included a waiver paragraph the detective did not ask thomas if you wish to speak he did not ask if you wish to sign the initial the waiver but he was he was ordered to the detective had the sheet in front of him and pointed to the line next the waiver paragraph and said initially here typically when you see these recordings the police will ask the suspect knowing these rights do you wish to speak and that didn't happen here the law requires a clear manifestation of desire to waive rights that didn't happen here for example he didn't start interrogation so under those circumstances the waiver wasn't valid to talk about in the sure you understand it they asked if early on do you understand your rights confession was involuntary at the beginning of the recording you see thomas asking the detective did you contact my aunt and he named her specifically so with him implied that he even had told them about her before so this is the first if not the second request for the aunt the police to not try to call the aunt but you saw officer leave some message for the mother on the home phone he doesn't attempt to call her on the cell phone so really he made very little effort to contact the mother and i also know that call wasn't made immediately upon his a which the statute talks about but the time of the rest wasn't clear but it was somewhere after three twenty and officer isn't contacting the mother till four forty then they don't wait a whole long time before beginning the waiver reading and the ultimate interrogation and the youth officer asked a few questions but he stood there while the detective tol talk to asked if they had contacted his aunt so this is a second of no third request so it's pretty clear i want to talk to my aunt but nobody does anything about it well i think it's particularly egregious when the mother calls she says i'm out of town can't get there till nine a car pooled and i want to speak to speak to my son and the detective says no and at the hearing he testifies well i couldn't verify doesn't do that so i think the course of conduct i think here leads conclusion that there was really an intentional effort to talk to thomas before he could communicate with with his relative be it the mother or the aunt i mean if the purpose of the statute is to allow a parent to confer with their child before the interrogation begins and i would argue the that purpose was was thwarted here i cite case law how absence of a concern to adults particularly relevant when the child asked to speak to a concern adult and there's a case saying that when the police prevent a pair in that case they were present at the station they prevented the parent from speaking to the child that the confession is to be presumed involuntary and i think it should apply in this case to i don't know why that's a special situation but the mom calls on the phone and they they can't allow that communication to occur also the one of the officers  not make didn't ask him specifically did he understand the law the paragraph about we waiving the right to understand i agree to that i want to speak to the police because before that interrogation thomas initially was denying that he was involved and they basically wore him down there wasn't he didn't there isn't a reason why he should it mid his involvement  they wore him down i think the techniques were particularly effective use such subtle juvenile and they work very quickly  so the police conduct in this case preventing communications with when a child when the relatives directing him to sign the waiver and using those course of interrogation techniques shows how juveniles can be manipulated into waving their rights and involuntarily confessing and that's why i'm arguing in to that juveniles should be represented by counsel i mean common knowledge even apart from you know research studies as juveniles adolescents lack mature judgment and it's a biological fact of their brain development and that's reflected in a lot of different civil statutes restricting minors from engaging in activities involving the ability to reason such as serving on a jury and so the the criminal laws kind of catching up with the science we see that with the with the trend in sentencing law recognizing how juveniles are different and i guess that's one emphasize i was very eye opening in the in the research study i did cite that most juveniles have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is to have a right they will something that we would take for granted but that the majority of majority of them believe that if they exercise they did or said if i exercise a right i can't be penalized later and that's a that's a nuanced understanding and it is not reflected in the in the miranda warnings and i would argue without this  understanding how could a waiver of rights be intelligently made i mean if the juvenile can't understand that crucial concept of what it is to have a right how can he waived his miranda rights i mean in contrast we don't even trust him to enter into a simple contract but what we are going to allow him without the guidance of counsel to waive his rights and i argued  first is whether or not the defendant properly waived his miranda rights the second was whether or not of the confession was voluntary the third deals and then the third deals with whether or not there should be a rule that all juveniles should be represented by counsel when under investigation for a crime of a serious nature as was at hand in this particular case the fourth and final issue is with regard to sentencing and whether or not in this particular instance there are any concerns with the supreme court's decision and miller and whether or not they are implicated in the sentencing here the first two of these issues are more straightforward in their analysis because they simply require the court to look at the legal standard and the facts to determine whether or not the defendant was indeed deprived of any of his rights the second to the third and fourth issues are a little more broad in their scope and that they are looking at whether or not there are constitutional implications and the defendant is asking this court to take steps that have never been taken by the courts before in finding  his rights they asked you understand of these and if you understand these please initial here there was also a useful answer present who not just present but who actively engaged the defendant so when he asked the defendant do you understand that you know what an attorney and when defendant said yes he said tell me what is an attorney to make sure there were no questions that the defendant was a game that he understood what was happening and that he had the capacity to recognize what it is he was doing does that mean he had a perfect understanding no up possibly not but that is not what the law requires there are many adults who do not have a perfect understanding of what it means to waive their miranda rights nonetheless the law says they have a right to do that and in this particular instance the defendant was carefully walked through those steps and all of his rights were fully safeguarded did the detectives actually say to him and make him repeat the words i want to talk to you no they did not and they are not required to do so so long as the record in its entirety is clear that the defendant knowingly and intelligently waived the rights that are guaranteed to them in this or the investigating officers are required to contact parents there at the statute is is is somewhat it doesn't require much it requires that the state contact a parent which is what happened in the investigation or in the questioning or of protecting the youth involved or the youth officer was actually part of the investigation and their courts and has stated great concerns with whether or not the officer is doing what it is here she is and is required to do nonetheless the court has said that that factor alone is not the terminal that we look at the full picture and the full picture here is that the defendant was a use of he was a more advanced age do you use a so called older you and as such had better understanding than perhaps a younger individual that he had attained an educational level that you know of a junior in high school that he had a stable family and that and no point in time during the questioning if you exhibit any confusion or inability to understand what's going on and that gets us into the second aspect of the defense argument the detectives