is where whenever you're ready to please the court your honor is this morning i doubt i'd like to address arguments one and three for my briefs i'm but if this court has any questions about arguments why be more than happy to address those as well this course reversed mr beck's conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm by a street gang member because the state failed to prove that a black piece downloads engaged in a course or pattern criminal activity as defined by the stop act in creating a lawful possession of firearm by a street gang member statute the legislature adopted a very strict and specific very detailed definition of street game from a stop at this definition requires the states approve among other things that the alleged gang prejudicial that it just shouldn't be in the record high and so now i hear you arguing that you really want this evidence of other crimes evidence that the  requires the two offenses with the i have years of each other so this is the state did before evidence related to the game but the state did not put forth evidence showing the course or pattern of criminal activity shootings intimidation and arson and this court said that that's not enough that general testimony that this gang has been doing these things that's one thousand nine hundred and seventy s is not enough because the statute requires that they show that these offenses happened within a specific time frame and so back cases just like this case there was general testimony about the black the songs i believe the most specific testimony that was presented it was was by officer y robot in terms of the from like to be of the legislation intended that very high burden on the state and even if this court words some follow very which i don't think it should because we have a st issue case that is right on point that is very similar to this case but if this court were to follow m murray's distinguishable on three critical recruitable factors and murray the gang expert testified that the latin kings were a street gang and i quote as defined by illinois law so the expert in that case was aware of this specific definition of street gang when he testified at the land kings were street game and i case none of the officers testified that they knew of that you know the definition of what w prison had an expert expert on gangs in our case three officers testified the state did not present any of them as a gang expert and so if murray stands by the assertion that an expert testimony is sufficient to carry that day and  of the latin kings and in this case it teleported murray and i'm quoting from paragraph six said that the expert detailed the criminal nature of the latin kings in particular and in our case there was no such detail given about the criminal nature of any in the state has not has not pointed us to any either and even if there was the state would still have to prove it in this case i'm just curious to know whether or not they've been defined as a street gang and the existing case i think since the one think you can thank you your honor the admission of certified letter from the illinois state police alleging that mr beck did not have a concealed carry license or a firearm owners identification card violated certification made a difference here the defendant did not state on the record that he did not have a white car that he did not have a c c l there was no other evidence on the record besides the improperly i made it evident that there was no object court has also recognized that the right to confront witnesses is a substantial right so under either probably playing air rule this issue should be reviewed and it sounds to me this issue in particular that we carry license just say nothing and then on appeal you can say it's of sleeping allan's and this file made my right of confrontation it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to encourage that kind of mean action by lawyers right i think what i would encourage is for the states a put for proper evidence that is that the defendant will have the opportunity is there any indication that he have the defendant said anything the state of said i will call the person signing the certification if you want that right there was no evidence that the place it was shanley for name is there's no evidence in the record that she was present are willing to testify or that the would have brought her in are that they could have or that her testimony it if she would have if counsel would have been able to cross examine her if her testimony would have been sufficient enough and that's the error here is the look the loss of the opportunity to come right this evidence and this one piece of evidence was critical because without that he could have been convicted of the class two unlawful possession of a firearm by gang member and several of the ad you don't use because they all require with about six of the count case is similar to cox and cox the court asked the attorney three times if you have checked it to the admission of the certification three times counsel said no i am not object ing and so on cox the court held that ok what we have where we have an we would be arranging lawyers to do nothing because they're better off if they do nothing i don't think so i think that the interest here is in protecting the constitutional rights of the defendants in front the witnesses actually i believe as i stated that it would encourage the state perhaps to bring in a live witness to testify to this fact so that the defendant can confront this witness about this critical evidence that's being made it and again i think is different the different from the cox case where i mean the court is asking the attorney you know specifically do you object and in this case you don't have that and so you so that then that kind of case the defendant actually testified on prostate he didn't have a white car and the court said that that was still reversible error that was still prejudicial because the defendant