o state your case for the record constitutional right to cross examination illinois courts have repeatedly held the defendant should be given the widest latitude in questioning witnesses on matters related to credibility in greg james this case the court restricted questioning of the most crucial witness in the case the alleged accomplice least stapleton at trial stapleton testified that he committed the murder alone without any help from gregory james the state in turn introduced into evidence two handwritten statement stapleton had given implicating james in the murder on cross examination he acknowledged that the state offered him a plea deal to armed robbery in exchange for testimony consistent with those earlier handwritten statements and then he rejected the deal and in pled guilty to first degree murder but the court would not allow defense counsel to question him about the specifics of those deals and the jury was prevented specifically from hearing four things first how much time stapleton was offered on the armed robbery deal that's thirteen years second how much time he faced for first degree murder and there was a range between twenty and one hundred twenty years because the state at the time was seeking an extended term sentence there to tell us how would how would you be able to let the jury know that that individual was facing between twenty and one hundred twenty years without letting the jury know that the defendant on trial squeezing between twenty and one hundred twenty years they were by totally blowing out the ruling on the motion limiting your honor the specific question defense counsel sought to ask was were you aware of how much time you could do on the involve a minimum of forty five c m s all the planning that goes to the idea that you can't put things before the jury that they're not supposed to be concerned with because it may prejudice them against you know finding the facts without going off into other areas that they shouldn't be speculating on so it doesn't depth feed into this whole idea of speculating well he could get this but we don't know what he could get maybe he could get more maybe give less they're going to be focusing on something that they're not supposed to be looking at because there is this general idea that you felt that the jury does not get to hear about sentencing because that's not what they're japanese the judge imposes has to turn right to the law and that your honor the case law that th relevant to those that accomplices credibility in other words what he gained or lost by giving his testimony people those were those were those plea agreement cases where those cases where the state had a greek entered into an agreement with the the accomplice yes they were on or is the big difference here in this case is that we're sort of looking at something new here and that is where the co defendant accomplice whatever he didn't agree to of a particular leverage in a way your honor it is it is this specific factual context i would absolutely agree is new and has now been addressed in illinois however the broader concept has very much been addressed in people versus triplet feel annoyed supreme court said that it a cross examine is a matter of who cross examination is a matter of right as to what a witness has gained or lost by his testimony in people and here defense counsel is trying to elicit what stapleton lost by refusing to testify consistently with his handwritten statement well how do we know he really lost and we know that he lost what the jury didn't know but we know that he lost effectively sentencing nine years of freedom by rejecting the plea deal to armed robbery which would have required with a thirteen year deal but would have required him to serve eleven years taking into account truth in sentencing instead he received twenty years the jury didn't know that he received more time they did not know anything about the specifics of that but if it would work and agree if he had been party to a deal i don't think there's any question well why would require that the fury be advi but this situation is different because he says he did not accept that the it's true he rejected the one deal but he did accept there was an additional deal that if you don't take that deal we're going to recommend twenty now i apologize if i was disappointed i don't know that there was any deal where where is this coming from that there was some deal for the murder and twenty i'm  aware of that your honor i apologize if i misspoke what i am attempting to say is that he received a plea he pled guilty to first degree murder and he received twenty years it's not necessarily a negotiated deal with the  it wasn't something that would be considered normally relevant and material that if he did enter into an agreement for a twenty year sentence that was something that would be  if there was an agreement according to the state no but i don't think that's totally necessary to the argument here right yes relevant is that he he didn't lose something he lost nine years by sentenced why wasn't it enough that the jury was told and the judge allowed the jury to be told that it was offered to pick the right to keep guilty to a lesser charge for which he would receive a lesser sen charge for which you would have had a lesser sentence than you're facing now and you refused to do that why isn't that enough why do they have to know the number of years when there's a counter all sing interest that the state has that the number of years that someone's facing for murder charges shouldn't be put before the jury i think this official coppermine your honor it's not enough because it doesn't allow the jury to determine all they know is that he lost something they have no idea what they don't know if it was a significant personal loss or earth it was a few months on that note let me ask you this how could we possibly know from this record that he last nine years where's this coming from you have to have something to show all that there was  deal so that he lost exactly what you're saying there is no record to support the idea that he actually lost nine years where is it your honor we know he gave up a plea deal to thirteen years and we know he received twenty yeah that's where that's coming from ok but how can we say on this record based on everything week up that he actually gave up that nine years where is that i'm not sure i understand because he didn't plead for the thirteen and he got twenty that he lost this night so i mean unless you're able to show that there was some specific deal that he was going to get twenty or he was going to get nothing