good morning chief justice kilbride honorable members of this court i am cook county assistant state's attorney annette collins and i represent the people of the state of illinois in the matter before this court this case is about relevant admissible evidence concerning two specific related events the first event directly preceded the charge drive by shooting in this case and set in motion a chain of events that culminated in the commission of the drive by shooting by both and defendant in this case it was the sole catalyst for that drive by shooting without which the charge shooting would never of happened this relevant evidence of a first incident in this case not only explain the context in which the crime in the scooter shooting incident in this case it was relevant to defend its prosecution because after that event codefendant recruited defendant told him about it and the two then shared a joint motive in committing the joint enterprise drive by shooting  i understand that the bill or rules of evidence had not been adopted when this event took place but certainly that's a place for us to go to talk in terms of some framework about evidence and so i'd like to start  with the article for relevancy and its limits as its title and i really have two questions for going with the first one is the definition of relevant evidence rather relevant evidence means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of anything act but is a consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence so if we use that definition of what is relevant my question is twofold one what is the fact that is a consequence to the determination of the action whether it's probable or less or more probably less back of this evidence is going to and secondly specifically can you tell me how this evidence tends to make that the existence of that fact more problem was the fact and what how does this evidence from the facts no to this court has said provided information as to how this chain of events is set in motion and again in addition to motive being a relevant consideration for the trier of fact this context is significant in this case this court among many others as you noted the crimes did not happen in a actually commit the drive by shooting it is the specific and sole reason why the defendant was recruited to engage in the planning and execution of the drive by murder along with his codefendant so in that respect the defendant in this case adopted and shared that motive even though the defendant didn't commit or was part of that earlier crime it's absolutely relevant to the prosecution of this defendant is an internet presence in the record that the defendant was motivated let me use that word might be scooter incident absolutely the record is replete with that didn't there's eyewitness testimony that was but that these witnesses were in the presence of both codefendant made statements reflecting how in that earlier scooter shooting the defendant codefendant had been injured and wanted revenge specifically against wind has robinson defendant was present at that time and because he was present when the codefendant was discussing it and he took part with the codefendant in the subsequent drive by shooting it is imputed to him in fact the trial court here basically held that defendant had adopted that motive because there was no other reason for the defendant to be committing the charge drive shooting in this case it is because of its relevance in this case and not as its character as in other crime that it was miscible and not bothered by that doctrine problem with the appellate court decision in this case is it only construed the other scooters shooting incident as a typical or traditional other time which led it to the mistaken impression that in order for it to come in independence trial it needed to be a been committed by the in this particular case think it was not a joint enterprise case it was a straightforward case involving a defendant who committed a prior unrelated crime and the state sought to that prior unrelated crime that was similar to the charge defense as proof that that defendant committed the charged that's the problem with the state's theory and thing ball rise that the state didn't have any evidence that the defendant had committed that prior crime so it's not on surprising that this court in thing vaults sad that before evidence of other crimes excuse me prevalence of other crimes committed by that abandoned can be admitted the state must first show that a crime took place and the defendant committed it in that specific factual and legal context that statement makes perfect sense it does not however translate to the instant set of facts the instant set of facts involves a prior event the relevance of which didn't depend on defendant committing it that prior acts relevant is derived from defendants knowledge of it as this court has stated on multiple occasions motive evidence is relevant and if the state wants to true facts that supposedly constitute motive it must show that the accused knew of those facts that's exactly what we did in this case we proved through competent witness testimony and coconspirator statements that the defendant and donnelly knew about that prior event that the codefendant was part of but actually agreed with his codefendant to retaliate in you're right i'll start with the instruction the instruction gives me was given because in this case it wasn't just the prior incident that was and other crime satellite ing around this set of circumstances and in addition to the precipitating scooter shooting event which cause this chain of motion to be set set in motion as to your first question about whether the state has changed theories we titled a motion in the circuit court a motion to admit prior bad acts and to admit other crimes of that motion applied to both codefendant and offended because they were jointly indicted in this case they also received joint trials that were separate but the content of that motion and the arguments that we presented to the circuit court in this case clearly argued that this was not of evidence evidence so we have never changed our theory its foundational basis we've always maintained that the relevance of this evidence derive from defend its knowledge of the prior crime not his commission of it and therefore it was not packed meekly in other crime by the very terms of that doctrine but rather simply relevant evidence a stablish in both motive and the context in which the crime that occurred  jury could understand why it happened now the trial court's admission of the evidence in this case was wholly proper and fully supported by this