the attorneys please approach the podium evidence in issue one identify numerous pieces of evidence that came in because of counsel's deficient performance an issue to highlight the improper admission of a of the other crime evidence which ultimately became the focus of the trial three of these witnesses were imprisoned at the time of their testimony one was facing a contempt charge all of them were being members two of these witnesses called in a crowd or gave no incriminating testimony from the stand three of these witnesses were present at the crime scene but one cannot give an id it along with two other witnesses at the crime scene who never even testified in this case the two did provide eyewitness identifications or conflicting they were one hand dying in the front seat one had dining in the backseat were also given under less than ideal circumstances it was late at night it was dark there the incident occurred quickly and they were talking behind trees with cars in between all these witnesses were known to the police in the weeks and months after the are telling the police something different and that in the year after this crime or the or the police themselves didn't believe these witnesses and i think that's the case here the state understood how weak their case was that these witnesses were not credible and therefore they tried to stack t statements contained incidents about which these witnesses did not have first personal knowledge as required by one fifteen ish ten point one and in the case of colin his prior him handwritten statement included donnegan said mission to the other crime that he had shot right shot at the same test well before the real hearing but as far as the grand jury testimony number one place testimony would not have come in through the grand jury in effect i don't think it came in through coleman's grand jury testimony because it was a codefendant statement it was not subject to cross examination now as far as dagens admissions like i said this is some of the most prejudicial testimony imaginable so the fact that the state was able to bolster the grand jury testimony with this prior handwritten statement does g ive rise to prejudice in this case particularly when viewed in the context as i mentioned the state's case was weak and i'm about to go through several pieces of unmissable happens that came and that certainly undermines confidence that the jury convicted on again based on only admissible crimes evidence which are going to shoot to became the focus of the trial eight separate witnesses testified other crimes evidence in this case there's a huge risk that the jury convicted based on propensity there was no forensic evidence in this case there was no confession to any of these people be highly a reasonable decision not to ask the jury to leave when when coleman's prior inconsistent handwritten statement was admitted which in which codefendant place in great detail whole purpose of the having supper juries was to pull the jury out during this testimony so they not hear the highly prejudicial testimony of the codefendant implicating the defendant in the crime the spite the fact that he was not available for cross examination this should have been kept out against donnegan place was not subject to cross cross examination on the statement he could not ask place whether or not don again was present when he committed this business that he laughed and therefore the state's argument that he didn't m stress how one reasonable council's decision not to not only not subject to this but just to specifically waive this issue by not asking the jury to leave because she didn't want the jury to become suspicious there's nothing more that the jury made both in coleman and crothers prior statements that were ambiguous but which the state elicited from these from these witnesses in the prior statements explain what you what he meant what you thought he meant when he said this and again other people  mccarter which is directly on point here a similar statement were found to be inadmissible testimony in this case coleman said when when a pike said he was going to get a car that meant he was going to steal a car for a shooting when business he left he had a car and these are individual statements and the jury and regardless it's a province of the jury to interpret the statements if the jury wants to make that inference fine but it's not up to the state to invade that province but asking its witnesses these prior statements of him saying donovan said telling him he just got run over he had just fired his gun so he was he was present for that but he was also present in the moments leading up to that you know shooting but the fact remains the whether that is necessary or whether the state has other means of making its point and as i point out in the subsection have to start woman what was the motive in this case the motive was the fact that donaghy got ran over by a car the motive was not that he shot at th well it might be relevant but it's certainly not admissible as another crime is going to if you are here for it that the argument he's heard is that are you today different but prior violent acts mr is that proper too for the state but in  not for purposes of motive the motive in that case was separate and the core point of the sound card the motive and of the motive in that case was the defendant was angry that the girl broke up with him so there's the same distinction in this case there's the shooting which is not relevant to motive because you don't it's a logical you know you're motivated to shoot someone because you're shooting on the state's motive in this case was anger that he was angry because he got run over by a car and i think rove and four separate occasions in the state's closing argument what they explicitly told the jury the motive went back years i mean the perfect question here is this does the state have the right to bring in other crimes evidence not for anything but a limited purpose their only purpose in this case they said was motive the crime in that the crime of the referring to a shooting the not arise  and i missed you doesn't the evidence in this case of diving shooting of the same people a day before being struck by never the same game the day before support identification should have been properly noted for the purpose of the jury took this testimony and it's key the key point here is that the jury was not contemporaneously instructed so they're sitting throughout the entire trial not knowing if this testimony is for a limited purpose whatever it may be a motive for identity they think that this this the evidence was a miscible for that for that one a purpose the manner in which the state brought it in like i said eight witnesses brings this case line in line with dora where the prior crime does overshadow  proof if he intended to murder he also that's a little different than the day before shouldn't the same guy but i agree but they're here the question is not why the evidence came in and and we're stipulating if for the purposes of this portion of the argument that it did have a proper motive the question and the boy i think the concern court was