good morning your honour's council characters seaborn from the illinois attorney general's office here on behalf of the people may please in this case the defendant pleaded guilty in exchange for sentencing recommendation long before this court issued its opinion and whitfield fifteen years later move from leave to file successive post conviction petition arguing for the first time that the lack of an emissary admonishment affected his guilty plea the trial court gave defendant a full opportunity to demonstrate cause and prejudice but then rejected his testimony and denied leave to mccoy's was less than the maximum sentence of which he had been admonished in the mccoy case this court concluded the mccoys plea was knowing and voluntary for that reason this court should conclude that because this case is controlled by mccoy defendant cannot demonstrate prejudice for the cause and prejudice test now in order to evade mccoy's holding defendant argues here that he pled guilty in exchange for a specific sentence and not for a recommendation in so doing he encourages this court to ignore the plain language of the plea agreement which was put into the record by the parties at page five of the report of proceedings he asked this court to infer a different plea agreement from later collateral actions that took place during the plea and sentencing but defendant has not explained why if the parties intended that a specific sentence be agreed to and imposed they would ever have used the word recommendation when putting the terms of the plea agreement into the record this court recognized in whitfield and in previous cases that a recommendation is not the same as an agreement for the imposition of a specified sentence this was discussed extensively in whitfield in which this court specifically distinguished mccoy plea agreements are much like contracts as this court has recognized the parties intend for the at worst it was misleading the trial court correctly concluded that when it had not demonstrated cause the would feel decision itself cannot be cause and defendant argues that he is not relying on the way citizen has this court should find that under either prong defendant has not demonstrated cause and prejudice to justify the filing of successive postcondition petition unless this court has any questions at this time we would work with regard to the use of the word agreement under rule four zero two d two but since it was a recommendation the court wouldn't be able to concur anyway because under four o two d two you can only see concurrence in the expectation that a specified sentence will be imposed or that other charges will be dismissed now here the trial court does this if the plea warn the defendants that it was not bound by the recommendation so to find it was certainly on notice that the trial court might accept the fifty year recommendation or could possibly go higher and the state ran the risk that the co good law and was expected to have applied in collateral proceedings because it doesn't we still have a claim that the plea wasn't knowing and voluntary and that's the problem here is that the defendant is pleading for a specific term a fifty year sentence and then only later finds out that he has this m s r term he was not admonish to that at the time of the plea that was that's clear from the record it's not in the judgment order he wasn't told about m s r this comes later and the well the testimony hearing on motion the motion for leave to file and i think we're talking about cause here and whether he should presented this claim sooner there's no testimony that he knew about anything m at the time of the plea there was no evidence of that in the record he testified as to when he specifically learned about m s r and when he learned that m s r applied to his case was in two thousand and five or two thousand  but it's this defendant did not know that m s r was going to apply to his particular case until he learned about it from whitfield he could've learned about it from joe smith and maybe it would be more clear then that the problem is when he learned about m s r the problem is not the issuance of this court's decision in which feel that's not the cause this defendant just happened to meet whitfield at dixon correctional center and in talking about their situations none of bout m s r well the appellate court i think went out of its way to state though that in light of morse it most decide the case based on the law that existed prior to right that's what they said so on one hand you're saying well they they made their decision based on woodfield but their decision says they made it on the law that existed prior to would feel and if that's the case as confused as is indicated because they said they're deciding the case based on the law prior but would feel and then we have i think would just as kermit was talking about that there is point counterpoint as to we're they said they applied the law prior to the work you write i think in terms of the substance of what i mean in terms of the basis of this challenge that it's not a benefit of the bargain claim and still a claim that the plea was not knowing involuntary and that that was around i would submit not as clear as the trial court thought and not as clear as the seat seems to think about when this defendant knew that he specifically was going to have to serve a term of m s r there was questioning about parole did you know about parole i heard a parole i heard of people going to the pro ward but i didn't know in that it would apply to me probably because it doesn't prole does not apply in this case and they although they are similar they are not the same thing at the time this defendant was initially he didn't know emma so i applied to him so for the us to assume that a pro se defendant in it initially the juvenile the parent division of the department of corrections and then needle to vision is searching the case for a requirement that he's never told there's nothing in the record to indicate that he knew about