on the final day of trial moments before closing argument trial counsel made several statements that reveal he was not prepared for trial he had not prepared his client to testify and he had not into his a pated of the state would put on rebuttal evidence in a self defense murder case while being reprimanded for his lack of preparation by the trial court trial counsel twice attempted to interrupt the trial court to claim that the state's rebuttal evidence was a surprise the trial court appointed it was no surprise that counsel would have to account for any other versions of statements that mr watkins had made so law enforcement other than his trial testimony as the trial court said it's law school one a one that theme winds its way through this entire case because counsel's lack of preparation precipitated numerous prejudicial errors at every stage of this trial and in a case that revolved around one single contested issue those errors failed to subject this case to meaningful adversarial testing under the chronic standard but in the alternative it denied mr watkins the fair trial that he isn't title to d pursuant to the strickland standard i'd like to begin by focusing on trial counsel's errors regarding jury instructions and from there in the context of trial counsel lack of preparation moved to address the other errors that occurred at opening statements closing arguments cross examination and the preparation of his own the st issue is trial counsel's failure to request a language in i p i twenty four dollars dash twenty five dollars which would have informed the jury that force is permissible to prevent the commission of a forcible felony and an illinois robbery is a forcible felony during both its opening statement and its closing argument the state encourage the jury to believe that that is what occurred here that mr watkins stabbed  able because kang able was attempting to rob him and that theory if accepted by the jury would have required acquittal on the basis of this language in the i p i trial counsel did not submit that language and without it the jury had no way of knowing that this was a basis for acquittal the nd your instruction issue goes to mr watkins duty or lack there to retreat during its closing argument the state tried to undermine the reasonableness of what mr hawkins did by arguing he could have simply left the house and to a jury of lay people that could have been a reasonable argument except for the fact that an illinois person who is not the initial aggressor has no duty to retreat before using force so this is another instance where the jury was deprived of crucial law that went directly to the self defense issue in this case and the state's argument had the effect of essentially telling the jury that mr watkins did something that was an reasonable even though the law says that is what he is permitted to do so for both of these issues trial counsel's lack of preparation failed to give the jury the critical instructions they needed to apply to the evidence in this case it's worth noting that all counsel had to do was look in the ip eyes look at the instructions that have been promulgated for every criminal case in the state and he would have found them but he didn't and that lack of preparation as i said winds its way through this case and it's perhaps no better the opening statement is emblematic of that lack of preparation because opening statement was his chance to relate to the jury d to tell the jury who mr watkins was to tell them what evidence they were going to hear that would lead them to acquit him and to tell them what mr watkins defense and trial counsel did none of those things he was not an advocate for his client instead what he did was three times and dorce the version of events that have been given by the state which of course did not mention self defense and mention that around an ad told the jury that they would be asking for a verdict of guilty this was a situation where clearly this was not a trial strategy this was evidence of trial counsel's lack of preparation and of his lack of strategy because his opening statement only mentioned mr watkins one time and that was to introduce himself as mr watkins lawyer it was an opening statement that could be copied and pasted into any other felony trial without changing anything but mr watkins name and we see this as a clear demonstration of the chronic standard trial counsel was not prepared he was not able to give the jury even the most basic idea of what this case was about and we see that carried through into d this preparation of his client to testify on that rd day of trial when having an exchange with the trial court trial counsel said that morning he had gone to the jail to watch the video of the interrogation mr watkins so that mr watkins could lay foundation for the no and this was after of course mr watkins already testif as your honor is known to lay foundation for that video mr mr watkins would only have to say that he watched the video and that it accurately reflected the content of the conversation if mr  watched this video before he would have been able to lay a foundation there was no other logical conclusion other than that mr watkins had never watched this video with his attorney before taking the stand and a self defense murder trial and that circles right back again to the chronic standard we should all take a pause at the idea that mr watkins went on the stand without ever having reviewed this video with we can continue to see the same lack of preparation when it comes to the state's rebuttal case the state put on detective land where in rebuttal ostensibly to impeach mr watkins and in particular one