case is straightforward your name for the record i am assistant attorney general steven sultan saadi on behalf of people i apologize this case is straight forward section five eight four d two of the unified code of corrections mandates consecutive sentences and the defendant is convicted of a violation of criminal sexual assault or one of the other triggering offenses listed in the statute defendant here was convicted of criminal sexual assault and two non triggering offenses but the trial court ordered all of those sentences to run concurrently this order not only violated the plain language of the statute but it violated this court's holding in people view curry mccurry this court confirmed the statutes plain language and it held that word defendant convicted of a triggering offense which he must be ordered to serve that sentence consecutively and he must serve that sentence prior to and independent of any other sentence including sentences for non triggering offenses responded now asks you to overturn curry but there's no reason to do so statutory language at issue here is the same language that was construed in curry and the general assembly has done nothing to amend or add to the statute to call curry's holding into question here the sentencing judge failed to comply with the mandatory sentencing statute and this court should issue an order of mandamus directing the trial court to order defendant to serve his sentence for criminal sexual salt consecutive to his other sentences this case this court need to do nothing more than look at the plain language of the statute statute uses the singular and identifying when it says that the court shall impose consecutive sentences the defendant was convicted of a violation of a triggering offense that word a would be evidence is the legislature's intent that one violation triggers the mandatory sentencing scheme there's only one reasonable way to read that statute is court confirmed that reading and curry their defendant was convicted of triggering offenses and non triggering offenses response or did the defendant incur argued that he could serve his sentence on his triggering offense can concurrently with his sentences for the non triggering this court rejected that argument it held that the sentences for the triggering offenses must be served consecutively which means prior to and independently of any sentences for non triggering offenses to accept response construction  several times since then and so we're not asking you to overrule that we're simply asking you to recognize the statute has changed in so many ways since curry was decided that we're simply dealing with a different case here if you recall in currie the provision there was a four a and at that time mandatory consecutive sentences did not exist except for in the very limited instance where under the same course of conduct where the criminal objective was not substantially changed you could have a consecutive sentence initially for a class tax or class one felony in which there were serious bodily injury and then later by amendment in the late one nine hundred seventy s they also added for a violation of section twelve dash a statute that says parameters are not clear when we're dealing with a criminal sentence then the rule of lenity would dictate that the statute be construed in favor of the defendant now in turn as of the specific amendments that have been made it's not simply just adding additional offenses and also perhaps an artfully drawn it's also a fundamental change in the statute over time and initially this provision prohibited consecutive sentences then it made them optional then it made them mandatory but only when there was a an offense that was committed in the same course of conduct motivated by the same criminal objective then it added additional offenses then it eliminated the requirement of the same course of what our understanding of the statute is is as follows and that is if you look at de one those are the most serious of the serious offenses so under the one the legislature used the language one of the offenses for which so if you commit an offense that's listed under de one then you would necessarily have your other sentence run consecutive to that but some of the other offenses that are listed the two through eleven most of those are motivated by the idea that you shouldn't get a what we would call a frequent and thereby like if you look at the explanation of what is now d two in people v curry the understanding there was that each sexual assault causes injury to the victim so the idea that you could commit two or three sexual assaults you had only the sentence for one of those you know that that neglected the injury that this serious crime a sexual solve that the victim some of the other offenses are  listed in de are explained by the same rationale for example if you commit a crime out on bail out if you commit a bell bottom violation most likely the bail bond violation is not going to be as serious as the underlying crime you're committed so there's a requirement  and eleven for bail bond violations to make sure that you don't get a free bail bond violation by having the bail bond revelation emerge here in this case though there's no real risk of that happening because there's no doubt that he's going to serve the full sentence for the enumerated crime so we're really asking is is he being fully punished for the failure to register offenses because he is going to serve eighty five percent of the more serious offense the criminal sexual assault rationale of curry was based on the specific language if you look at what kerry said about the offenses for he said that the offenses are of a singular nature and almost only the most serious crimes neither of those statements accurately describe what is now  d for example the singular nature refers to the fact that the crimes are taking place during a single course of conduct during which there is no substantial change in the criminal objective in the most serious crimes referred to the fact that what you know was then five it for a only included what is now do you want indeed to the three through deal rather than all of the additional crimes that have been added to the statute over the years were not present in the statute at the time and then it was also a very narrow exception to what was otherwise a prohibition on consecutive sentences as opposed to what we see here where consecutive sentences may be required in a wide ranging offense