between 2004 and 2007, right?

[00:01:22] Speaker 04:
There's an argument that once he was indicted in 2007 for the ricin charge and threat charge, then he would have been incarcerated at that point.

[00:01:30] Speaker 04:
But between 2004 and 2007, but for this unjust conviction, he wouldn't have been

[00:01:39] Speaker 04:
in prison during that time.

[00:01:41] Speaker 01:
Is that right?

[00:01:41] Speaker 01:
Well, no, we disagree because we know from the judgment, the date of his offense is an issue, both of which are, well, whether as a predate or semi-contemporaneous in the case of the threat charges with the silencer offense.

[00:01:55] Speaker 01:
So we do know the date of his offense from the judgment that is established as a matter of law.

[00:02:00] Speaker 01:
And the ricin was actually discovered on the same day that he was arrested.

[00:02:05] Speaker 04:
But he was never indicted until 2007.

[00:02:07] Speaker 01:
No, he was not indicted until 2007.

[00:02:10] Speaker 01:
That's correct.

[00:02:12] Speaker 04:
So he couldn't have been incarcerated for that charge until he was indicted, and he wasn't indicted until 2007.

[00:02:20] Speaker 01:
That's true that he couldn't have been incarcerated, but he would have been indicted earlier if he were not already in prison.

[00:02:26] Speaker 04:
Ultimately... Do we have a declaration to that effect from someone from the federal government?

[00:02:30] Speaker 01:
No, we simply have the judgment, which establishes the date of his offenses.

[00:02:35] Speaker 04:
And we also have a record that establishes the date of the indictment, 2007.

[00:02:42] Speaker 01:
We do have the date of the indictment in 2007.

[00:02:45] Speaker 01:
That's correct.

[00:02:46] Speaker 01:
And the indictment refers to the prior offenses.

[00:02:49] Speaker 04:
We have the... So how about accepting my premise that he could not have been incarcerated for the just conviction and sentence until 2007 at the earliest?

[00:03:03] Speaker 04:
Just accept that for me.

[00:03:05] Speaker 04:
then you would agree that but for the unjust conviction based on the misunderstanding of the law, he would not have been incarcerated between 2004 and 2007.

[00:03:17] Speaker 04:
You have to accept my premise.

[00:03:24] Speaker 01:
Well, because he was arrested on the firearms conviction, that's correct.

[00:03:32] Speaker 01:
But again, the statute also focuses on

[00:03:35] Speaker 01:
ultimately what you are convicted of.

[00:03:39] Speaker 01:
And as we know, he would have been in pretrial detention.

[00:03:42] Speaker 04:
I'm trying to understand Judge Kaplan's analysis and I guess the Olson opinion analysis where there was a but for causation line of thinking through these opinions.

[00:03:55] Speaker 04:
And who knows if that's right or wrong, but applying that to the facts here, it looks like in terms of but for causation,

[00:04:05] Speaker 04:
This particular period of time, it's the unjust conviction that is driving this period of incarceration.

[00:04:12] Speaker 01:
Actually, Your Honor, that would be absolutely incorrect.

[00:04:15] Speaker 01:
It would be an arrest, but not the unjust conviction.

[00:04:19] Speaker 01:
Because that period of imprisonment is, I mean, initially you're arrested.

[00:04:23] Speaker 01:
You're arrested based on probable cause.

[00:04:25] Speaker 01:
Then you can be detained prior to trial.

[00:04:27] Speaker 01:
Again, that's not based upon a conviction because you haven't been convicted yet.

[00:04:31] Speaker 01:
So until he's actually convicted on the silencer charge,

[00:04:35] Speaker 01:
you can't say that period is attributable to an unjust conviction.

[00:04:39] Speaker 04:
But he was convicted before the 2007 indictment, right?

[00:04:42] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:04:42] Speaker 01:
Yes, that's correct.

[00:04:43] Speaker 04:
Okay, so we're back where we started from.

[00:04:46] Speaker 01:
Well, no, again, because we still have the problem.

[00:04:49] Speaker 01:
I mean, pretrial imprisonment, Supreme Court has established, is non-punitive.

[00:04:55] Speaker 01:
It's not associated with conviction.

[00:04:57] Speaker 01:
It's based upon a regulatory need that the government may have to keep someone in prison for reasons such as dangerousness to the community,

[00:05:05] Speaker 01:
a flight risk, something along those lines.

[00:05:09] Speaker 01:
And it's not actually tied to a conviction until such time as one is sentenced by virtue of 3585.

