good morning may it please the court on full and assistant attorney general john godfrey on behalf of the people of the state of illinois the fourth district here aired as a matter of law by interpreting section three contains no language limiting the prohibited obstructions to objects attached to the plate without mabury the phrase any materials demonstrates the legislative intent to broadly prohibit any materials attached to or on the vehicle that have while the version in effect at the time of defensive asked also included building bridge including but not limited to glass covers and plastic covers this language was meant only to provide a specific example of materials that were prohibited it was not meant to exclude materials that were not explicitly listed as to ban it now our view is indeed this court has repeatedly held that the phrase including but not limited to that fourth an illustrator list rather than and exhaustive on my own bare language regarding license plate covers was only added to the statute more than twenty years after it was originally an active and legislative debate transcripts from this time reveal that this language was added only to clarify that license plate covers were specifically prohibited because at the time they had been used to destroy the image of the cover of the plate itself it just seems as though the place for the manufacture because created to place a license is very low on the car and so those cars in your theory could never have a trailer can remove it yourself just using a wrench so if you buy a car and you want to truly hitch the manufacture make it such that you it's very low you have to take off you have to do something to to to there's only one place with the license plate well i agree but i think that most of the factory and that are attached to the frame itself and most of those are not trucks and s u v s where the license plate is actually slightly above that so when it's battery installed i believe oftentimes the ball would not be in an abstraction at the plate but when the so in that instance the driver would have a license plate on the trailer and it wouldn't via statute but when you simply have the ball on the vehicle and you're not towing anything it's not really serving any purpose and it's very easy to remove it in order to conf the plate and fall which wouldn't actually be possible and as you lane highway and on that larger four lane highway we would be encouraging officer so even not of traffic in order to view the plane fall which would endanger other drivers think act that tiriel the would obstruct visibility of late but not limited to glass covers in plastic covers it doesn't go beyond what could be attached to the plate itself it doesn't plate including but not limited to black covers and plastic covers but it's talking about good meaning the the plate cracked but this is just one phrase in the larger the larger statute it also requires the plates to be in a position in a place in position to be clearly visible and maintained in a condition to be clearly legible so even if we limited that language that you were just discussing two objects attached the plate it thout then over there is also a separate of the driver needed to remove the ball or to move the plate so that it conform to that requirement it does not conform to the plain language requirement that it be plainly visible i also  owner is essential for law enforcement to determine whether the vehicle is properly properly registered or stolen and whether the owner is suspected of a crime or is the subject of a warrant clear event occasion of the plate is also essential for our ordinary citizens who witness hit and run accidents drive bay shootings traffic violations and the like similar criminal activity so that they can aid criminal investigations with this information and where necessary provide evidence in court the purpose of acquiring clear visibility of the plate is actually demonstrated here the officer testified that he was unable to view the license plate and ball because the trailer hitch partially obstructed his  vehicle by the place you are going to hear and earlier that it from was pulling the trailer it's ok because the trailer has a license on it but there are a lot of form of agricultural cultural vehicles trailers wagons etc they do not require licenses to be elations plate is clearly visible if an object attached to the vehicle obscures the entire plate so long as that object is not directly attached the plates up for instance a driver could attach an o not have intended such an absurd where trailerable hitches were attached to a car they could have written a statute that regulated travel ball hitches for instance in another section of the traffic code twelve five zero three there's a statute entitled windshields must be unobstruct then equipped with wipers that's pretty clear and what the state would like you to do is rewrite this statute to say something like license plates should be unobstructed form not materially obstruct it doesn't say position on that your honor is that when it when you look at the words maintained and free from bay indicate materials that are on the license plate rather than things that are attached to the car and that would be the difference that we would have  particular statutory interpretation you know that you can and you can remove the trailer if they slide to get out of the frame some people they see you know are putting in say new details or whatever could you put something in th car if you just put something in there to block the place that would not have a legitimate purpose and that would not would not be lawful you would be intentionally trying to obscure the license plate there's no indication in the history of history that the legislature ever even considered trailerable hitches when it wrote this legislation no senator or representative ever talked about trailerable hitches without some kind of indication that the legislature intended this this court should be reluctant reluctant to rewrite the statute one of the things the state indicated was that when you're playing a trailer