and i started before the first post conviction petition i mean it's there's some talk about well you certainly knew about paul you heard about paul did you know you were going to have to do parole and i knew the deal she was going to implicate something on my sentence he says he doesn't say when he's not pushed to say when that was when he is pushed it to answer the question of when did you learn and i'm sorry specifically apply to your case he is entirely consistent but it is in two thousand and five to two thousand and six when i talked to ronald whitfield testimony made factual findings there is some deference to the trial court that doesn't mean blinded here it's to let the trial court set in and i would submit on this record the court was simply wrong the court said i have heard the testimony he said he knew about parole again first of all this is not probable that we're talking about it sam asar and the court was simply wrong on this record there was no testimony at that hearing that would show that it doesn't say when he you know it doesn't say he knew at the time of the plea but doesn't say he knew at the time of the first post conviction petitioner at the time of the direct appeal times when this claim could have been expected to been brought prior in terms of when he specifically knew it applied to him two thousand and five two thousand and six and that's consistent what he knew prior would be dependent on how long prior did you know prior to nine hundred ninety four really because that's the time again it's a deference but it's not a blind adherents to that and i think if this court looks at what the actual testimony was at that hearing there's nothing that says it was before the time of the first post conviction petition which because that's what we're looking at what was the timing with regard to you could you have brought this in the original post conviction proceedings nothing establishes that he could have the testimony establishes that when he's pinned down on a date two thousand and five two thousand and six when he's asked about did you know prior well i knew some things prior and again it's parole m s r they talk about both how long prior no it's not shown what is shown in st thousand and five two thousand and six  hasn't been a for two conference and to when we get a fair number of will county cases in our office they don't seem to do for zero two and they seem to present pleas this way can't speak to whether that's a firm practice but that seems to be the way these pl are presented and will county i mean the state's attorney couldn't bind the trial right now they have to present this is this is what we're recommending this is but it was what they had agreed to would like to begin by addressing the court's more recent questions about the prejudice problem our position is that mccoy does apply the word recommendation means something it's not the same as a close plea nor is the word negotiated answered the question for us were negotiations between the parties they clearly had a conversation they came to an agreement the agreement was for a recommendation the coin recognizes the distinction between a recommendation and a close play so does the whitfield decision the this court's case of people vs linder the special concurrence lays out many different categories of plea agreements including the distinctions between a recommendation and a close play for a specific sentence again if this was a specific sentence there is no reason that they would use the word recommendation the two things are simply not the same and there's really nothing else in the record to indicate that this was a plea for an imposition of a specified sentence in order to find prejudice here at the court would have to completely overrule people versus mccoy and every other case that has relied on it since and with field decision also relies on mccoy in terms of mccoy mccoy itself was certainly a bailable when defendant filed his first post conviction petition in one thousand nine hundred four came out in one nine hundred seventy nine and so certainly if we're looking at the case law that was available to the defendant pretty whitfield mccauley was out there and as previously stated mccoy is factually indistinguishable now in terms of the cause prong this in his first p c that's what the cos i'm prejudiced test is concerned with now there's been a lot of discussion about what the testimony shows or doesn't show but section f is very clear it's defendant's burden to demonstrate cause and prejudice it's not the state's problem to prove conclusively when it is the defendant learned about m s r it was defendant's burden to convince the trial court through his testimony that he did not learn about m s r until it was too late for him to raise it in his first p c now when defendant first had a full opportunity to demonstrate cause and he couldn't do it because he kept changing his story as to when he knew he knew about this information on pages one zero four and zero five of the report of proceedings he says he first learned about m s r from whitfield and that didn't happen until two thousand and five or two thousand six a few pages later he admits that prior to two thousand and five he knew that he would have to serve poor role and a couple pages after that he says that he first learned what role was in one thousand nine hundred five or ninety six maybe but he also says he just wasn't thinking about what he would have to serve after his sentence because he had a long prison term still ahead of him he had to testify with any certainty as to what it is that he learned about m s r and because it's his burden to demonstrate because any gaps in the record about his knowledge lay on defendants in this case one final point is that although defendant says that he is not relying on whitfield it should be noted that he still desires it with field remedy and that is what he received from the appellate court and as we argued in our brief the type of whitfield remedy is not appropriate for a knowing