are home and they are not in any way belligerent they do not badger him they do not do anything that would rise to level of screaming or yelling or harassing i want point one individual does raise his voice but in the grand scheme of things that was minimal and it was understandable in the circumstances and he had every right as an investigating detective to say to the defendant i know that you're not being truthful to me i  think it's important to remind you that the detectives were dealing with a situation where they had someone who had just been shot on the streets of decatur and they had three individuals in custody who they believed might be responsible but they had a very very little time the entire time the questioning went on was in a span of twenty four minutes less time than we will spend arguing here today about this case so when compared to other cases where the courts have found that a confession was properly obtain the facts of this case are dramatically different in those particular cases we were dealing with situations were in minor of a very young age was question for extended periods of time deny the ability to use the restroom taken to the the police station there was relatively little or minimal delay all things considered before he was actually question by the officers it was during daylight hours and and it was relatively short period of time five about five twenty five twenty two officer really informed the defendant that he could not reach the mother and that they would be moving forward but that officer brinkley would be there serving as his advocate and as you saw a youth officer and explaining to him he was there in his mother's stead and as a result the fact that they could not get hold of the mother was fortunate but was consistent the practice that the police officers then moved forward with was consistent with what was required know as rational people i'm sure we would all agree that there is it would be desirable that they give some period of time what is appropriate is probably depending upon the circumstances in this particular instance as i noted there was some degree of urgency among the police officers to make sure they had the right individuals who were responsible for this very serious action if not for that fact perhaps the preference would have been to wait longer and perhaps a police officers would have done so given the circumstances they did wait with regard to the third and fourth arguments i'll touch on those briefly and with regard to the third argument defendant is requesting that this court find it per se rule that all juveniles should be given an attorney when accused of a serious crime and be questioned by police officers this is an area where the courts have been reluctant to intervene because it is an area where the legislature has been more active and more looking at this particular issue and for good reason this it requires a large number of factors to be considered and in fact the legislature has made some changes as both parties i believe that the juvenile court act does require minors to be provided counsel in some situations and if in this particular instance defendant had been younger he would have been provided counts so this is a more of a broader public policy issue looking at what what society deems to be appropriate the legislature has already stepped in there and made that determination through the public forum and discussion as a result this is an area where the courts will certainly welcome to step in if  as well as individuals who are a victim of a crime as well as the broader societal cations and what we as a society would like to see as a result there are no arguments made by defendant in this particular case that the trial court did anything wrong just a desire that things be done differently and again the legislature has spoken in this area that is similar to the fourth and final argument with regard to sentencing there the legislature in response to the united states that the united states supreme court has not on polished a life sentence without the possibility of parole or a juvenile they simply have said that they want to make sure the courts are taking into account the special circumstances that may be present when a juveniles responsible for a crime in this particular instance as has been noted in the states free those factors were taken into account even though this particular instance took place before miller and before changes to the demeanor and found great concern with the fact that in no point in time if you exhibit anything that resembles morris he did not accept responsibility for his actions so as a result or at that point in time said even though it has  of the prior sentencing scheme to issue a lower sentence he did not believe it was appropriate the court exercise its discretion which is still allowed under the current state of illinois law the spine all of these changes and so the state's argument is twofold here number one even if the court were to find that this was a de facto life sentence the trial court did what it was supposed to do prior to interact and as a result miller has not been violated the second is that even the second prong of the argument though is that the life of this sentence entered is technically not a life sentence in the state of illinois a state that has never adopted a per se rule when it comes to life sentences some states may choose to do that and define that clearly oh no one has not done so and likely for good reason because as the priest point out a life sentence is highly variable depending on the person and is almost impossible to predict how long will the defendant live that is a question that cannot be answered we do know that according to the life table data from the stated if it is not the full life sentence if it does not exceed that it is not a life sentence the defendant did cite to a recent supreme court case and his reply brief and i did want to just briefly touch on that because it was in the reply brief in the people reading the ray as case where there was a finding that a sentence was a fact a life sentence that is a very different circumstances speaking circumstance because there the sixteen year old defendant was sentenced to ninety seven years and would be one hundred thirteen at the end of that full sentence so it's a very different scenario than what we're facing here with the defendant would be in his early sevent not be the minimum allowable for a law i believe because of those changes but it is worth noting that even under the current sentencing structure in the changes to the statute the defendant in this case was looking at a minimum of forty years that under the new statute it actually says a juvenile who's convicted of first degree murder will serve no less than forty years so the legislature looked at this understanding that moment to change the landscape scape and still decided that juveniles who  factors that we've discussed and again in this particular case the trial court did take into account risk factors and believed based on all of the circumstances this particular defense required  issue officer didn't address that thomas was required to sign the wasn't required to sign the waiver paragraph counsel says that the record entirety supports the conclusion of the waiver was valid but she doesn't refer to a single back to support that and as i said before he didn't speak voluntarily there was no indication that his waiver was voluntary i think she also misspoke when she said a concern was that adult was present at all times well he wasn't literally present at all times and he was not a concerned adult act and acted as a concerned adult  statute for notification requires a reasonable attempt and it's not reasonable that they waited you know this is their urgent situation but they they didn't act with expediency in trying to contact the mom they could have called her on route to the police station there there's been a case that held that you waited for an hour with was not not says hi there quire meant of immediate attempt to contact the  parent or other concerned adult and even if the police technically complied with that statute the fact remains they would not let his mother speak to him should be counseled did not address that so special care was not taken here the detectives were calm they were persistent they wore him down he wanted to talk to his aunt they prevented the mother from speaking to him under those circumstances the waiver was not