case to be used as a sword to strike down with them a criminal charges against the defendant no court's interpretation of the statute is contrary to the statutes plain language into the sentence that plain language is ambiguous well the court's interpretation perverse the purpose of the statute zakk to it which is to act as a prophylactic hope prophylactic to protect the constitutional speedy trial right and as this court has recognized necessarily incorporates the same balance between the defendant's speedy trial and the people's right to justice that is found in the constitutional standards it is true that the x protections are to be liberally can shoot to ensure that it fulfills this purpose of protecting the defendant's constitutional right speedy trial but this court has declined to read those protections so liberally as to infringe on the general assembly's right to set reasonable limitations on the defendant's right to receive trial within the statutory time period  and both the statutory and constitutional speedy trial rights are subject to a balancing analysis against the people's interest in justice and in passing subsection see the general assembly as its pr applied this balancing analysis the general assembly decided that contrary to defendant's position the people should not be required to risk defendant's flight with the safety of the public by releasing accused murderer on bond simply because circumstances beyond the people's control require a slight delay in proceedings nor should people be required under those circumstances to proceed to trial without material evidence that will be available following a slight delay in essence the defendant's argument is that this court should reset that balancing analysis more in the defendant's favor and less in the people's interest in justice when what is the significance of the state's three frees not more than well it requires that any continuance of the cause under subsection seed being no longer than sixty days which serves a couple of proper says in furthering the statutes goal of protecting the constitutional right to a speedy  trial it requires the state to come back at least following no more than a sixty day period if it requires an additional continuance and it gives the court an opportunity to once again look at the limiting factors in subsection see that control when the state can receive a continuance is there any limit to the number of states see there are a couple of limitations that will come into effect first the constitutional right to a speedy trial is always a following the slight delay and the court could well hold following you know a first continuance or a second continuance that that is no longer reasonable for the people to believe that this material evidence is going to become available and third good continuance it would give a greater length of time your honor but but there is no express limitation in the statute that would restrict the court from doing so and allowing the court to do so is not inconsistent with the statutes purpose of protecting the constitutional speedy trial right this case demonstrates i think perfectly why the people's interpretation of the sash is more consistent with the statutory purpose which  as as again mentioned incorporates this balance between between the speedy trial right and the right to justice because these were circumstances that were clearly on the control of the people there were players only slight delays in proceedings in order for the people to have access to material evidence that was unavailable in one case you had eyewitness who a second his doctor didn't you know want her to travel dditional sixty days to the cause before the people would once again have to go before the court and seek another continuance or in the in this case in each case the people have their evidence available at the end of another single  testimony regarding the collection of evidence at the crime scene his superior as i understand it from the record wasn't present at the collection but he conducted a walkthrough with officer remey so his knowledge of the collection of the evidence was not firsthand in the way that officer means was the people believe that in the absence of officer remains availability that it was sufficient but it's the defendant's position is sort of like a compulsory process kind of claim almost that they they wanted officer remain available to testify regarding the collection of that evidence so this is a seven day didley i believe it's eight twenty one days away from june twenty first  june twenty first of july nineteenth so if that were the case because the family contributed to that final the way his motion to dismiss should have been denied could you help me a little bit more with that scenario i don't really understand your argument the defendant sixth the defendant sought an open ended continuance for the opportunity to confront officer read me i'm not sure i understand what that means i mean the state has the burden of proof right so if you're going to try you're ready for trial you're to answer ready for trial you're not ready for tr and you said you were not ready for trial crack the people the people offered a motion to present lieutenant ackles testimony and off conducted this video walkthrough with officer remey could testify as to the collection of the evidence and then he later said no one for crawford right to have make use is in court it's a yes your honor except it's really i think more of a compulsory process see to some of the state one of the stipulation that a witness who is not the proper witness would testify in place of the proper witness who was unavailable because of his continuing military duty and the people said at the time to the court we would like to be able to present this alternative witness or to be able to present the material evidence provided by officer remey when he becomes available following a short the original judge returned he looked at the situation differently and ruled that people have now gone beyond the time frame so the people were prepared to either try and present the case with lieutenant defendant that is certainly implicated by by this case by the scenario in this case but it is not unique for a defendant to sometimes have to choose between  his a couple of his constitutional rights for example in a choice of counsel case sometimes a defendant you know contributes in a way and i try and puts off the time of his trial in order to assert his right to a spee is for opposing counsel as well but you glossed over the fact that the first judge indicated with respect to the second continuance it was granted right yes and then basically another judge comes in and for all practical purposes rules that position is there are a lot of the case on here where the state relied upon the rule of the first ruling or would you concede that there doesn't matter if there was a speech or this court finds a speech obelisk it i don't think it's a law of