court's case law dating the decades as we presented in our groups it was relevant its relevance to motive was unquestioned but it was also admissible because it was related to the church crime and this concept of related evidence it finds its way through this courts jurisprudence for almost a century whether it's called continuing narrative inextricably intertwined related evidence or intrinsic app bottom it is a recognition that the other crimes doctrine itself concerns unrelated crimes committed by a defendant to basically establish the character of the defendant to commit the charge crime it can either be used properly in the case to prove motive identity intent cetera or improperly to prove propensity those characteristics are not at play when we're dealing with related evidence it's not evidence of a completely separate crime happening at a completely different time for a completely different purpose such that it's uses propensity evidence is risky and dangerous on the contrary  rules of evidence the rules of evidence straight forward say that relevant evidence is admissible absent some bar if the other crimes does not bar that evidence then the evidence should be subjected to the typical probative prejudicial balancing tast intrinsic abends or related events as part and parcel of the charge crime to explain the context in which it is occurred is not contrary to our rules are rules of codified and are essentially corollaries and parallels to the common law there is no deviation so we would disagree with that position and in fact if we take a look at the series of cases that this court has issued over decades it reads in typical fashion based on the nature of each case some cases involve related up but instead are very very closely tied in time and place other places in that spectrum deal with crimes that are further apart but related nonetheless because of some other nexus and connection within this spectrum the instant case does fall but the one commonality in all of these cases is the fact that all recognize that the other crimes others that discuss whether or not this is an exception to the other crimes doctrine or outside its reach they all recognize the significance of related events in terms of   and when it's too remote how do we determine that that your honour's would be a gatekeeper role it would be dependent exclusively on the facts and the evidence the facts and the evidence in each individual case are paramount importance in a assessment such as this regarding the admissibility of this about that ends the state however has to prove in excess so it wouldn't just be by the state's choice and whim that they want to present evidence of another crime that they believe might be related there has to be concrete proof and showing the state has to bear the burden of that nexus by example in this case we did by showing coconspirator statements that occurred between the  shooting incident and the drive by shooting that reflected that the two events were connected because in discussing the earlier incident the defendant in codefendant planned the second incident so that motive peace is w absolutely and that nexus is basically what establishes its relevance as to this prosecution it has to be relevant as you're on a pointed out very early on with respect when you pointed to the rules of evidence in order to establish that relevance we have to connect it to the charge crime and we do that with a nexus via testimony statements observations by witnesses this case is the a la stretch of example of how it's done we didn't just pick out random a shooting that happened on the streets of chicago the day before a drive by shooting we connected it because the witnesses reflected that both defendant  in committing the driveway was because the code then it had been injured and wanted revenge in retaliation extrajudicial charges has to be committed by the defendant in order for it to be relevant think rome wasn't a joint conspiracy case it didn't involve co defendants and it has no application to the instant set of facts it was the  court's exclusive and narrow reliance on that decision that caused it to ignore the real relevance and proof of that relevance and nexus in this case for this reason and those expressing their brief we would ask that this court reversed the court's decision and upon the admission of the evidence is allowed by the trial or in this case defense in this case was the fact that he had gotten hit by the car there was not one single incident that was mowed if there were two separate and incidents that led to the shooting in this case regardless missouri you don't dispute and there has to be asked to come in as either relevance or identity or modus operandi of one of those things in this case the state was morning too show it better motive evidence but it's not relevant for motive and there were several events  that there was no connection between the defendant in the other crime or two we have quite a different situation here so then you would agree then the prime rib of this court is to determine whether or not this was relevant as motive well it certainly is a a major part of the analysis because in order to end this this was another crime this was not intrinsic to the mostly shooting and all of the prior shooting happened at a different time and a different place different picked on different motivations there is no way it was intrinsic to the charged bents so as another crime how dare rule their long held rules for the admission of other crimes in this case one has to be relevant to prove something of the charge defense and two it has to be connected to the defendant in some way and the state has met neither of those standards as i was saying there were there were several events that preceded the drive by shooting in this case there was a big game or a rapid over the death of victor parsons again where was ongoing in the time of august two thousand and six when ted robinson rode a scooter into opposing gang territory donaghy and then shot at robinson for writing into his territory then cairo who was driving a car behind robinson hit don again with his car it was the final event cairo hitting donnegan with the car which led to don again committing the shooting two days later that is what motivated him to commit the shooting not the fact that he had previously shy at robinson but the fact that he had gotten hit with the car and although it did the two events did occur one after the other there were still different motivations robinson shot and the mc excuse me donnegan shot at robinson because he rode the scooter into his territory and cairo hit hood on again excuse me with