good morning and may please the court my name is now on earth here today from the illinois attorney general's office on behalf of appellant people of the state of illinois in this case the defendant was found guilty by a jury on three counts of forgery and after documents could be forgeries they could be fos and capable of defrauding if they made it appear that an event had occurred that did not occur or there was no objection by the defendant at that point on appeal the appellate court reversed the conviction and found and ignores the historical precedents of this courts which make clear that there was no such element of forgery ignores the committee comments to one nine hundred sixty one advise code which make clear that the section seventeen point three involves no change in appellate court cases which interpreted this language and found that the language is illustrated of and non definitional that it was not and that it did not create a new element no tax documents filed this court laid out the statute immediately laid out the committee comments and all eyes the statute in that matter this is something that the court has done and that this court noted that the comments to the illinois statutes are often used as a guide to ascertaining legislative intent the plain language the court looks to the plain language because that is the best indicator of legislative intent and often that is the case when you have a assembly knows how to make lists that are exhausted it knows how to make lists that say they follow one of the following four things must be done or this does not apply it knows how to make a list that is clearly exhaustive an exclusive to be sure it also knows how to make a list that is clearly non exhaustive are not inclusive or certain lists that speak in with language including but not limited to so we have on any ends of the spectrum also necessary to make it non exclusive list with respect to capable of the product so it at one point they specifically point to section b another point a and when they talk about capable of the fighting they don't  applies to subsection a also so that we have two parts of the committee comments which suggest that the list that we're looking at is non exclusive and  articulated by the not exclusive list in other words the the list the way in which at issue here according have to made by another order another time or by authority of one who did not give such authority or different provisions sets  a class of ways in which the document might be false or capable of the fighting it's not that the language is redundant or useless but it it sets out a class this is a principle of statutory interpretation of non exclusive lists if a does that fall into the statutory language it doesn't it doesn't purport to have been made with different with different provisions it propose that the crime is that it should have been made with different provisions and does not require to be made by authority i wanted to give such authority it just did not follow the authority so if we look at classic examples from this court with respect to checks with respect to other documents we see that things that are forgeries things that have always been forgeries do not fall within this language that is also clear from this court's case and that case the comptroller of a city filled filled out false information when  because in that case the comptroller exceeded his authority well that might be true that doesn't put him within the language of the statute again the statute doesn't say or exceeded his authority it says or  appears to be ported to been made by someone who by authority one who did not give such authority but in this case the mao case that would not have been there would not have been that would not to fit into this definition so defendant was charged with attempted theft and the teacher returned a not guilty verdict so the state believed that the that the defendant could have been could have been found guilty of that as well but he wasn't so that the documents that meet the this is for criteria now what's interesting about that is that in fact one of the documents did have altered language the paragraph had been taken out court found that the it wasn't the altered language itself which was the source of the body but it was the date in question but then that's a rather good example of why you might not be in the fore but as in the class of four here the original oath cards which stated the date of the date that the defendant was deputized could not be found so the so the defendant came to  said my dates wrong it's been wrong for eight years but i'm only bringing it up now but it's wrong and i would like it to be corrected so the retirement fund looked at it found no documentation could not find any documentation so what the defendant did is he created new documents with indicia of reliability on the sheriff's letterhead and a formal memorandum which listed his dates in other words the original document he could not alter the original document because that document could not be found so he did the substitute he essentially made another document to do the exact same thing which was to put a phosphate and this interpretation  whether purported to have been made by now there at another time and so forth and defendant said wait a second this is an element of a crime it wasn't an indictment and the young court said no it's not an element of the crime it's example of it's non definition  it's an illustrated list so that was nine hundred seventy four again you have the east west case a number of years later in the first district and in east west the facts and in every material way within the facts today the defendants were a university and a individual employee of the university and they created new documents in order to secure educational grant phones now these  was not an issue i believe none of the language at issue here was an issue and use west that the the specifically the the the document was focused on the language of the statute your honor that is to say again whether the lank whether under the facts alleged by that in the indictment but whether the facts alleged were such that they would have fallen within this language so the question was whether the facts alleged fell within the met the elements of the crime and east west experience no difficulty in concluding that the conduct constitutes forgery and it noted that the forgery has been six simply defined as a foster making or alteration instrument which is apparently capable of defining another and made of the intention of fide so specifically the court looked to this language and found that setting young that this language was not and not an example not not a an element of the crime so we have the historic precedence of this c we have the the language of the statute itself which is not clearly set forth as an exhaustive list which the legislature the general assembly knows how to do we have the fact that the committee comments in this case i'm not below the court had it interpreted the committee comments from the criminal code to find that concurrent provisions concurrent sentences were not allowed when  change in the statutory language but the change in the committee comments in other words the comments were looked to as a source of an intent which makes sense because the committee that had drafted them then presented them to the general assembly with an explanation of what they were to of forgery is settled and clear and set out in seven twenty i also see as five slash seventeen as three this court has already concluded that the statute defines forgery and it concluded  reached that conclusion in the hockaday case where the court relied on the language of the statute in deciding that case what the state is trying to do here is to create an issue where none exists in order to avoid an outright reversal of the defendant's conviction the problem is that their definition is so broad and opens up the definition of forgery so as to render the forgery statute completely meaningless you've heard the attorney general the assistant attorney general argue that the committee comments should be used to help understand the meaning of the statute but the committee comments in this case are not to the contrary  the position that is urged by the defendant in this case the comment state that the statute gives examples that are illustrative of a document capable of of defrauding and it's clear if you read the statute and the comments the comments only relate to subsection c of the statute because in subsection c of the statute there is clearly a list and illustrative list that set forth the statute says a document apparently capable of defrauding another includes but is not limited to etc so the statute itself sets forth a non exclusive alastor list in subsection  so the comment clearly the only fair reading