may not have testified had that certification error here you have evidence on the record that he doesn't have a fight card in and dickens and of course still found it prejudicial and in this case there's nothing but the certification in terms of what evidence is present to prove this it is your honor as well as and it's similar to the firearms act where they do outline several characterises the characteristics of what defines a firearms however the definition of a streaking member doesn't that raise the issue or the argued in here will be mary the definitions that are outlined in the statute don't necessarily lead to elements that the state needs support of in the end they're going to marry an expert here we don't even have somebody who's been qualified in the next right your honor so we have a late witness who was present and where as a present but they have to testify through another whereas the other as well the other actor your honor it would be the fact that these officers are experienced gang members they have they doing member i'm sorry aga circumstances but it seems the statute requires well there was our understanding to judge in terms of just the prejudicial most of the evidence and in terms of what the sash require that be that they're participating and what is considered again a street gang and in doing so allowing this evidence to sift to date and other crimes would be prejudicial to to the defendant specifically says to him or yes and i think that that ultimately goes to the statute stuff mission of just a pattern of criminal activity that's not what it says this is two or more than they've had right just my understanding is that that's under the definition of what it means to be a pattern of shrieking activity ok so you're saying that the definition isn't part of the element of the crime yes why is there then i believe it's their job similar asked the fire if that were true then there should have been witnesses assessed about the elements of the definition to put the whole package together and no one did then registered it would be our position that at that point that would i'm sorry your honor the fact can be seen in several ways we do have testimony from officer real buff indicating that he's made hundreds of gang related to ross and that he does have experience in investigating the black piece on the street gang member in doing so we had testimony saying that he's investigating crimes such as homicides aggravated batteries narcotics and weapons related crimes that will certainly go to show a pattern that is specifically  even further the defendant himself classify that the whole sole reason that he possessed that firearm was because he feared that someone was coming to take his position in the same street gang so not only do we have testimony in this case from experience officers that focus on game investigations we are also have the defendant's own statements indicating that he isn't bob what's called the black the stones and that he does possess this firearm that he was alternately convicted on because he wanted to ask protection has the option of objecting or confronting either the courthouse among the statements or you can simply choose not to on in this case the defendant chose not to exercise his right and he  counsel claims as plain air however when account when counsel simply remain silent that also takes the opportunity from the state to present their case in chief or to remedy these issues and call additional close that it's right to skip to tell the scales of justice however we don't have that here on ars again there is no indication that this was clean air where the bands where the attorney the defense attorney failed to object when he should have yesterday yes but this this case is distinguishable from murray because there was no expert the expert had no knowledge of the statute and because the testimony was detailed so i believe this work of follows on o and decide this this case also counsel speaks of the intent of the legislature in preventing gang members from carrying firearms when the legislature adopted this statute but i also like to point the court to the intent of the legislature when they adopted the word the definition of a gang member from the stop act during the debate on creating the yeah i can remember statute the law made lawmakers stated their intent was to hold the state and i quote to a very very high burden of proof on the gang russ rutherford said there exists an extremely clear definition of a gang member so it's not up to discretion for the state's argument essentially a shark short circuits this very high burden that that the legislature intended for the state to prove this gang member element st i'm sorry st james palace what about his testimony that he was a member of a street gang called the black he still he did not testify that he was a member of the black  towns that evidence was just was disputed the officer says that he that he told him that he was a member of the street gang a street gang but at trial defense counsel disputed that testimony that was not from the  lozano in that case the the testimony was that the twenty six dollars use violence to control their territory including murders shootings intimidation and arson so was the actual offenses that were committed and the court said that while that perhaps perhaps but here we don't even have that we have way less than that here we have just the general testimony that you know they're involved in criminal activity on the west side so  mentions that with testimony about making hundreds of bank arrests and all this all three officers testified that they make gang arrest the none of them testified of any of this activity being specific to the black keystones they were talking about in general i mean he could have some not all of the offenses that he was charged with required that he black or white car c c l i mean several of them did but some of them didn't and so we don't know why he ran we don't know why people run all