the case problem it certainly contributed to the ability to use the speedy trial act here to attack the legitimate charge against the defendant rather than to use it as a shield but there was no there's no actual ruling on the legal question of application the speedy trial statute involved in the granting assaulting humans under the internet using th the follow up on justice tice question with regard to whether the defendant contributed to the lay it seems to me if i understand what happened here that the state could have proceeded without officer remey without seeking the defense approval in the defendant would simply object if the witness was not qualified nothing would have prohibited the state from going ahead even if the defendant said i'm not going to agree or stipulate is that true but in a yes shawna but it would have forced th state to risk presenting their case without the availability of material evidence right and in passing subsection c and allowing for these kinds of continuance application of the state that continuously may be for not more than an additional sixty days now what is the additional in additional to what is and additional to the date of trial or isn't in additional to the hundred twenty day rule in i believe it's two additional to the date of trial or the amount of time that is run in a cause so far there's no the plain language of the statute does not referenced one hundred twenty day speedy trial period doesn't reference the speedy trial period at all or even say the word period what it says is that the cause make me in sr for not more than an additional sixty days i believe it it just refers to the amount of time that's one in the cause so far and and there is no express limitation that would restrict it to a single continuance or limit the cumulative days of continuances to sixty of the statute is is more consistent with the purpose of the statute which doesn't corporate this balance it's discussed in barker and discussed by this part in sand of all for example that the speedy trial right is is always balanced against the people's right to justice and an overly mechanical application of the app so that in the circumstances exactly such as the one in this case the people are left with no choice but to either proceed to trial without material evidence or risking not having the material evidence or to release an accused murderer who would not otherwise have been released on bond would be to  radically reset the balance of the general assembly engaged in and this court is how that it's the general assembly's prerogative in the context of the statute to see to engage in that balancing analysis it has no support of existing case law the statute as we as we've heard today clearly gives the state on hundred twenty days to bring a defendant to trial that's in custody if the benefit to the state of the rule is that if they bring him to trial in less than one hundred twenty days he is for clothes for many speedy trial claim against the state the burden against the state fair is that if they take more than one hundred twenty days unless they get the exception that the defendant can make a speedy trial claim against the state now in certain circumstances one extension of sixty days is allowed if evidence material to the case the state request additional time to obtain that and it appears that there's been due diligence by the state and that that evidence will be available at a later date but that extension is for not more than an additional sixty days and it needs to be read in the context of the whole statute not just in that particular section it applies to section eight hundred twenty days plus not more than an additional sixty it's clearly one hundred eighty days or less the statute rules of statutory construction support our view you know the rules of statutory construction are to give effect to the legislatures and tant and the way that we discern the legislators intent is by looking at what's the plain meaning of the language if you gave the attorneys here one hundred twenty minutes to speak and you said they had a not more than an additional sixty minutes if there were questions you would be rightfully upset if i was still up here two hundred forty minutes from now because clearly one hundred twenty plus not more than an additional sixty means one hundred eighty the states reading actually grass some new exception that's not in the rule the states reading says well there's one hundred twenty yes and then there's not more than an additional sixty but we see we get that not more than because at that point the legislature has already expressed their weighing of those issues with the time limits that are already in the statute you know the state would rather have it go back to sleep subjective analysis back to constitutional speedy trial and if that's the case then the problem is that there's always going to be one more thing that the state's going to want to have for a trial there's always going to be one more thing to bring to trial or one more witness to try to secure and that does not give effect to the statu know without the statute that would be the case but here we have especially from the legislature with time periods in and we need to pay attention to the time periods as they're written under the state of you know you could have one hundred twenty days and add an additional three hundred  sixty days as long as you paid lip service to the statute and did it sixty day increments and that very well could have happened in this case because officer dale remey was deployed to afghanistan luckily he was at the end of his deployment if you were to be at the beginning of his deployment the court state would have come in and said well we need an extra three hundred sixty days because he's not going to be back for a year but we have to kind of follow the statute so let's do six continuances of sixty days each will come in on each continuance and make the same argument that was already ruled on the prior one and we'll just do it baby steps sixty days at a time to get out there to the three hundred sixty days we need and in that case it makes a mockery of the statute because if you're weighing it on the first sixty day period and then you come back and have the same argument and the same argument the same argument that's not what the legislature intended also the state tries to move from the singular to the plural here the statute says evidence if that is if the state needs to obtain evidence to meet all the evidence not each piece of evidence not this witness we need a sixty day continuance which they got with rebecca paul that one was proper under the statute but then we need another sixty days for dale remey well then they got their second bite about all they got another sixty day continu offends the statute what if there was a third witness you know there needs the statute says evidence it doesn't say each piece of evidence and fact there's another section in the statute for d n