[00:05:16] Speaker 01:
So, in order to tie these, it's not... He was convicted in 2006, right?

[00:05:23] Speaker 04:
Of the firearm damage.

[00:05:25] Speaker 01:
He was convicted in July 11, 2006 and sentenced in June 2007.

[00:05:32] Speaker 04:
That's correct.

[00:05:34] Speaker 04:
So the only point I'm trying to make is that those things occurred before the ricin indictment.

[00:05:41] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:05:42] Speaker 04:
Yes.

[00:05:42] Speaker 04:
So therefore the conviction and sentence locked in all that incarceration time being attributed to this unjust conviction.

[00:05:54] Speaker 01:
And we would disagree that they lock it in.

[00:05:57] Speaker 01:
Because at the end of the day, he ultimately, I mean, if you're talking about but for causation, no.

[00:06:03] Speaker 01:
We would disagree with that.

[00:06:07] Speaker 01:
In any event, as we've noted, pretrial conviction is different.

[00:06:12] Speaker 01:
And the statute itself requires a conviction for pretrial damages.

[00:06:17] Speaker 01:
They want to be convicted, not merely in arrest or charge.

[00:06:22] Speaker 01:
We do believe that as a general matter, 3585 for most plaintiffs would provide that

[00:06:27] Speaker 01:
hook effectively to allow for damages for pretrial imprisonment.

[00:06:33] Speaker 01:
But in those particular, you know, when you're using 3585, the problem you run into this, in this case, is that all the time has been credited to a separate sentence, the sentence for the ricin and threat charges.

[00:06:49] Speaker 01:
The judgment in

[00:06:53] Speaker 01:
The ricin threat offenses also establishes the date of the offenses at issue, which predate or are contemporaneous with the silencer offenses.

[00:07:04] Speaker 01:
Again, Mr. Crooker has not served a single day of additional incarceration.

[00:07:08] Speaker 04:
Your theory doesn't matter in terms of the timing of the alleged criminal conduct, whether it's the ricin or the firearm?

[00:07:19] Speaker 04:
You seem to be referencing that.

[00:07:22] Speaker 04:
a few different times.

[00:07:23] Speaker 04:
I'm trying to figure out does it matter for your theory.

[00:07:27] Speaker 04:
Does it matter for our theory that... Right, the sentencing credit comes over and takes away this period of incarceration attributed to the unjust conviction.

[00:07:36] Speaker 04:
That's your theory.

[00:07:37] Speaker 04:
What I'm trying to understand is does it matter in terms of timing of when various alleged crimes occurred?

[00:07:45] Speaker 01:
Timing does have a component under 3585.

[00:07:50] Speaker 01:
the time of the offense actually affects whether or not ultimately you would be entitled to be credited up against a separate sentence.

[00:07:57] Speaker 01:
So timing is certainly relevant.

[00:08:03] Speaker 04:
But only for that purpose, right?

[00:08:06] Speaker 04:
It's not like you needed the ricin conduct to have occurred before the firearm conduct to have occurred in order to make this sentencing credit

[00:08:19] Speaker 04:
theory of work?

[00:08:21] Speaker 01:
Actually, it's kind of the opposite.

[00:08:22] Speaker 01:
It needs to be contemporary and as we're after for the sentencing theory to work, not ultimately before, because part of the way 3585 operates.

[00:08:30] Speaker 01:
I mean, for us, we don't divorce both our analysis of 3585 and particular facts of this case from consideration.

[00:08:38] Speaker 01:
I mean, Mr. Crooker served.

[00:08:41] Speaker 01:
This is more akin to someone who's been sentenced on consecutive sentences.

[00:08:49] Speaker 01:
and he did not ultimately get out of prison.

[00:08:52] Speaker 01:
He was in prison this entire time period.

[00:08:55] Speaker 01:
Where there might be a gap, 3585 would also come to play, but the facts might be a little bit different.

[00:09:00] Speaker 01:
And we do acknowledge that on different facts, we might have a slightly different result.

[00:09:05] Speaker 01:
More importantly, under the statute, there are some facts which clearly would merit a different result.

[00:09:12] Speaker 01:
Say we had a

[00:09:14] Speaker 01:
two different kinds of convictions, one of which was a capital crime, one of which was a non-capital crime.

[00:09:20] Speaker 02:
The statute itself distinguishes between two of those, and one simply by having a credit wouldn't be denied compensation in the event where one was... Counselor, you want to tuck in the time served for the unjust firearm charge into the longer time for the conviction that

[00:09:44] Speaker 02:
was valid.

