and appear to pat him down his brother eric looks from over the hood of the car and then retreats about ten feet then looks on with the third and jody tony at the gas station manager from a distance of about fifteen feet that's the time you see an extended at down  surveillance footage and jodi tony's testimony corroborated so you're going here on appeal mr golden raises several issues concerning this robbery one is about the sufficiency of the evidence the fire misuse during the commission of this  the second is about the need for three now mr gold is repaired to address each issue but first they would like to focus on whether the state prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a firearm is used during the gas station robbery goners this issue cedric and he said it was black that he also said maybe as a gun maybe as a toy of course he didn't believe it was a gun he never testified about prior familiarity now his brother eric was across the way cross the car he said he got a clear view from four to five feet semiautomatic guns specifically he had experience with such guns he felt the barrel in his back and he was one hundred percent confident about his conclusion as of course joint great testimony from  are making assertions about types of guns and they're telling you that there are a familiarity and they're giving you specific even if it's your position that the average person would be able to testify about hype off the types of things that you know the state may rely on in order to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you've been overcome charles mode you haven't given me anything that gets me in there so charles washington in washington you had somebody was held a gun point for several  surveillance video that's being pushed more much time do you say it takes so i don't think i think the lesson you take away from right is that there are no hard and fast rules and it's caught us but we do look at all the circumstances and what we have especially out of mcclaren is just and we have to consider primarily with the judge the trial level felt and saw exactly so this happens to be one of the better judges i think that judge stevenson did a fine job in this case but i details under right under existing to bring her case law should leave this court in conclusion that there was not sufficient evidence of pharmacies again in this case asked what constitutes proof beyond a reasonable doubt and the state presents testimony  observation of the gun and testimony that it is a gun but that is not the law that it's not washington that is not right and that it's none of the appellate court cases that have addressed this issue there is no requirement in any of these cases that there prior knowledge or experience we know that washington the witness saw the gun for several minutes granted but had no prior experience and i would just to your honor's that this distinction between several minutes and forty five seconds is really not at all legitimate because i could stop talking for forty five seconds and we could all agree that that is a fairly lengthy period of time we're not talking about a fleeting glance we're talking about an event in a gas station that the victim was approached by the defendant who was armed with a black gun the victim was also patted down by somebody behind him and the victim's brother also saw this happen and  there was also a god now these two witnesses were corroborated by another witness the manager of the gas station who also saw a gun during this robbery the fact that the video itself doesn't show the gun again is not significant because the video is not a very good quality video and it's a gas station video so it's positioning is not clear to see what is in defendant hand but remember the victim is standing within five feet from defendant the witness is only i would say inches the witness is only feet and then jodi tony the other witness is again within eyeshot  the event where defendant use the gun the other thing that defendant suggests the jury tony is not a credible witness because a trial he had some difficulty or he complained about not being able to see a trial this is not really a legitimate basis for the court to reject his testimony a while because jodi twenty not only described the events exactly the way the other two witnesses saw it so he clearly had a view of what was happening jodi tony described the blue minivan that  it came out of and went back into after the robbery and provided police with its license plate number so clearly ciottone could see and also observe the fact that there was a gun and these are the three occurrence witnesses but that isn't the end of the case i did not hear defendant discuss at all or defense counsel discussed at all two other witnesses that were presented before the trial or fact the judge in this case one was a other crimes witness who testified that he was robbed that very morning only hours before the gas station robbery in this case and he testified that he was approached by a blue meanie va excuse me his description to police was that he was approached by a blue minivan that's also on video and two offenders approached him one that was for certain armed with a gun and the other offender also had got but that earlier robbery identified defendant to police as the armed robber so for whatever reason he didn't identify defendant trial and the judge acquitted defendant of that earlier crime however that doesn't stop us from looking at that event as other crimes evidence because there's enough in this record to suggest that while then it was acquitted of the crime he actually committed that crime and that evidence the later robbery with the black gun and if we take a look at deon dreyer bowman's testimony about his robber his robber was carrying a black semi automatic weapon a go up forty or forty five that is mr moments testimony and i would suggest to your honor's that that adds additional support for the three witnesses testimonies of the gas station armed robbery defendant puts a lot of our defense counsel puts a lot of significance on the oring case in the maclaurin case has a lot of problems analytically the majority opinion is unsound in that case so that was part of why the concurring judge who didn't agree with that analysis about this bifurcation between armed typical criminal firearm element an armed robbery firearm element she still agreed with the reversal problem with that is a majority and the concurring opinion in mclaurin ignored a crucial piece of how that it's in the sufficiency analysis that piece of evidence was after the officer so i defended running fifty feet away with this firearm or what she believed with a firearm defendant jumped in a van that van drove away police followed it was eventually stopped the officer when she came up on that and was on the driver side and defendant got out of the arrested but the reasonable inference under the jetson first virginia standard is that that was the gun that the officer had seen defendant with earlier and defendant discarded it before he could get captured and a with either washington right or any of the appellate decisions that address this issue and there was some point the defense counsel said that i think are worth repeating that there is no requirement that a witness have prior knowledge of firearms there is no requirement that there be a description of the caliber the color the weight composition all that is required in this is our supreme court telling us is that the witness observe the firearm and testify that it was a gun and if there is sufficient evidence which there is in this case we view it in the light most favorable to the prosecution and in this case there was sufficient evidence now justice that gerald smith you had said something about a brown case and i have to say that i can't remember i i come t understand the issue again before this court is that under right we need to look at the testimony we got to see if there's what was the ability of the particular witnesses to observe along with any additional knowledge about say the word gun that's not true right doesn't support that formulation washington doesn't support that formula again this is a case where there's a brief fleeting glimpse of a weapon states adjusted they looked at it for forty five seconds you know cedric reason to do that mcclaren faithfully cites all controlling supreme court precedent i know that the state suggests and perhaps are going to file feel a that's fine but i think that under right in washington and under the facts of this case the state did simply argued for about half an hour about how she moved the evidence and made it work i thought i just wanted you to know that she did an excellent job