a that has the same counsel are you arguing that the r evidence was not that continuous was not proper yes the first there was already one sixty day continuance given back in i believe it was february for rebecca pope that was the extension of this right you contemplates then they came back and got a second extension of sixty days that's the one we feel is in primary me and remain yes well did did the defendant not file its own motion to continue the case to bring the rimi in the defendant did file a motion before it they are trying to attribute the last motion to continue to be defended the defendant did file a motion in april asking for a continuance one of the reasons in that motion was for dale remain to be available for cross examination and that was allowed until the new trial date was set in july twenty first is that right i motion to continue well i mean but as i understand the record has his return dated change from the july return date july to from june to july it had your honor and so the state was forced to make and now their motion to continue  when they tender was made to use lieutenant echols if i've got that title right screen folks objecting to that we did because defend it i'm just trying to figure out where you know where this is i mean the chronology up to this point there's no  date was set for june they offered ackles you said no right right yes we tended ackles did not collect the evidence at the crime scene the state's offer was you can either waive your speedy trial right or you can waive your rights under the rules about the defense they said you must accept the stipulation to stipulate the edit instead they already collected at the scene again against yourself if you want your speedy trial right if you don't want your speedy trial right and you can wait to have them come in now we did make a motion unable to continue and that that motion is already being attributable tributed to the defending the status trying to attribute the motion after that to the defendant that they made that we objected to as well and they look to this language in our april motion to continue saying well you asked to cross remey was there we were trying to oppose this notion that somehow we have to stipulate in evidence against our client just to make sure he has a speedy trial right and so hold that that was permissible would set a dangerous precedent because in those cases any time the state doesn't have their witnesses their evidence in time for the speedy trial they'll just you know ask the defendant stipulate that in the case law doesn't support the state's argument either but this court in possible for the prosecution to secure up to one hundred eighty days also of people vs aren't the court mentioned that there's one of three das five provides for an extension of one hundred a twenty day period for an additional sixty days now those were the precise issues in those cases and the state argues it's addictive but we applying that there's no reason to come to a different conclusion it's basically simple math hundred twenty plus not more than sixty equals one hundred eighty days or less now the state makes a big deal that tries to blame the defendant for causing just delay and let's look at what is the delay here officer remey wasn't available that's the second sixty day extension that's not permissible the defendant didn't make officer remain unavailable to defend it didn't have anything to do with his military commitments as honorable as those are and the defendant wasn't involved with the carbon police department assigning an officer to collect evidence on a murder scene that they knew had military commitments and the defendant is not responsible for the delay of the trial either because the state had the trial without officer remey officer really wasn't a centerpiece of their case he was an officer who conducted evidence collection of the crime scene but they were free to either release the defendant on bond or if that option was not agreeable they were free to have the trial anyway within the speedy trial period now the trial court attributed two hundred three days to the state and as we said our view of the statute and the case law and the statutory construction and the plain meaning means that the state has one hundred eighty days or less if they are granted the extension the trial court's attribution of two hundred three days to the state this week to be given great deference and should be sustained absent a clear showing of discretion under people the hall and so the trial court was in a better position than a reviewing court to decide who was responsible for what delay the motions that we made are already attributable to us under the present calculation the only way the state tries to get under one hundred eighty days which is a new argument here before the supreme court of illinois is by shooting that last motion to continue that the state made if the defendant objected to somehow attributing that to the defendant you know that is a dangerous argument because the defended oppose the motion and the defendant did not make the motion now the state tries to argue that bennett somehow tricked the state put them in this catch twenty two position well the rules of evidence are not a trick that the defendant came up with they apply in every case the defendant has a right to cross examine his accusers the defendant has a right to insist that chain of custody be followed when he's on trial for murder the defendant didn't make up the speedy trial statute or the right to speedy trial either now the state tries to shoehorn in this argument by saying that well sometimes you know the defendant has to choose between their right this is not a case where the defendant had to choose between his rights the cases that they cite are cases like people versus mayo where the defendant discharged his attorney before trial and then wanted his trial within a speedy trial period and the court said well you know you fired your attorney we can't have the trial on time within your speedy trial the mayor defend it took a proactive step of firing his attorney here this defendant didn't do anything like that he didn't deploy officer remey to afghanistan he didn't you know make up the rules of evidence and he didn't make up the right to speedy trial they also looked at people versus paul right to say that while defense counsel filed motions to continue in the hall the defense the defense counsel filed a motion and then later on the defendant tried to disavow himself from the motion own counsel and the court rightly said well you know you have an attorney he filed the motion you know you're bound by that here the motion to continue that sought to be attributable to the defendant was opposed by the defendant and was filed by the state counsel and defendant were in perfect unity in opposing that motion are you agreeing that people twenty third defense motion for a continuance a true time is attributable to the defendant until