perfect example was when the state asked the detective why and where if mr watkins had ever said anything about evil putting his hands on mr martin's neck that effective said no on cross examination defense counsel asked him a nearly identical question and the answer was no but if we look to the interrogation video the answer is clearly yes mr watkins did say that and trial counsel watched an opportunity to impeach detective when and where an rehabilitate his client's testimony sale bought because he was not prepared we know that from the conversation trial counsel had with the trial court that morning on the on the final day of trial he said he had not up until that point done a thorough marking down of every statement his client had made in that in variation which means at the time detective when we're testified trial counsel was not prepared to cross examine at the time that he was supposed to do his job he was not prepared to do it until the following morning and which point the opportunity to impeach him had long passed and we have to i think stop and ask looking in the context of chronic if trial counsel could not prepare his own client to testify and he could not prepare to cross examine what was arguably the other most important part of this case mr martin's testimony and the this does render the proceeding fundamentally unreliable we have to ask what else counsel did or didn't do and we have to conclude d that prejudice is presumed here because this was the singular most important and the problem with that your honor is as the weak case recognized impeachment is a particularly dramatic and effective tool for damaging the credibility of witnesses counsel wasn't able to avail himself he was not able to understand with detective when we were on the stand to impeach him damages credibility and at the same time rehabilitate mr watkins credibility because statement and rehabilitate his client statement it did manage to get that into evidence but i would disagree that had the same effectiveness your honor and this also circles back to the chronic issue because if we're looking at it in strickland in the conduct of strickland i would certainly argue that yes this was prejudicial yes it was an error and yes it warrants reversal but under chronic we also don't have to establish credit prejudice is presumed and that's evident in the fact that trial counsel was not prepared to try this case he was not prepared to cross examine that effective so under both of those minds of ineffective assistance i would say this issue goes to both it's just a different form one requires prejudice one does not but i would also just add that trial counsel errors didn't stop there either if we look to closing argument the state made two misstatements of the law one of which was you're not allowed to use deadly force seven dash one of the criminal code and the accompanying i p i which is the twenty four dollars dash twenty five dollars instruction those are fundamentally incompatible with what the state said in closing the stat offered a much higher bar for when it is permissible to use deadly force than bill law actually sets out and trial counsel did nothing he stood by and let the state give the jury and appropriate statement of the law on top of the fact that he didn't give the jury instructions they should have received so all of these things together reflect a trial counsel who was not prepared to try this case who was not in armor he was not armed with all the facts he was not armed with the law and in conclusion i just want to reiterate very little in this case was contested cause of death was not contested mr watkins intent was not contested identity was not an issue the only issue in this case was was mr watkins use of force reasonable or justified and each and every one of these issues that i've talked about and still more in the brief all go to this one single issue these are not ancillary and general errors these all effected the juror b was that the jury had to apply to the evidence the credibility of critical witnesses which of course the trial court recognized it recognized that mr watkins testimony and the rebuttal about his interrogation video was the crux of this case and counsel wasn't prepared to do it subject this issue to meaningful adversarial testing support reversal under chronic but in the alternative they also support the always there is also support reversal for a new trial court your honors council my name is stephanie raymond i represent the state of illinois in this matter just are just some of the things that the and that brought up st the jury instructions regarding robbery that was the state's theory not the defendant's theory he never he actually contested the fact that it was a robbery so to submit though to submit jury instructions on such it would make more sense and regarding the jury instructions on the defendant's quote unquote duty to retreat the focus of defendant's defense was that his actions were reasonable not that he had a duty to retreat before he you know committed the murder so for the defense counsel to cement instructions on that also was not ineffectiveness where it sort of  was combative to his defense of the case regarding the video that defendant interrogation the video was several hours long to say that another review of it means he never watched as speculative the the video being several hours long and him later finding out that he needed specific pieces of the video when he announced to the court that he was not prepared he announced that he was not prepared in the context of not having mark down most specific time frames so that the court could go directly to those timeframes as