it with the lawyers please approach in introduce yourself my name is christ my arguments on issue one regarding the sufficiency of the evidence that session and issue to regarding the second amendment as to the first issue mr ross was convicted of the offense of controversial criminal under a theory of constructive possession of a handgun the state in this case failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt essential element that this process had knowledge of the handgun according to the state's witnesses mr russell seen the in the driver's seat of power yet now as you're talking about can be constructive knowledge can in the possession itself can be constructive but the state has one of the elements is knowledge the state has to prove that i was young reasonable  it was in the case officers saw it from outside the vehicle in the back seat this particular defendant had a control over the car for that period of time correct the gun was in plain view to the officer point if you look at another case bailey that was one where the gun was underneath the passenger seat and so the fact that he was in the car was not enough it's also important to note here that this was not mr but he was routinely using her people to take her to work wasn't he yes he did routinely use the car to take her to work but if he only car that would lend greater weight to the state's case that he had knowledge of what would be inside his own car when you borrow a car from someone else you're not likely that as likely to book inside the car and know exactly what contents are there it's important that the gun was wedged between the back seat and the bag and there ross indicating knowledge of the gun and there was no evidence that he made any gestures or movements toward the gun as happened in some other cases as an engram the defendant ignored a demand to stop and so were pursuing him that's all that and question isn't necessarily whether it is or isn't but it but can a trial court infer that it is it's it's very weak evidence and certainly the evidence is there and it can be considered but in terms of a controlled substance which in no way indicates you think the world will be a better place if the felons all have guns well i think that they have the right to have would like i think that we have the second amendment and the u s supreme court is found th doesn't address it simply was saying we were not addressing that court brett i mean what does this mean about on standing prohibitions you reacting that the says nothing from our opinion should cast doubt so what is that isn't that what this is all about yes and so what the supreme court has said so far is that second amendment operates like any other constitutional right the bill of rights and of those rights there is no right that is what were they trying to state there i think again i think it's a little ambiguous but i think they're trying to assure people that the floodgates are going to be open for every regulation involving guns being struck down w aggravated u w statute and one important difference is that that statute contains an exception for possessing you know questions inside your home or a boat and this arm which will criminal statute here we're talking about somebody who's committed to felony correct but that's different from the citizen out there who's protecting himself well again mr russ we would argue has the same right obviously needs to happen outside the home just as often if not more often than inside the home but to address what doesn't work if your position that the tended and they would have excluded controlled substances with the net but we're not talking about the legislature right now we're talking about the second amendment ok so that's a you know constitutional rights that were interpreted here and where there is no provision for excluding felons it's important that we take a close look at that and give it some heightened level of scrutiny as we do other statutes that address or affect our constitutional rights in the bill of right as the officers approached so one officer stopped mr rauf and the other officer walked up to the car and looked into the window what about these other people that were allegedly there is some and some other what that the defense presented the trial should just be completely abandoned and the people obviously objected and over you it should not apply in a case where even today we're still at issue on a testimony the occurrence witness that testified that the defendant was not there the defendant son was not there so that that's really the chronology of the facts we're dealing with in this case and up in the people would obviously just briefly address in the first issue the the defendant's knowledge of this gun was proven beyond a reasonable doubt and it's clear because one he was in the car by himself but it wasn't just in the car by self the girlfriend testified that he was the she gave him permission to use the there and it's also important to note that she was dropped off at montrose and brought fifty five minutes before the officers found him at weston and sent so a lot of that fifty five minutes was spent in transport between one and two placed so there's not a lot of opportunity faced on how things for anything to really happen for those aliens to come down place the gun in the car there wasn't time but it is a reasonable inference based on these facts that this defendant in between that time got that gun in that really not clear from the briefs that the people addressed defendant's challenge here to the constitutionality of the arm for the jewel criminal statute as a facial challenge but it should be clarified here because it's not entirely clear from research whether we are dealing with here is a facial challenge or and has applied challenge because they are two