you may say thank you your honor may please the court counsel my name is sean conley i'm with the office of the state appellate the founder and i represent they did brown who was convicted after a jury trial of which he went pro se of armed robbery  murder predicated on that armed robbery intentional murder unlawful possession of a firearm i thought one and an additional allegation of personally discharging a firearm resulting in a death he was acquitted in the same proceedings a home invasion and aggravated  discharge of a firearm judgment was entered on the felony murder count in the unlawful possession out and he's currently serving a term of natural life consecutive with fourteen years we've raised three issues on appeal the first issue which is what i'll be focusing on today raises the trout was refusal to instruct the jury and certain mitigating instructions issued to raises the admission for the purposes of impeachment of a prior conviction of aggravated battery with a firearm and issue  because mr brown was also he was also charged with intentional murder as a matter of law if he's entitled to the sub defense instruction he should get that instruction regardless of  terms the issues that brown had a theory of the case he had a defense and he wasn't allowed to present that plans to the the head defense of the jury he testified that he that this was a drug deal that he went to the apartment to ask for the drugs that he'd already paid for or to ask for his money back and the victim escalated the situation by pulling a gun around got control of the gun know he was in his words not attempting to rob testimony what happened the situation was that it becomes full on him there was a struggle he would treat the gun and then essentially continued the conversation or the very heated discussion that was going on obviously that's not what happened but the issue really comes down to you know the essential element of the armed robbery is taking in this case a purse through threats of force or  workforce now certainly would i have recommended that he leave the apartment and absolutely he didn't do that but i his testimony is that despite the fact that he's holding the gun he's not making a stress he's he's simply asking for what he thinks is owed to him and he accepts this person as a consideration for that done though in his view it's not again mr brown has testified that he was not trying to rob these people that he accepted the proceeds of the supposed robbery because they were offered to him the implication is again he's not making threats he's not taking that person through that same evidence can be seen circumstantial evidence these not making stuff so while self defense is not it is not a defense or the felony murder itself that the entirety of mr brown's theory of the case becomes more credible in the context of self defense and consequently so if you're trying to say that if i can get the jury to believe self  beginning and from the very beginning he was told by his attorney and by the state's attorney and by the judge that that was not available to him because he was drugged on the murder and of course that's that's not the state of the law because find him it would be possible to find him not guilty of intentional murder and guilty of felony murder but again because of the structural error because the judge the jury's not allowed to consider the possibility that he was justified in taking up  gun in the first place we cannot know beyond a reasonable doubt that that the results of the jury's consideration of the issues relevant to the underlying felony would not have changed will other than fusion what if you in the felony murder would this out what would these jury instructions go to the relevant the felony whether or not he was making threats whether or not he took the proceeds of the supposed robbery through for threats or or force because again as it stands now the gun is a rip as a relatively obvious indicator of a threat but if the jury were consider the possibility it's more credible were becomes a problem the first place to consider the possibility that despite the fact that he's holding a gun he's not making  it and so consequently the you know the jury in this case is considering all the settings i but it's considering it without the benefit that of the applicable that reasoning that you're just out absolutely absolutely absolutely that arguably they were riveted from using that reasoning but they were never all that felt that that is correct it's correct to put it another way this around steer the case is self defense that was a serial case from the beginning and he was denied the opportunity to bring that in front of the jury and defended well but what opposing counsel suggesting is convicted of murder intentional murder yes but was i think in terms of in terms of whether the defendant would have done below had he been more sophisticated i think that it's appropriate at this point  that mr brown acted in self defense and furthermore that he was not the initial aggressor in this confrontation that he came to this apartment to ask for state's evidence was that mr brown showed up with a gun but again in terms of whether there's a clear error the threshold of evidence necessary to qualify for the defense is very very  after which there's also physical evidence corroborating that but what about like in more there's well there was a struggle there jill and the supreme court said you you were you were found guilty extent a credibility cons has again this physical evidence to cooperate i mr brown's version of those advance and the jury itself there's some evidence that the jury itself saw it is a closed case  necessarily fair to characterize the evidence here is overwhelming and in that sense again getting back to your point here on this is we're looking at this on the plane you know i think that we can view this either as i case in which the closeness of the evidence presumes the prejudice or the other problem of plane where again this is about mr brown's fundamental right to mount a defense to the charges that he's charged with and he was denied that the fast that is that is a denial of his fundamental right to a fair trial and in terms of clean air and think that we