opposed to playing the entire video because that's not something that he was permitted to do so i think it's important to to look at what is said and what what trial counsel said when he was asked that the poor asked him about why he was not prepared and he said he did not regarding the video he said he did not have those specific sex sections marked down so it's not that he never watched the video and i think to say that because i don't have specific sections marked down that i didn't watch the entire video i don't think that that's what the record reflects  so and also regarding the video with his client to say that he reviewed it that morning with his client also does not mean that he never watched it with his client or that his client wasn't aware of you know what the r strategy was with the video so i think that speculative as well from different points to statements in both opening and closing that he that they felt that the defense attorney should have objected to however opening and closing statements are not evidence in this case the jury was instructed as such so it's presumed that they take those and shuck sions and apply them properly so the opening statements where defense counsel doesn't object to an end where defendant says he acquiesces it's where he says that the state laid a good road map as defendant correctly points out there was little contest in this case in fact committing the actual murder was not tested it was whether he was reasonable and in doing that in since stabbing the victim so to say that because he didn't object to the state's opening or lay out a specific you know roadmap of his own the facts does not mean that he's in effect if he also if his client is going to later testify which the record isn't clear that that was you know figured out until later if his client is going to testify if he lays out specific facts it may then come back to to haunt him if it's in conflict with what the defendant testifies to so say that he he's you know going t later about the facts but it's not ineffectiveness so the the chronic standard that defendant points to it's only applicable when the surrounding circumstances justify the presumption of prejudiced it's the state's position that that's not present here so the state then would submit that crime to the chronic standard or i think i'm saying here chronic standard is applicable it's the state feels it's not applicable in the situation so if there are no further questions that people would ask  i don't see any other questions the st point i want to address is this notion that b the robbery theory was the state's theory and not mr watkins and certainly that's true that was the state's theory mr watkins defense was that abel had attacked him and he had feared for his life and stabbed him in self defense but nothing in the state's brief and i'm aware of no law that says instructions have to be specific to that parties  instructions are meant to give the jury your political law to go with the facts and there is nothing in the briefing before this court and there's nothing i'm aware of that would prevent counsel from offering that instruction as it affected the state's case the nd point i want to make and just as schmidt this goes back to your question i wanted to pull out a fact from the brief that i wasn't exactly sure about my head well be the court did permit counsel to introduce a couple  clips that went to the issue of whether mr watkins and said evil had his hands on mr watkins neck there were some other issues of impeachment that counsel did not do that for and the one  particularly thinking of is the issue of how many times mr watkins said he stabbed evil at trial i believe he said twice and detective land where i was asked how many times that he say he stabbed him on the protective set once and there is a clip in the interrogation where mr watson says it was once or twice so there are issues where mr watkins wasn't beached and he shouldn't have been the jury already heard twice the issue was did it affect mr watkins credibility to make it seem like he was fabricating something and couldn't keep his story straight and of course that's what impeachment does and trial counsel wasn't prepared to fix that problem he was not prepared to address the issue because as he said on that last day of trial he hadn't done a thorough marking down of all the statements beforehand and that brings me to the next point i want to address which is i believe the state is conflating the act of reviewing evidence with being prepared whether defense counsel in a review of the evidence on some level is not the issue here it's was he prepared was he actually prepared to do what is necessary to provide zealous and competent representation for his client and in the context of that impeachment issue it's clear that he wasn't he was not ready to impeach the detective on the stand he had to go home that night watch the video some more and come back and pray that the trial court was going to let him put on this evidence which didn't have the same impact as it would if the detect he did it and that was so his client can lay a foundation he didn't say it was so we could double check something or we could you know double check an issue or a fact it was so his client who would lay a foundation and we know as i said earlier if he had to have his client review the video to lay foundation that means he had never watched it before because otherwise he'd be able to so i concluded on the basis of all these issues and trial counsel's pervasive lack of preparation at every stage of trial and his lack of advocacy at every stage of trial this court can and should reverse on the basis of either