[00:09:47] Speaker 02:
How do you do that statutorily?

[00:09:50] Speaker 02:
Is there a basis for you to start that in 04 as a time when he could have been charged?

[00:10:02] Speaker 01:
But four, no.

[00:10:03] Speaker 01:
I don't think statutorily the statute talks about but four.

[00:10:06] Speaker 01:
3585 is what ties these things together.

[00:10:09] Speaker 01:
Ultimately, at the end of the day, you have a conviction.

[00:10:18] Speaker 01:
And the conviction and sentence you then would use through 3585 to tie in that pretrial imprisonment to that punishment, to that conviction.

[00:10:29] Speaker 01:
our tie-in comes, our statutory tie-in, comes 3585.

[00:10:32] Speaker 01:
The problem with the statute in fairness trial court is it does not define period of incarceration.

[00:10:43] Speaker 02:
It does not define where, we don't know where... Are you focusing on the language of 3585, quote, that has not been credited against another sentence?

[00:10:53] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:10:54] Speaker 01:
Well, I mean, that is, Section B,

[00:10:57] Speaker 01:
provides a commencement of sentence.

[00:11:00] Speaker 01:
And then it goes further, the defendant shall be given credit towards the service of a term of imprisonment for any time he is spent in official detention prior to the date the sentence commences.

[00:11:09] Speaker 01:
One, as a result of the offense for which the sentence was imposed.

[00:11:12] Speaker 01:
That would cover pretrial normally.

[00:11:14] Speaker 01:
And section two, as a result of any other charge for which the defendant was arrested after the commission of the offense for which the sentence was imposed.

[00:11:22] Speaker 01:
And then it gets into that has not been credited against another sentence.

[00:11:26] Speaker 01:
And the problem is we know, ultimately, as a matter of law, that all that time is now credited against a separate sentence.

[00:11:37] Speaker 02:
You're saying he gets the credit, therefore he shouldn't get the cash under 14, well, under 2513.

[00:11:45] Speaker 02:
That's correct, Your Honor.

[00:11:47] Speaker 01:
And I see him over my time.

[00:11:50] Speaker 00:
Okay, let's hear from the other side, Mr. Newman.

[00:11:57] Speaker 00:
Mr. Young.

[00:11:58] Speaker 03:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:11:59] Speaker 03:
I may have pleased the Court.

[00:12:02] Speaker 03:
This is a fairly straightforward case in that Mr. Crooker is entitled to compensation under the Unjust Conviction and Imprisonment Act.

[00:12:14] Speaker 03:
He was unjustly convicted.

[00:12:18] Speaker 03:
Court of Appeals for the First Circuit overturned that conviction, and he was issued a certificate of innocence.

[00:12:28] Speaker 03:
Under the unjust conviction and imprisonment act, he is entitled to up to $50,000 per year for each and every year that he served while he was serving an unjust sentence.

[00:12:46] Speaker 03:
The total period that he served that sentence was a little over six years.

[00:12:52] Speaker 03:
And it breaks down into three periods.

[00:12:55] Speaker 02:
Problem is period of incarceration, right?

[00:13:00] Speaker 02:
And you've got this 3585 sentence that provides for crediting, calculation.

[00:13:09] Speaker 03:
Your Honor, the crediting statute and the compensation statute are separate.

[00:13:15] Speaker 03:
They serve totally separate purposes, and as the judge at the Court of Federal Claims found, those purposes are very different.

[00:13:28] Speaker 03:
First, the crediting statute is not one that is within the province of the district court.

[00:13:38] Speaker 03:
It is a statute that is imposed by operation of law

[00:13:45] Speaker 03:
through the attorney general.

[00:13:47] Speaker 03:
Back up just for a second.

[00:13:49] Speaker 03:
In most criminal cases, an individual is tried, convicted, a sentence is imposed.

[00:14:01] Speaker 03:
However, that sentence is implemented by the attorney general who sets the actual terms and conditions of incarceration.

[00:14:12] Speaker 03:
Where you go, how long you go.

[00:14:15] Speaker 03:
3585 provides an automatic crediting process as part of the Crime Control Act.

[00:14:23] Speaker 03:
It has nothing to do with the Unjust Compensation Act.

[00:14:29] Speaker 03:
They act in two different spheres.

[00:14:32] Speaker 04:
The Federal Compensation Act... The problem for us is that they are interacting on the facts of this case.

[00:14:38] Speaker 04:
I mean, obviously the Sentencing Credit Act is to avoid double punishment.