concerned not with approach the problem of nature of the testimony but the the overwhelming focus of the state on the other crimes testimony so that the  risk that the jury would convict based on propensity or to the emotion as you said earlier in the earlier case is too high and in this case or even more witnesses than him than  were the court in reverse as you mentioned then but boy if they tried to convict of those other crimes earlier states and even bring these charges against them in this case so i think there are a lot less probative robinson who claims now a trial that he was shot it didn't when ninety percent of the tenor on that vast majority i don't think that only ninety percent of game cases have this extent of other crime evidence not to mention the six instances of in a missile testimony and within those six multiple occasions quantitatively you're talking about i think over half of the state's case in this it can standing and was inadmissible evidence and you can't say you have confidence in the outcome when there's that amount me half of this people of the state of illinois and this case defendant is claiming ineffective assistance of counsel based on a failure to object to allegedly improper evidence however each of the pieces of evidence that were allegedly improper were properly introduced at trial defendant makes no freestanding claim of error by the trial court in admitting these pieces of evidence with the him written statements szczepan claims that they did not fall under the rubric of personal knowledge but the witnesses did have personal knowledge of the confessions and even if the statements were insufficient for personal knowledge they weren't miscible as impeachment and defendant concedes that they were properly introduced through the grand jury testimony and so any error that would have resulted from this it introduction of evidence would have been harmless with the allegedly improper opinion testimony all of the statements that and then points out in his brief are the witnesses testifying to their own understanding of what defendant meant when and why he did what he did and again none of the statements went to ultimate facts or opinions in the case and to not intrude upon the province of the jury they were still able to make obvious conclusions that when the defendant has been saying that he's been targeted that he's been targeting gangster disciples and he's going to go to business and he asks them to come along that obviously he's going to go retaliate against the gangster disciples with the claim that the witnesses did not show any affirmative damage the state's case the witnesses were asked on direct examination if they spoke to the police and immediately stated that there's handwritten statements were coerced by the police in exchange for  deals or promises on their pending cases with the state and that absolutely affirmatively damaged the state's case by calling into question the credibility of the police officers that also testified at trial codefendant statements there was no britain violation when hikes describe the shooting it was considered an adoptive admission because he stated that the defendant was present when he made the defendant was pre when pikes made these statements and jannat contradict or deny pike's statements of his involvement it could be properly construed as an adoptive admission by defendant with the other crimes evidence it can constitute a very small portion of the entirety of the state's case with other crimes evidence only all of the witnesses that testified to the prior incident also testified as to the main shooting that was in question in the with the no contemporaneous jury instruction the courts have previously held that it's not needed when there is a proper jury instruction at the close of trial as there was in this case in contrast to the joy which defendant relied on in his the court specifically found that there was no nexus between the prior shootings that were using other crimes evidence and the shooting that was at issue at trial in this case there is absolutely a proper nexus between the two shootings define it as specifically targeting  robinson in the first shooting and quintets robinson is standing next to lauren mostly when he is killed the defendant is also attempting to minimize the evidence that was presented against him a trial the evidence was overwhelming that trial in this case he was identified by two eyewitness shouldn't more and mostly furthermore defendant has this personal forty five highpoint revolver with distinctive orange sights that revolver was recovered after the defined it was seen in the alley with it he throws it away he drops it the evidence at trial shows that no rational jury no rational trier of fact would have acquitted defendant given the amount of evidence against him trial counsel did raise several objections at trial but all of the evidence was properly admitted and so with colin he testified that he had the conversation with mike several months later that no one finished the business that he left on its face that statement does not implicate the defendant and so there is no proven violation where he says that it was him that did the shooting there's no group violation because it doesn't implicate the defendant furthermore that statement could also be considered a coconspirator statement the conspiracy did not begin and end here with solely the shooting of lord mostly the conspiracy here is that i'm going criminal enterprise there was sufficient independent evidence at trial of an ongoing criminal enterprise of a gang war between the four corner hustlers and the gangster disciples it started before the excuse me mostly shooting and it continued well after the mostly shooting statement that no one finished the business that he left could be construed as encouraging further criminal enterprise to finish the business that he did leave and so were not by only proven where it is a coconspirator statement yes i believe that's how for those reasons and those stated in our brief we ask that you affirm the defendant's conviction for first degree murder if you think it's really cool briefly and is true to you started by saying you say a year recent e they conceded just now that the opinion testimony word these witnesses own interpretation that's clearly in a miscible testimony with the impeachment again they try to the state tries to argue that because and i'd also point out because this question came up earlier too with regard to but boy if i if if we concede for purposes section subsection b that there was some relevance to this testimony the state other offense of events we are persuaded the way in which the evidence was presented perceived and i argued requires reversal defendants conviction and that's the argument i'm making and in subsection b that the eight witnesses the focus on this other crime calling all the witnesses chased a bunch a man found the gun detain the man there's no evidence that daniel was in that group of men so that the connection between donnegan in the murder weapon is tenuous at best and therefore the evidence is not so overwhelming where you this court can overlook