that has a license plate on the back of it that that somehow is therefore lawful because the trailer has a license plate and that's true in a lot of cases as justice o'connor pointed out that some vehicles are not required to have but this statute actually does not contain an exception for when you're pulling a trailer there's nothing written in the statute that says that the license plate must be clearly visible and clearly legible in much upon israel so under the actual language of the statute when you hook up something to the back of your trailer hitch you're violating the statute the police officer driving behind you can't see your license plate and there's no exception in the statute in the state has to read that into the statute in order to say oh no that's ok to have a trailer because it's got a license plate on the back and that's not what the statute says there's no such except fix the plate you can't see the plate no problem of that that comes within the statue you start with the whole issue is structured to mean the ability to see the plate so why wouldn't it be read more broadly it's certainly the purpose of the statue that the ability of the plate well be the reason why we wouldn't we should read it more broadly is because it is punitive statute and should be narrowly construed if there's any ambiguity at all one of the things the say talks about is that this language clearly visible and clearly legible people they seem to want us to hear completely invisible and completely legible i would submit that on this record this license plate on this car was clearly visible and clearly legible for this reason the police officer testified that he could see the plate not completely but he could see the plate on the car and saw that it was partially obstructed so i would argue that that's completely out when i mean clearly it's clearly visible he saw the plate i mean there were times back when i was arguing death cases in front of your honor's that i wish that wasn't visible but i was clearly visible and even though the podium blocked off part of me so i don't think we should read clearly visible as completely visible the same with could clearly legible the officer in this case testified that when he got up to the car he could read the license plate it was clearly enforcement on should be able to see the plea for various reasons very well there's the other side of the issue people who want to obstruct a play so if we redid the four corners of the plate is all that's involved doesn't it open it up legitimate purpose for the but other than to obstruct the plate that person is deliberately trying to keep his plane from being seen from all angles when you have a trail of all edge kids when you're  behind the car it will block part of the plane are the letters but if you move over to the side or move over to the other side or move a little above it it's legible you it's clearly legible you can read that's what the police officer in this case so it's our position that trail of all hitch is like i said they have a legitimate purpose they all farm implements they all trailers they all recreational vehicles on the way up here i saw a couple pulling a recreational vehicle that bad vehicle blocked their license plate on the car attached to their recreational vehicle was a bike carrier so they have bikes when they got to where they were going that was blocking the plate on their car there there are so many legitimate reasons to have things attached to the back of the car that if the legislature wanted to regulate that they should write a statute to regulate that to make it illegal to have a wheelchair carrier on the back that obstruction license plate  california state courts byrd's legislature specifically had an exception within the statute for wheelchairs so it's clear that at least they were thinking you know this isn't right that people should be inconvenienced like this so i don't think we can read into our statute something that's not there there's no indication that the legislature intended this it's not written in the statute and the appellate court in this case correctly held that it's only material that's attached to the plate that should be regulated by three fourteen three most court as for the questions thank you for ho writing have a few points in rebuttal defendant argues that neither state is asking to read language into the statute this is not a here but that's actually what defendant is attempting to do this statute contains no language limits hanging or headed abstractions to mysterious that's not have a legitimate purpose it just simply doesn't say that it prohibits any materials that would obstruct the visibility of the plate that language should be interpreted broadly to serve the purpose of the statute which is demonstrating a clear visibility of the plate so that law enforcement and other interested individuals can clearly read the plague and before corners  interpretation defeats the requirements even have played in the first instance if you can only see part of the play and you can identify the registered owner you need to see all of the numbers and all of the letters to be able to run the plate and plates but if you're telling i suppose another vehicle bikes can also be mounted on the roof of the vehicle but officers have discretion when determining whether to stop a vehicle for any type of violation so if if it were  there towing a another vehicle or a four wheeler i suppose that with you the officers discretion but that would violate the plain language of the statute because the plate would not be clearly visible and i see the earlier question addressing farm requires a greater degree of visibility than simply walking up and looking at the vehicle most times officers are going to be in their own vehicles following the defendant's vehicle and they're not going to be able to leave in and out of traffic as i stated it's not pulling anything as they did before the ball itself is easily removable it only serves a purpose when you are pulling something such as the trailer or another item so the defendant's argument that this does not