[00:14:43] Speaker 04:
You've already been in jail for a while for some other reason.

[00:14:47] Speaker 04:
We're going to give you credit for that and shorten the length of your sentence in the sense that you're going to be able to get out earlier due to your just conviction.

[00:14:55] Speaker 04:
However, at the same time, it seems a little nonsensical.

[00:14:59] Speaker 04:
Just as Congress is trying to avoid double punishment, it doesn't seem like it would authorize double recovery.

[00:15:07] Speaker 04:
And that's what we have here.

[00:15:08] Speaker 04:
If you're getting paid for the exact same time you're getting

[00:15:12] Speaker 04:
sentencing credit for.

[00:15:14] Speaker 04:
That seems a bit illogical, and that's why I'm over here trying to figure out if maybe the time that was originally attributed to the unjust conviction is now, thanks to the sentencing credit statute, is now being attributed to the just conviction.

[00:15:34] Speaker 03:
And I don't believe that, as I understand it, that's your concern.

[00:15:40] Speaker 03:
And I think that the

[00:15:42] Speaker 03:
The lower court actually answered your concerns.

[00:15:47] Speaker 03:
First, it's found that the sentence credit does not undo the fact of an individual actually serving a period of incarceration, that it is not, in fact, a fungibility between time served and compensation.

[00:16:06] Speaker 04:
He's going to be a free man earlier than he otherwise would be, right?

[00:16:11] Speaker 04:
He's going to get out a few years earlier from his just conviction and sentence, given the fact that he already served some time up front.

[00:16:20] Speaker 03:
By operation of an automatic credit that is, in fact, outside of the process of actually setting the sentence.

[00:16:32] Speaker 03:
But also consider what is the value of serving

[00:16:38] Speaker 03:
time at age 70 or being free at age 54.

[00:16:43] Speaker 03:
Again, I think that the lower court actually answered some of this by saying that even this crediting argument, assuming that there's a fungibility, does not account for the injuries that occur while you're incarcerated.

[00:17:03] Speaker 03:
You are incarcerated unjustly.

[00:17:07] Speaker 03:
You are an innocent individual.

[00:17:09] Speaker 03:
And the court was fairly clear in its early part of its decision saying that the government does not deny that during this time of detention, Mr. Cooker suffered a number of injuries relating to his unjust conviction and the conditions of his incarcerated.

[00:17:29] Speaker 03:
And it goes through a series of things that happens to

[00:17:32] Speaker 03:
an individual being incarcerated.

[00:17:34] Speaker 03:
So I don't think that you bank necessarily time.

[00:17:39] Speaker 03:
There are two separate regulatory systems.

[00:17:43] Speaker 03:
They come out of two different statutory schemes.

[00:17:47] Speaker 03:
One, the unfair compensation act, the Justice for All Act, which is very clear that we want to compensate individuals who are unjustly compensated, and the effort and bail reform

[00:18:01] Speaker 03:
where we are in the Crime Control Act, attempting to try to justify and rationalize sentences.

[00:18:12] Speaker 03:
And the fact that the two were in play here is seen in the plea agreement in the Toxin case, where the United States government and Mr. Crocker agreed to both, agreed that he could continue the case in the Federal Claims Court.

[00:18:31] Speaker 03:
and that he would get the credit under 3585.

[00:18:34] Speaker 03:
In fact, it's expressly provided in the plea agreement that he would get the credit and that he could maintain the lawsuit.

[00:18:43] Speaker 03:
So if there's any evidence, a suggestion of what was contemporaneously going on, it is, in fact, that the government, in the sentencing of Mr. Crocker in the second case, seemed to agree to exactly the result that we have.

[00:19:04] Speaker 04:
Has there been any period of Mr. Crooker's incarceration that's been credited to the unjust sentence at this point today?

[00:19:17] Speaker 03:
It's difficult because of the way the credit works.

[00:19:21] Speaker 03:
In the beginning, when he was charged with a sentencing case, he was in fact given credit

[00:19:30] Speaker 03:
under B1 for the time that he had served pretrial.

[00:19:35] Speaker 03:
So he gets credit from the moment you go into jail to the time that you get out, a credit occurs.

[00:19:44] Speaker 03:
In this case, when he was finally convicted of the Toxin case, that credit then converted from the B1 relating to the Sansling case to a credit for the

[00:20:01] Speaker 03:
instances that he's in jail today for, and that is the Toxin case.