else how do we come up with that two responses your honor the first is this the supreme court's decision and people versus triplett which should dress to a similar situation in which the question of what the witness gained or lost was a unclear because of the trial court were the circumstances of your your honor it involved it involved a juvenile at with the question of the juvenile witnesses contacts with police and so he was testifying against the defendant the defense counsel tried to cross testimony or believable because you refused to plead guilty if to your honor the first people versus tenney the illinois supreme court and it states that evidence is more reliable if given at a significant personal cost and therefore it i would  acknowledge this business actual context is unique and it's not exactly what happened to tenney either but it said evidence is more reliable and given it significant personal cost and therefore defense counsel should be able to cross examine on the fact that somebody gave up something in the situation if you implicate yourself there's a buy you case law that says that if you look at yourself that that's that's believable testimony but we're relating that's a situation where someone refused to plead guilty and therefore he's we're believable and we say well the defense counsel here wasn't or i don't and you know you wouldn't be appropriate because it's a fact of the same situation but it is a it is a comparison defense counsel here tried to ask that question which the court is missing here on appeal why did you reject that plea deal did you do it heat this is a big question was whether whether that was the reason you pled guilty to first degree murder instead of testifying consistently with those handwritten statements and the car wouldn't let the witness answer the court's sustain that of josh didn't he say that the reason he didn't do that was because i didn't send it here didn't participate and he wanted t truth to be told that he was solely responsible for this murder didn't he explained that was why he did what he did he didn't take the deal because the other person didn't commit the crime and so he had to plead guilty to murder because that was the truth what he said in front of the jury was that james did not participate in this murder he was solely responsible that is   a few conflicting principles here and we have this idea that generally the jury shouldn't be engaging in speculation about sensing we have a very emotional immediate requesting specifically that the jury not be told about sentencing that we have this other notion that you cannot use it you can't bolster ok can support a statement and try to make it  simply be trying to bolster witnesses testimony and you you would be allowed to do that indirectly or directly rather but you're trying to do it indirectly with this whole discussion about the sentence in a sense you're this is not a prior consistent statement alone prior consistent statements is very specific that you cannot the problem with the prior consistent statement is that a jury is more likely to believe something that has been said multiple times and sell the court does use the word bolster in that sense to elicit evidence and when somebody at ts to listed evidence that it must be true because he said it a whole bunch of times that's obviously not what's happening here but more importantly yes in a way could be read as certainly trying to make the trial testimony the jury decided that the trial testimony was believable but it's also it could just as easily be read as impeaching the handwritten statement because we're saying that one's not true and he's the defense counsel certainly allowed to do that to turn back to this court concern about a lessening a specific sentencing range before we leave that though it seems to me this is just a sideways way of getting to a park statement if you take a situation where he's in court and he's saying a statement because defense counsel never tried to elicit anything he may or may not have said at that plea deal there's no statement involved what he did was say what would you have gained what he tried to do on a what but the question that you're so concerned with why why didn't why didn't she take the plea deal and to and instead of the murder and so the murder time the answer to that would be well that's because i didn't take the plea deal because that's not what happened and that's what i told them when i rejected the levy your honor i don't think i agree we would hope that he would say i didn't take the plea deal because it wasn't true but he doesn't have to say anything and this is what i've told people actually what what what's happening when he's rejecting the plea deal if you say why did you reject the ple consistent statement to what he's sitting in court today you're taking the same position and that's bolster your honor it would be i think unfair to mr james to assume that that's what mr stapleton would have said and that's what he was defense is the actual number of years don't we review it for his discretion yes your honor that is what mr james set forth in his brief all right so can we say that the judge abused his discretion here when the jury was able to hear that he was suffering to his detriment by coming forth with the bully or what he said was the truthful testimony i mean isn't there a fear that he really didn't know about that he was getting more time for the murder than he would have gotten if he had taken the deal your honor the court did abuse its discretion because they didn't allow the jury had some ability to evaluate stapleton straight ability but it was hampered in fully evaluating that and that's what the court in triplett the said is a matter of right it should anything that is relevant to evaluating the witnesses credibility is a matter of right and that's what wasn't allowed to happen here let's talk about that at four o two rule your position is that it doesn't apply in this case right yes your honor and that the state never suggested that was the basis for an objection better to turn well put on appeal they can they can argue anything to support what the court the rule says that generally speaking when these plea agreements fail between the state and the defendant is it you can't discuss it in that why should we allow full discussion or i mean there was some defendants he was a previous codefendant but he's not the defendant against whom the plea is being offered and that's the exact language of the rule and illinois rule of evidence for ten which wasn't a fact at the time the trial also addresses the situation and it