of the comment is that it relates to the subsection c but i heard your honor's question and i agree that the statute itself is completely straightforward and clear and that we don't even need to reach the issue of the comment because the statute sets out clearly the meaning and the elements of the offense of forgery the cases cited by the assistant attorney general in this matter are not to the contrary east the main case is that they talk about east west young and mao are all cases involving the sufficiency of the indictment the standard in evaluating whether an indictment is sufficient is much lower  then what we are facing here today when we were just evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence against the defendant when you're evaluating the sufficiency of an indictment you're evaluating whether the indictment contained enough specificity to allow the defendant to defend the case and to preclude a second prosecution under the issue of double double jeopardy so in this case the cases that were cited by the state don't apply if you look at the facts of those cases you'll see that in each one of those cases the facts of the case involve documents that would clearly qualify as forgeries under the statute in mile involve the issue of a comptroller that forged a dispersement cheat the court stated that this country or had exceeded his authority and that fairly clearly falls under the subsection of the statute which says that a person commits forgery when that person makes or alters any document capable of defrauding another in such a matter that it purports to have been made by authority of one who did not give such a become troll or did have authority to make correct dispersement sheets but he was not given the authority to put any number he wished on the dispersant cheese he had exceeded his authority and therefore the document was a forgery in young the document involve the issuance of an unauthorised stock certificate in the same way that the document appeared to be genuine when it actually wasn't because it was a forgery it was made to look like a stock certificate that had the authority  corporation behind it but in fact it was just a document that was created by the defendant to to obtain money and there was great discussion during the opening argument and also by the appellate court of the case of east west east west involved grant applications that contained provisions that were false purported to rely on truthful enrollment records the indictment tract the statute in the lower court said that the indictment in such a case was sufficient to charge the defendant when defendant knowingly made documents imperent lee capable of defrauding another in such a matter that they purported to have been made with different provisions so in the east west case the i believe that they were analyzing section want to and the court of appeals in this case concluded that east west did not require a of an affirmation of the defendant's conviction because in east west the defendants had filled out these grant applications and they had relied on documents that they had purported were accurate documents regarding enrollment and tuition and when they submitted  the grant application they had submitted a document that purported to have provisions that were based on accurate documentation and so the document had different provisions then then it then it should have and that's why it was a forgery turning back to young again not only was young a case involving the sufficiency of the indictment but the court itself quoted the statute want to discuss the definition of the of the of forgery and said the statute does define and particularize the elements of forgery so even a case that the state relies on heavily in their argument even in that case the court referred to the statute and said that the statute statute itself does define even if the court were to agree with the state that subsection a only contains an illustrative list it is clear that the document in this case the defendant's letter to a supervisor cannot be a forgery if we look at the list we can derive certain common use use of words in the list to determine what kinds of documents would fall under that list even if it's not specifically identified so what do all the examples in the list have in common a forgery is a document that purports to be made by another or it another time a document that purports to have been made with different provisions for a document that purports to have been made by authority of one who did not give such authority in other words in all the examples the document must purport to must purport something falsely about itself a document that does not report something falsely about itself is not a forgery the defendant's letter does not befor purport anything false about itself it is exactly what it purports to be even if we concede for argument's sake that it contained a lie it is not a forgery it is simply a letter that the defendant wrote himself to a supervisor urging the supervisor to communicate with something that someone else regarding the defendant start date it doesn't fall into the category of the kinds of documents that are routinely discussed and understood to involve forgeries such as checks stock certificates driver's license grant applications that that all these documents purport to have something about them that isn't true the document itself is the problem either they have some a signature that's not true a provision that's not true and amount that's beyond the authority of that which is given we don't have any of those circumstances in the case here items listed here do routinely fall in to the class of list articulated by those things and that is apparent from looking at the cases now i'll turn quickly just to the three of the cases relied on original documents the facts of east west are that the defendants put forward new documents which stated fos information sure it is true that the false information that the true information had been recorded elsewhere that is also the case here at the true information have been were recorded on the original oath card the facts of the the relevant material facts are that new documents were produced those documents contained boss information and facts the fact that there are regional document didn't matter and the same goes for defendants are going to somehow this east west relied on the provisions issue well if if this fits within the definition of a court to have been made with different provisions that's the holding of the stress then that would apply here then these documents purported to have been made with different provisions in other words if defendants strategy to to to somehow distinguish way all these know dozens and dozens of years is to stretch the language then this case would also fonder that's just stretched language if the provisions and east west were different because they were false then the provisions are also different because they were false so that's the same thing with the mao case and mad different argues that this falls within the language of the report of have been made by someone who did not give it to me by thirty one who did not give such authority because become troll exceeded his authority but those are different things if exceeding authority falls within the puzzle thing giving up that the fact of who gave the authority of the country gave  mile there's no dispute about that if you somehow exceeded his authority by doing something false if worse to stretch that language then we should stretch all the language we should stretch the authority language we should should stretch the provisions like language and that would essentially have the same impact as making the list illustrated as opposed to exclusive so whichever way you look at it the cases support the state's position they have done so since  early part of the century and they've done so in the latter part of the century twentieth century now turning towards the hockaday case the issue hockaday was whether the state whether that indictment had alleged anything or by thought of someone who did not give such authority so hockaday cannot be said to have laid out the definitive lists of the elements since it in fact eliminated language which was included in the statu itself and which nobody argues would not have satisfied this list so how could they just has nothing to say as to the issue presented so again we have the historic precedents of this court which have made clear that it is impossible to identify every way that forgery may occur and which found that cases with facts materially similar to these constitute forgeries we have subsequent making the same the same analysis of the statute so unless there are any further questions of the court we would ask that the appellate court's decision be overturned on the judgment of the circuit co