[00:20:07] Speaker 04:
So then the answer to my question is there is no period of incarceration that Mr. Crooker has experienced that is credited to the unjust sentence?

[00:20:21] Speaker 03:
In the sense of where we are today, that's correct, Your Honor.

[00:20:27] Speaker 03:
There are 200 periods, very briefly,

[00:20:31] Speaker 03:
that we have raised on the cross-appeal, and that is first.

[00:20:36] Speaker 03:
The lower court found that the damages ran to December of 2007 when there was a sealed indictment in the Ricin case.

[00:20:52] Speaker 03:
We suggest, Your Honors, that that should have run at least until

[00:20:59] Speaker 03:
The Ricin case indictment was unsealed in January.

[00:21:04] Speaker 03:
It's an additional 55 days.

[00:21:07] Speaker 03:
Finally, Mr. Crooker's position is that the award should run until he is actually released from the silencer cases.

[00:21:21] Speaker 03:
You may recall that what happened is that in September of 2010,

[00:21:29] Speaker 03:
of following the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit's certificate of innocence, he is released from prison and immediately re-arrested or arrested and then becomes subject to now the Reisen case for which he is serving time today.

[00:21:55] Speaker 04:
Well, what would you have wanted the government to do

[00:21:59] Speaker 04:
back when they indicted Mr. Crooker in December 2007.

[00:22:02] Speaker 04:
He was already in jail.

[00:22:05] Speaker 04:
He was already imprisoned.

[00:22:06] Speaker 04:
I mean, there was no way to say, OK, now that you've been indicted, we're putting you in prison twice over, starting today.

[00:22:17] Speaker 04:
You've been on notice now.

[00:22:19] Speaker 04:
That doesn't make sense, right?

[00:22:20] Speaker 03:
First, I think we would at least run the period through the time that the indictment is unsealed.

[00:22:27] Speaker 03:
He could not have been arrested or unsealed.

[00:22:29] Speaker 03:
As to the second period, is Mr. Crooker's position that the period he served from January 2008 through his release in September 2010, he served in post-conviction status.

[00:22:49] Speaker 03:
That means that he was forced to work.

[00:22:53] Speaker 03:
He believes, and there is a case in

[00:22:58] Speaker 03:
Massachusetts to this effect, that he should not have been forced to work.

[00:23:03] Speaker 03:
That but for his silencer conviction, following indictment in the Ricin case, he would have been in pretrial holding, and that would have run until he was convicted in the Ricin case.

[00:23:22] Speaker 03:
And that would have at least run through September 10th of 2010.

[00:23:27] Speaker 03:
when he is finally released in the sentencing case.

[00:23:32] Speaker 03:
The net effect is that primarily we seek affirmance of the court's opinion below, awarding him some $172,000 based on damages that arise out of the unjust conviction.

[00:23:56] Speaker 03:
We believe that the

[00:23:57] Speaker 03:
court's decision below is well reasoned, in fact, highlights the fact that there is not a fungibility between these credits and unjust conviction for the simple reason that the unjust conviction deals with a liberty interest, a loss of liberty which you cannot bank, which you do not get to trade

[00:24:22] Speaker 03:
time for time, that you have actually lost your ability to have a life.

[00:24:29] Speaker 03:
As the evidence here is a girlfriend, a job, to actually be a contributing member of the society.

[00:24:38] Speaker 03:
That liberty interest is worth something.

[00:24:42] Speaker 03:
And I think the court was very clear in saying that that liberty interest was worth damages.

[00:24:53] Speaker 03:
And it's that liberty interest that the Congress of the United States in the Unjust Conviction and Imprisonment Act expressly had in mind.

[00:25:03] Speaker 03:
In fact, one of the things that is, I think, particularly interesting is that when the Justice for All Act was amended, there was an effort to increase the amount to $50,000.

[00:25:19] Speaker 03:
And it is clear from the legislative history cited in our brief

[00:25:23] Speaker 03:
that there was an attempt to in fact compensate people who had been unjustly convicted.

[00:25:33] Speaker 03:
And for part of his existence in the federal system, Mr. Crocker clearly has been unjustly convicted.

[00:25:42] Speaker 03:
I think the court below masterfully dealt with the balancing.

[00:25:50] Speaker 03:
I think had there not been a resident case,

[00:25:52] Speaker 03:
This would have been an easy claim before the Federal Court of Claims for the $50,000 a year times the period he had served.

[00:26:04] Speaker 03:
With that, I thank you very much, Your Honors.

[00:26:08] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Mr. Young.

[00:26:11] Speaker 01:
Mr. Major.