specifically says evidence of plea negotiations is barred in any criminal proceeding against the defendant who made the plea or was a participant in the plea discussions but why is there a rule but the point rule that you don't really  problem the entire point of both of those rules is to protect the plea bargaining process by not allowing someone to for example if mr james had contemplated pleading guilty had engaged in plead negotiations those failed he went to trial the state could not then argue he's good you can infer he's guilty because he engaged in the this these prior negotiations that's the entire purpose of the rule and that's and that just has no bearing on this case at all it would be an extension of the language and the case law to suggest that rule for a two af applies here and it would also for the reason just stated it would defy common sense to do that to address the sentencing range concerned briefly though your honor one possum one of the reasons objections must be specific to the trial is to give the defendant an opportunity to respond and here this court it's true twenty seven years ago and twenty years ago in the third district in people versus brewer how that specific sentencing ranges shouldn't be a lesson in order to protect the state from unfairness but we would suggest that this court should revisit those rulings which it has not done in quite a while one possible avenue to alleviate any possible prejudice is simply to give you an i pad or an instruction one point zero one which the state did not even request in this case which is to tell a jury you are not to concern yourself with punishment and sentencing and it was if they did not get that your honor not request it and they did not make the specific arguments at trial that this should be allowed because it's relevant to sentencing so defense counsel never question either it's our position that that would alleviate any potential prejudice and other contacts for example a common one which was even used in mr james this case other kinds of evidence this court assumes that juries can follow limiting instructions so when a jury is told for example the defendant has several prior convictions eliminating instruction is given and the jury yes so do you think can you say to us that if the jury was told that mr stapleton was was given twenty years and he would have got if he had if he had gone along with plea he would have gotten thirty you think that one one thing to support that conclusion is the state's own closing argument in which it focused on mr stapleton's testimony more than anything else and it repeatedly argued that it was the truth over and over it also told the jury the reason you can't believe mr stapleton struggle testimony is he recanted it because he was afraid of james even though stapleton tonight back and defense counsel wasn't allowed to present an alternative theory for why that trial testimony was in fact more believable certainly there's other evidence against mr james but most of it is explained away by lee stapleton's trial testimony and the jury note is interesting in this case because it indicates they were the only explanation for that no is that they must have been contemplating credit testimony and here they were not because they said we don't know who taped the victim space that stapleton's the one who says it was him not james so the jury had to been considering crediting that trial testimony and it was the most crucial piece of evidence in the case and just very briefly your honor i would point this court to people who are so shocked as i realize that the appellate court is not bound by the state's argument but in shadows this court held that where the state has the burden of proving an error beyond a reasonable doubt and it fails to make any such argument and it's briefs there's a procedural barrier in the court will refuse to address harmless  defendant was precluded from an opportunity to present their theory of the case and to present evidence in support of that theory specifically that it was co founder of the stapleton and stapleton alone who is responsible for the first degree murder which the fence the trial as part of the people's suggest that he was giving up something and that he was being penalized for this this testimony and should the jury have been allowed to hear about the actual sent this to know what the what the you know what he was giving up no your honor your honor said you're able to say that he was afraid of this other person and that's why he was you know doing what he was doing today why shouldn't they be able to show why he was doing what you know they're there theory of why he was doing what he was doing today there wasn't any testimony of that or anything to back up this idea that he was afraid of this man was there only on redirect your honor when when the prosecutor did ask him requests that his family be moved away from where defendant and his friends lives in chicago or in bellwood sorry and also whether co founder stapleton had requested the move cells and move tears within the prison system tell it a case where there is a deal clearly the defense would be able to get into the true yes or beat the numbers of the sentencing that would all be exploration for them to use in front of that you're absolutely right why is this case so different because  it's sort of like the other side at that point the defendant is saying i didn't take the deal i didn't want the deal because it wasn't it wasn't what really happened those statements were true now i'm telling when witnesses testimony has been secured for leniency it is it is appropriate and it is necessary to go into the details of those agreements so that the jury can properly evaluate the credibility of the witness and properly evaluate their motivations for testifying any something he didn't want to do and he's now facing or he's doing twenty three why did they hear it in the case where there is a deal but they can't hear it in a case where they haven't struck a deal because if you're on i there's been no deal struck to secure the witness's testimony and the evidence going towards and he failed plea negotiation truly has no bearing on the appearance or the testimony of that witness at the trial but there you see it for the sole purpose of explaining why his testimony is truthful because he did give up something like not only was with yes your idea and that argument from defendant is predicated upon the it offers only only one he didn't plead guilty because he was say i did plead guilty because i didn't want to say something that wasn't true and maybe the state would come