the car as a result of the shooting the prior shooting doesn't prove the later shooting it doesn't make sense that done again would it go out and commit the mosley shooting as as some sort of revenge for having previously committed the robinson shooting the motive here there's there's no the defendant's position is not that the state can't make a story and prove motive that motive at all but the motive has to be relevant to the charge defense the charge was properly admissible sure getting hit by the car was the was the evidence throughout the trial that that was the motive but the shooting that the reason that cairo had done again with the car doesn't prove why my client participated in the later shooting if they had a shared motive that sharon motive was directly related to him getting hit with the car he wanted retaliation for him good getting hit with the car not for him having previously shy at somebody  evidence of other crimes is very presidential when it's improperly admitted here hikes and donegan had a shared gang membership so there is a risk that there would be a guilt by association and friends there was also there was a great deal of evidence presented about this fire shooting creating the risk of a mini trial but most importantly your honour's this was a shooting case and the state you wanted to introduce evidence of yet another shooting that doesn't prove why the shooting at issue here happened and was totally unconnected to mr bikes that's extremely prejudicial to mr pike's and assigned as the as the the lower court in this case stated to be made to bear the slightest connection to a crime committed by another to which one did not even have forehead knowledge cannot be said to be harmless error the prior shooting could have been charged as an attempt murder this was a serious other crime this isn't like the other crime the jugular piece stolen car aspect of the cape case is that another crime sure but this is a shooting case and even if the instruction was necessary for that aspect of the case it was equally applicable to this aspect of the case there was elected over that so the background that there was a game work going on at the time sure that's that's fine but that's not a specific other car i'm that's connected to the dakota to the code event and that again doesn't prove destruction but at that point your honor the defendant had objected to this evidence being admitted against his client so he was you know at that point he's got to mitigate the damage that this other evidence is going to do to his client hence the if there are no further questions your honor so i would just like to close by saying that this was another crime this was not intrinsic to the charged offense there are long held rules for the admission of other crimes and the other crimes evidence at issue here did not meet th standards ultimately chiros motive for hitting donegan with the car was not relevant to show pikes as a motive for participating in the later shooting of mostly by excessive prejudiced by the admission of other crimes  your honour's defense counsel concedes but the evidence is relevant that it proves motive defense counsel only complains about the shooting aspect of it yet a defense counsel proposes but the shooting of an entirely different individual victor parsons could have been the defendant's motive so i'm not sure where the shooting rather victor parsons or quenches robinson really prejudiced defendant in this case the jury in this case absolutely with certainty knew the defendant wasn't volved in that prior shooting they were told in opening statement by both the prosecutor and defense counsel the evidence absolutely made no them in the commission of the dr but there was absolutely no risk of prejudice in this case redaction of the advents or sanitation of the series of events in this case does violence to the truth does violence to the witnesses accounts and where there is absolutely no need to start san then the court shouldn't do it and in this case the court wasn't asked to do it by defense counsel defense counsel never said oh i want the car accident in but not the shooting and that is an appellate argument it is a poet argument that failed in the co defendants appeal in the very codefendant who committed that other shooting the appellate court rejected his claim that there should have been a san zing action by the trial court to remove the shooting not car accident this case involves not a series of unrelated events that are far apart in time that have no connection this is about robinson instigating a response by riding his scooter through rival gang territory he got that response when codefendant ran into the street tried to shoot at him codefendant then was hit by the car of other rival gang members following robinson and then codefendant recruited defendant to help him get revenge they stole a car they draw into rival gang territory and not coincidentally they shot at a group of individuals containing the very same rival gang members that were involved in the precipitating catalyst event and also not coincidentally the victim  one mostly junior in this case was shot and killed because he was standing directly next to one test robinson the man who rode the scooter the man who started this series of events and in action buttons no i do not think so justice freiman and the reason is because that doctrine as the seventh circuit has understood it was a fine distinction that traditionally existed in the federal court but the seventh circuit not the other circuits but the seventh circuit has decided to abandon that now because there's anything analytically in from about it but rather because the manner in which it was being used in the district courts had caused it to become muddied and begged there's indications in in the seventh circuit case law that the prosecution was overreaching in trying to present evidence and putting forth evidence that really wasn't an extra completely intertwined actual evidence but portraying it as much and then the gatekeeper wasn't holding fast courts there is no corollary or parallel in our state courts to give rise to the concerns of the federal courts had the federal court the seven circuits problem is not with the doctrine but the manner in which it was being used our doctrine is being used in a studied straightforward consistent manner where our circuit courts are holding our trial our trial assistance in our lead against to proving the relevance there's no reason to follow the federal courts and abandon an otherwise valid useful doctrine that allows for the state or anybody again for that matter to present evidence that's relevant that