[00:26:14] Speaker 01:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:26:15] Speaker 01:
I'll just like to briefly address a few points that were raised.

[00:26:19] Speaker 01:
First of all, while

[00:26:23] Speaker 01:
The appellee refers to the liberty interest.

[00:26:26] Speaker 01:
There was no net loss of liberty here.

[00:26:29] Speaker 01:
And while they argue that time is not a factor, at the end of the day, the statute does refer to a period of incarceration.

[00:26:36] Speaker 01:
It doesn't merely refer to incarceration.

[00:26:40] Speaker 01:
So time is expressly a factor under the statute.

[00:26:45] Speaker 02:
The appellee mentions- You say there was no net loss of liberty.

[00:26:50] Speaker 02:
What is that based on?

[00:26:51] Speaker 02:
based on the fact that he could have been indicted earlier for the ricin crime?

[00:26:57] Speaker 01:
It's based on the fact that he has not served a single day, or will not have served a single day in prison, that he will not, that he would not have served in terms of period of incarceration.

[00:27:09] Speaker 01:
I mean, he will be in prison because of the credit that he received for the ricin threat charges.

[00:27:14] Speaker 01:
He's not going to have spent a single additional day in prison.

[00:27:17] Speaker 01:
He's going to be out much earlier than otherwise would have been the case.

[00:27:21] Speaker 01:
The plaintiff incorrectly provides that the plea agreement agrees that he could continue the Court of Federal Claims case.

[00:27:32] Speaker 01:
That's a little inaccurate.

[00:27:33] Speaker 01:
The plea agreement, which we haven't relied upon, doesn't mention the Court of Federal Claims case.

[00:27:39] Speaker 01:
All it does is it requires the dismissal of claims currently pending in the district court against that particular AUSA in Massachusetts.

[00:27:47] Speaker 01:
on that the AUSA in Massachusetts was defending.

[00:27:49] Speaker 01:
It says nothing either way about the court of federal claims case.

[00:27:53] Speaker 01:
So we can't rely upon it to say he meant to dismiss it, but it would also be incorrect to rely upon it to say that meant he could continue and recover in the court of federal claims case.

[00:28:02] Speaker 04:
Why didn't you, why didn't the government negotiate that in to the package?

[00:28:06] Speaker 01:
I wish I had a good answer.

[00:28:07] Speaker 01:
The record doesn't reflect why that wasn't negotiated in the package.

[00:28:12] Speaker 01:
The only thing I can say is that it appears that the AUSA

[00:28:16] Speaker 01:
was focused upon the cases he was defending less so the Court of Federal Claims case.

[00:28:22] Speaker 01:
But there's not a clear answer for why the United States didn't build that in.

[00:28:27] Speaker 01:
I think everyone's job would be a lot easier if it actually was included in the pre-agreement.

[00:28:31] Speaker 01:
We'd be having a very different discussion here today.

[00:28:34] Speaker 01:
A couple of notes on the cross appeal.

[00:28:37] Speaker 01:
Again, a lot of this is in our briefs, so I'm not going to go over it again.

[00:28:41] Speaker 01:
But the plaintiff did

[00:28:43] Speaker 01:
incorrectly state that he could not be arrested on an old indictment.

[00:28:47] Speaker 01:
That's incorrect.

[00:28:49] Speaker 01:
Sometimes the point of having a sealed indictment is to arrest someone in the first instance.

[00:28:53] Speaker 01:
But once you become arrested, it does become unsealed.

[00:28:57] Speaker 01:
So it can be unsealed either early or, as occurred here, or ultimately when you're arrested, it becomes unsealed because you have to have some idea often of the charges against you within a certain period of time.

[00:29:09] Speaker 01:
And as for his other claims, again, we talk about this in brief.

[00:29:12] Speaker 01:
We believe it's

[00:29:13] Speaker 01:
primarily a 13th Amendment claim, which would need to have been pursued in district court.

[00:29:18] Speaker 01:
And his arguments about causation of damages don't answer the trial court's point, which was causation of incarceration.

[00:29:26] Speaker 01:
The court presumed he would be damaged for the relevant period of time.

[00:29:30] Speaker 01:
It simply didn't believe that his incarceration was ultimately caused by that.

[00:29:34] Speaker 01:
Unless there are any further questions?

[00:29:38] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:29:39] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Mr. Maeger.

[00:29:40] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Mr. Young.

[00:29:41] Speaker 00:
The case is taken under submission.

[00:29:43] Speaker 01:
Bye.