different things and it's important because they have two different results and they look at two different things the facial challenge looks only at the statute itself and does not look at all the facts  it just says is the statute capable of being applied in system with the constitution if yes then it's constitutional and will vs how i'm always report has cited by the people literally says in there it's extremely difficult to make a mountain facial challenge to a statute and the as applied statute they be as applied challenge the constitutionality of the statute actually looks at obviously how it was applied the facts of the specific case but it's important because it has a different result which is if you find that as applied the it was a wide unconstitutionally the statute is still considered presumptively constitutional it's the application that is the point but the statute there was a very order to do it as applied challenge you need to have an actual fight and one of the rights under the second amendment say that well the interpretations of the second amendment is that it allows possession of a gun for a lawful purpose but there are no factual findings in this case those because that case really took a look at how the heller and mcdonald cases were treated after they came down how forts were reviewing statutes and that standard you've section there is very informative because the books  thirty district cases or the fourth district seventh district tenth district in the d c circuit and every and all five of those different courts all looked at second amendment challenges to statutes similar to this one the seventh district court was actually what you have that one possession of a gun but i thought they were all hell and but they are also came to a consensus on how to deal with these things and the consensus they came to was that there's a should be a two part t he first part is does the law itself implicate second amendment rights and then if so then you go to an intermediate school and what the people would argue with your peer today is that this statute should be upheld on the first part of th argument is that well the statement in heller that was repeated in mcdonald could be written off as victim but the fact first that the u s supreme court is saying something so radically and taking the trouble to repeat it a second time really goes against the argument that  but if you look at the actual holding the end of the case that and how this is all you know it's five fifty four u s reporter at page six thirty five five hundred six thirty five that says inside we hold that the district see in the the opinion on page six thirty one the court clearly says that our status is that this qualification because the court says before the court to petitioners have stated that if the handgun ban a struck down  respond it registers a handgun he could obtain a license assuming he is not otherwise a spotlight and then the court adds after that vote taishan in its own words by which they apparently mean if he is not a power so the court right there  no other government interest that could be more important if the government can provide public safety it's not going to be a government so it's the single most important government interest and this this statute is very very banned from the writer as i see a gun in the senate only recidivist downs of violent crimes and elevated drug offenses and of course the reason for that is because that there's a lot of gun violence in and around the narcotics trafficking and here in chicago that's that's a pretty well known fact in the city as hundreds and hundreds of people shot and killed every year and narcotics trafficking plays a big role on that fines so it's clear that even if this court did region or media how how would you address the language that you just pointed out to in the supreme court whole thing regarding felons and specifically last line and then the earlier reference that there is glued in from the protection of sex  jurisprudence with these two cases they said heller and heller that the right to bear arms at least extends to the home for purposes of self defense and don't just that you can be his fault and that the church get right we don't know what standards the supreme court would use and i think that going back to your earlier question about casting doubt on these prohibitions i think the reason that i think should be that he had knowledge then that issue will have been decided you know against him and then that issues before the court so but the stronger argument i think is the facial challenge particularly with respect to the portion of the army ritual criminal statute dealing with him do you get to go sorry do you get to have full facial this court can look at both what are you doing you'd want to file briefs what you what if you outlined here we made it essentially official challenge the location of the gun is that was pushed between the bag in the back seat and with the butt of the gun exposed and so certainly it's in plain view to the officer for searching for contraband that's not necessarily in complete and total plain view to mr ross used driving in the driver's seat and the gun just behind him with only part of it exposed so we're to believe that the bag and the gun were put there without him no one about it in other words it was either the tooth fairy or somebody else who did know it doesn't necessarily have to be we just don't know the from the evidence that came out at trial and again it's the state's burden to prove knowledge and the fact that the defendant was the only one in proximity certainly is not sufficient to show knowledge that much is clear and so here there's not enough from the factors that i it's not enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that mr ross had that knowledge