back and redirect to say that this is the real reason that he didn't plead guilty is because you don't want to be consistent statements and that is essentially the the auspice under which any of this evidence was sought to be admitted the on the statement that that's stapleton it's really an out of court non action your honor the failure to take this but the jury wasn't allowed to know that yet he was giving up nine years of freedom by not testifying differently and that that made a significant difference i don't think it can be said what kind of difference it would have made i think what we what we can deduce is what came out during cross examination which was that stapleton was offered both under state within was offered a reduced charge for that offered quote less much less sentenced to the absolute minimum sentence for first degree murder all the sentencing questions actually did come out and the jury was able to evaluate that he received past co founder stapleton passed on a great deal on the armed robbery and it said he pled guilty to first degree murder and he took the absolute illinois that that stands for the proposition that defendant can bolster in court testimony with evidence of a failed plea agreement this simply doesn't does not exist in the case law in illinois  we don't know we don't know what the jury knew what we do know that the jury knew was that from the from the note that they passed out to the judge during deliberations they knew that both were present in the home of the victim and you had an armed robbery taking place and you had the victim had been murdered and though they didn't know who actually duct taped the victim's mouth and nose or who actually physically caused the death of the victim they knew that they were both responsible and the jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that defend it was guilty of first degree murder  none of that had really truly had nothing to do with what the relative sentencing of a co founder stapleton and no your honor because a because defendants defense of flesh talent is fully supported and submitted to the jury for their consideration because they are able to argue extensively at close that a negotiation is taking place between the people and both under his they were able to bring out this evil to pass in such a great deal for armed robbery instead pled guilty to first degree murder the people believe that their case was was fully made submitted to the jury and rejected by the jury and for that reason we ask  about the question why did you reject the plea deal the prior consistent statement just make a should and would not apply to the questions about the specific terms of the thirteen years there were two questions about that and also a question about the sentencing range was facing least fourteen years the jury could the jury would know mr stapleton list facing at least fourteen years it is our position that they would not necessarily could speculate of course but they wouldn't know and it wouldn't be a violation of the motion in limine a because they're not there are no specific questions or information about the sentence james is facing end to end well what i mean let's be realistic it jersey to go up in the jury room and they're going to they're going to say well stapleton god fourteen thirteen years for armed robbery that was a reduced charge for murder james is facing murder so can't they just i mean  know logically assume that james was facing at least fourteen years something more than thirteen for murder for a greater charge your honor that's exactly why i p i one point zero one should have been given and this court should presume if it were given that the jury would not go back and do exactly that because this court assumes that juries follow the law and if they've been told to deposition answer my question i understand that you think that this could be limited but but if there's a motion in limine place that says let's not tell the jury when james is facing aren't you indirectly telling the jury that james is facing at least fourteen years and isn't this isn't the way the trial judge did this kind of like a compromise  ruling your honor it could certainly be read as a compromise but if so it's an inappropriate compromise because what should have happened is to of course if the case law of the cases you cited brewer says that the jury should not know court hasn't addressed it the first district hasn't addressed the issue in twenty seven years so it should redress that issue and it consistent with the law on pattern instructions and limiting instructions specifically it should find that that's not a concern unless and less defense counsel specifically timeframe to elicit information about the defendant's sentence very briefly to my second point your honour's the state concedes that the specific terms of an accepted plea deal would be admissible but insist generalizations are enough when the plea deal is rejected where the case law is clear we realize this is an unusual fact pattern but where the case was clear that the specific terms of the deal should be allowed when the when the plea deal is accepted testify in one way for a plea deal and then testifies in another way that business or politics that means that he's more believable know that there are other explanations yes your honor but defense counsel wasn't allowed to elicit the explanation in this case so there could be other explanations but he wasn't allowed to question about it i'm not sure if you understood my question in that particular scenario it would be the state who would be trying to elicit the other explanation be saying well the reason why he didn't take the lead and testify the way the state wanted them wanted to but because today he's telling the truth and the other person is not the truth i think the state would come back and say well there's there's a myriad could probably tick off five or ten reasons why something if you say as i say your honor no i don't think this quote should create a broad role that it necessarily follows but here the only reason it should be relevant here is that the only other reason even suggested by anyone is the states as the state mentioned it attempted at length and redirect it asked to list it in its theory which was that he rejected the plea deal because he was afraid of james and that stapleton denied every single one of those questions the state answered so there were two possible explanations proffered by the parties here the state was allowed to ask their questions stapleton tonight that is the reason and defense counsel wasn't allowed to ask his questions th