so i would say that the holding in this case would be consistent with curry based on the differences in the statutory language and the change in the so the rationales of perjury as i've noted were based on the singular nature of the crime those are clearly not present either in the facts of this case or requirement in the current statute there's also the most serious offenses but as i've noted  deal levon which had been added to the statute over the years mean that that description is no longer an apt description of the version of the statute that we're dealing with and then the last rationale that was provided by curry was that the legislature intended that some crimes be treated differently but that rationale can't resolve the dispute in this case because both sides agree that under certain instances and numerated offenses are going to be treated differently than  offenses so the question is not whether the treated differently it's really how differently they're going to be treated so for example in the case of if you took the facts of some of the other cases that have been decided for statute that consecutive sentences would be required in that case so we're not dealing with a situation where someone is going to be able to commit several sexual assaults yet only the sentence for one of them consecutive sentences would be required if you commit amendments in one thousand nine hundred seven which were designed to solve the problem that was identified by this court and people be boll or five eight or a only applied to crimes that work might committed in the same course of conduct and they did not apply to the similarly serious circumstance where someone could commit sexual assault say spanning out over a course of eight months for a year or something like that and wall this court said that the statute had to be read strictly and therefore did not cover that circumstance so the legislature amended the court amended the statute and added what was a for b which said you know i have the same language as a for a it just applied where it was not permitted in the single committed during the same course of conduct and therefore the crimes were of a singular nature did not apply to be as well so this court even in construing it for b which uses a lot of the same language as does eight for a this court did not rely on curry and otherwise specified so be it come down upon the people to show that consecutive sentences for required case address in the plain language we would ask that this court use the same approach that it used in people v whitney if you'll recall people the whitney address the meaning of what is now do you want it was a an unusual case in which the defendant had committed a murder and also had committed aggravated discharge of a firearm and the the state had argued that consen of sentences were mandatory because that the defendant had committed a class one felony and there was also serious bodily injury the difficulty there was that the class one felony is not what caused the serious bodily injury the thing that caused a serious bodily injury was a murder and murder was not a class tax or class one felony so you had a circumstance of statutory ambiguity in the same provision whereby the court was had to decide whether there had to be a relationship essence asked for the same analytical approach recognized based on the comparison between the one and d two as well as in between the two in d c seven and eleven that there's an ambiguity in the statute that needs to be resolved in one of the principles first beginning with the point about the statutory construction the issue face here is nothing like what the court faced in whitney in which he had a truly ambiguous statute where you had two conditions and it and no direction from the general assembly and how those conditions relate to one another here we have crystal clear language and subsection d two it says that mandatory consecutive terms are required where there is a violation this might be a slightly more difficult case if what the general assembly had said was mandatory consecutive terms are required were defending commits criminal sexual assault they didn't even do that they said were defendants convicted of a violation  respondent talked about the planning of the statute respondent response counsel didn't say how we can read that language a violation of a statute any other way than requiring mandatory consecutive terms where there's a single violation turning to curry respondents contention appears to be that this court doesn't have to overrule curry to find a response favoring this case but the language construed in curry even though there have been several amendment sense currying that's true is identical to the language that exists in d to today in fact the fact that there have been so many amendments to the statute and the general assembly has not touched this language is actually evidence of the general's assembly's inten so it's evidence that the generals on the agrees of this holding this court's holding curry and you soon the general assembly is aware of this court's holdings it's been fifteen years since curry was decided and the fact that the general assembly hasn't touched that language indicates that it inten affect the reasoning in curry and curry they said the general assembly has decided that some crimes some sentences must be treated more harshly than others one of the those is criminal sexual assault respondent seems to contend that here it doesn't really matter because defendant is going to serve his twelve years for criminal sexual assault whether or not the triggering a front the non triggering offenses are concurrent with that sentence or consecutive to that sentence that's not really true by the time defendant was charged with criminal sexual assault he had been he had been charged with two of the registration offenses and that by the time this was a global disposition where he pleads guilty to all three as part of a single disposition and if you take the criminal sexual assault away from that the way he was sentenced he would have served three years adding the criminal sexual assault if he only serves a total of twelve years  really we're knocking down his twelve year term for criminal sexual assault from twelve years to nine years he would only serve an additional nine years that's not the sentence he received and that's inconsistent with the general assembly's intent to ensure that he serves a fall term for crimes like criminal sexual