june twenty one yes and that was attribute court the only difference here on appeal is now for the first time the state tries to take the period after that and that should be the last motion to continue that the state actually made to a defendant and they also argue that was an open ended motion they do argue that you know i think that that really takes that is a reason in the motion to continue admittedly but there's other reasons in there and the main reason for the motion continue on april twenty third was the state informed counsel that they were considering filing a new information with a new theory of the case and we didn't put dale remey availability in there in an effort to assure that deal remained was there we just wanted to make sure that we were going to have evidence of committed you know over our objection by the trial court without the witness defend it would have rather had just trial in a speech trial rights and the defendant didn't you know able twenty third most of the state seems to argue that well the the state relied on your emotion on april twenty third and you contributed to the wa y nothing in our motion on april twenty third made deal remains available any different it's not a situation where he was headed back from afghanistan he was going back to the united states we file a motion to continue so he goes back to afghanistan wasn't like that at all there was no reliance by the state on our motion you know to say that you know but for your motion we would have been here on time he was unavailable the whole time in fact he'd been available for you know almost a year your honors in closing because the statute is clear that one hundred twenty plus not more than an additional sixty days equals one hundred eighty days because you need to read the whole statute as a whole because the plain meaning of the statute is clear because the case law supports the defendant hold the defendant's right to a speedy trial under the statute in illinois honors first i just want to point out that if the court adopts the people's reading of the statute it's not necessary to resolve the issue of attribution of the delay from june twenty first of july nineteenth at that point if the defendant outlines where the people use subsection c in essence to extend their investigative time or or is it a wayne tactics gone a fishing expedition i believe is a fast concern because it's adequately addressed by the restrictions that are expressly put the limitations that are expressively present in subsection c requiring not just that material evidence be unavailable due to causes b on the people's responsibility but also that the people have a reasonable belief that that evidence will be available following a short delay but it is also worth noting that in the scenario that the defendant laid  out working at the window for example i think that the defend his constitutional rights to a speedy trial would still be adequately protected because the on availability of a witness witness due to reasons beyond the state's control is something that the supreme court the s supreme court has recognized as a legitimate excuse for for delays that puts it outside of speedy trial concerns in terms of the use of the speedy trial act  as in essence a tool to cut a defendant loose from from a legitimate prosecution the defendant has admitted in his brief that his goal here are or his presence here was to successfully keep evidence out of the trial and the stat that speedy trial statute was never intended to be used as a tool in that way to either cut a defendant loose or to force the state that the state somehow have relied on the defendant's actions in making its decision but that the defendant in any way contributed to the delay once the defending contributed all the time is attributable to the defendant and here is the pfennige knowledge is he filed  afghanistan if we can't have additional time to wait for him to come back and the short delay from june twenty first so i nineteenth we're talking about here then then we'd like to be able to introduce this evidence via the town enact those defending  contributed to the need to wait to drive twenty first to go ahead with with the trial and that's sufficient to attribute the time to him and to the standards that this court has has articulated and at the time the people express to the trial court you know we don't think that the defendant can have it both ways you can't both refuse to allow us some way to bring in this material evidence other than officer renie's testimony judge you should allow echols to testify right he never commented on that it just granted insinuations yes so so your position then would be that since they were saying from the get go they did one eccles and they want to really available long time and certainly with this is the interpretation of the statute i don't see any cases that just it but if you seen this fact pattern in any case i believe that this is a very unusual fact pattern for i can't say for certain that it's unique i believe it's very unusual for a couple of reasons first you have one usual confluence of events with multiple witnesses for reasons that are clearly beyond either party's control the case playing out the way that it did its i believe the intention of the general assembly in subsection c in the way it's written to allow discretion some flexibility for the court to give the people short continuances when material evidence is unavailable even if that happens a couple of times in a single trial but i don't think it's going to happen or has happened very of law and in the cases that defendant has cited to where there's indic there's some reference possibly to the fact that one hundred eighty day period if that statement is actually  know relating to subsection c it's done so without a expressed logical reasoning behind the arguments i don't think that there's any guidance to be found in that dept for this court resolving the issue this is the first time that home the issue has been presented to the court for reasons reason resolution the right to a speedy trial is a shield to protect the defendant from on just an prejudicial delays caused by the state and subsection c is written provide such protections in the speedy trial act is not meant to be as sword that can be used to call the defendant leaves from legitimate criminal charges but as applied in this case the statute did just that prevented the people from trying a man who was accused of murder because of a slight delay due to circumstances that w the people's control because the plain language of subsection c doesn't limit the number of times a cause may be continued the people's interpretation of the act best advances the purpose of the statu and because defendant did contribute to that final the way from june twenty first to july nineteenth the defendant's motion to dismiss in this case should have been denied must the court has further questions for these reasons as well as those that in