majority of the court reversed the defendant's conviction for aggravated vehicular hijacking despite the fact that the defendant in this case hijacked the hospital shuttle bus by placing the shame to the driver's throat forcing doctor more specifically the defendant in this case was in a mate in cook county jail who had just been found guilty of an unrelated contract murder he was awaiting a life sentence or potentially facing a life plea sought medical treatment and the jail brought him to stroger hospital however this was a ruse because once at the hospital he attacked his jail guard with a shank that he brought to the prison he also attacked another patient trying to get out of the hospital he slashed the nurse who tried to stop him and once he made it outside the hospital he found an awaiting shuttle bus that was simply driving passengers back and forth through the parking lot of the hospital and he jumped through the open doors of that bus put his shame to the driver's throat and threatened staff and if he didn't drive now on this advents he was found guilty of multiple offenses including hitler hijacking aggravated but the majority below reverse that conviction and the reason given by the majority was that vehicular hijacking requires dispossession of the vehicle from the victim in other words because the defendant in this case didn't take the bus away from the driver didn't remove the driver from the bus that somehow the offense was not complete there was a committed it's our position that the lower court majority's opinion was far too narrowly drawn such that you render an absurd result for instance the very act of hijacking putting a gun to somebodies had to force them to drive is excluded from the reach of the statute according to the majority this also excludes the most dangerous conduct from the region if you were hijacked and sachin when the victim is somehow still in the vehicle during the carjacking majority it's also not behavior hijack because there's no dispossession and yet it's also not kidnapping or aggravated kidnapping because in illinois or kidnapping statute requires the element of secret confinement and it can hardly be said that this was secret when an offender in a vehicle or a bus in this case put the shank to the driver's throat so it was a mistake for the majority to wrongly read  but this was a mistake because the vehicular hijacking statute may use similar language but it's different statute an armed robbery it's not robbery or armed robbery of vehicles the statute is hijacking it's a well known term freighted with specific meaning which our legislature has used in other contexts and we've provided in our brief for instance in the death penalty statute where one of the aggravating factors hundred ninety one construed a case where the offender was charged with armed robbery and found guilty of armed robbery in the basis of that charge was the offender's conduct of jumping into a vehicle forcing the driver at gunpoint to drive the car and eventually they drove the car from buffalo grove to chicago and eventually the victim was able to lie down this car and to defend its ran from the car but  and the reason that this court said that is because robbery in illinois has a common law base and statutes interrogation of the common law have to be in for pretty consistent with the common law and the common law the historical roots of armed robbery and robbery possession in fact as far back as ninety no wait this court had said that there must be an actual severance of the property from the individual to constitute robbery and armed robbery these same common law routes that drove that analysis don't exist for the vehicle or hijacking the ignore hijacking is a crime of recent inches that's exactly what the legislature  and the legislature may have used the term taking but the legislature also focused only on vehicles and thus there's the implicit understanding that one can take a vehicle by hijacking one can't hijack a wallet one can take your or if they had simply wanted to increase the punishment for the quote unquote armed robbery of vehicles all they needed to do was increase the punishment in the armed robbery statute but they didn't do this either and they certainly didn't create armed robbery or robbery of the they created behavior hijacking at the same time removing vehicles from the reach of the robber a statute that is a clear indication  legislature viewed vehicles differently and viewed the tape in a vehicles to encompass the act of hijacking as occurred in this case also have it terms there are ordinary and accepted meaning unless there is a reason not to and in this case the hijacking or taking of a vehicle via a hijacking need not be beholden to the limitations of the common law because it is a new offense that is the most rational interpretation of the statute in this case it's true to the legislative intent and in accord with the majority of jurisdictions that statute but affirm everything else otherwise thank you thank you statutory language and the legislature reinforces that language it's presumed they're aware of that construction and it's presumed that they intend that same meaning not only did they use that history language they put it immediately next to the rubber statues was that was actually driving the bus yes remain in physical possession and so this activity and all this stuff in the kidnapping or other crimes but not so lacking any authority under illinois law contest or even a different vehicle that's not covered as a motor vehicle a book perhaps would not on the statute even though you can force someone to control it to your benefit so they're not unique in a way that would make the phrase takes from a different the score to do is ignore the legislatively chosen title of the offense hijacking defense counsel got a hearing talked about where the statute is in relation to the robbery statute that's not a function of the legislature that's the function of public shorey but said likewise where the statue is the title of the section of the statutes and that's also not a function of the legislature stroy in this case in this court is set on multiple occasions they were not to away from a common law bans removed vehicles from the reach of a common law fence we should not ascribe the narrow common law reading to this new statute where the legislature intended this new statute all that a new genre of crime and a crime of recent vintage so the defendants believe that this is just armed robbery of a vehicle is absolutely incorrect and it's contradicted by exactly and you know and as a result made the same mistake and in fact just because macarthur made this mistake does not necessarily mean that there's been tacit approval by the legislature there's multiple other cases that we cited in our brief where there have been situations where a hijacking has been charged with vehicular hijacking and the individual is still in the vehicle at the wheel no less and i think harder if up how dangerous the crime is when the victim still remains in the car because it's just a spur call the victim in macarthur was actually killed behind the wheel and his burned body was cherry picking parts of the common law that they want to import into the high tech if we take a close look at the strickland case we know that this court said that armed robbery requires actual removal of the item from the victim's possession complete dispossession but what the majority below in defense council are trying to do now is a void that absurd actually as one of the elements and one of the ways prove it is during a carjacking the victim remains in the car we don't have that so there is that absurd absence of a serious offense describing the conduct here if the majority  defendant are correct and if the majority in defendant can't accept strickland wholesale there's an implicit understanding that maybe strickland shouldn't control in this case and frankly the interpretation about the victim maybe being in the car just not behind the wheel is an absurd distinction that is not supported by the text of either strickland an arm robbery jurisprudence or even the texas vehicular hijacking vehicle or hijacking statute doesn't make a distinction between on one hand and offender taking the wheel or on another hand the vendor keeping the victim at the wheel at gunpoint or at knifepoint as in this case short of ross indication by the legislature that this is a relevant distinction the appellate majority independent shouldn't have manufactured limitations in the hitler hijacking frankly inconsistent with the purpose in the title of this new vehicle or hijacking crime and it truly is our position that the word takes when we are referring to a vehicle includes the act of hijacking and that's precisely why the legislature removed the of calls from the armed robbery statute and put them in this new statute because vehicles and be taken from a victim by taking the vehicle away or simply by forcing the victim to drive under force or threat of force there is nothing in the bill or hijacking statute that prevents this