our final piece of the morning is one one seven zero nine four people of the state of illinois versus daniel bell ready to proceed  therefore wrongfully concluded that the evidence in this case was closely balanced or plain error purposes and second the court expressly declined to consider whether the error alone likely implements the verdict and for that reason again player approach quote without more of a definitive statement from the supreme court in that regard in the quote and that's paragraph ninety two footnote three of that court's opinion so what the appellate court did instead was in a single paragraph of analysis it really focused primarily on evidence the state did not present it said there's not physical evidence here no eyewitnesses saw the defendant attacked the victim and asked if the evidence that was presented it really suits in generalities that the evidence could be interpreted in many ways that there was informant testimony in this case and that that is the type of testimony that as a general matter is carefully scrutinized over the court failed to then perform a careful scrutiny of reviews results and the wrong analysis is the way the court reached the wrong result in this case if you apply the proper test if you look at all of the evidence in context you can see that the evidence in this case was not closely about just looking at things like the what the testimony was consistent inconsistent whether it was consistent with his theory of the case something else this court has done that the appellate court did not do taking the evidence just piece by piece for this court again which the  it also should be considered in this case that it's a balance of the evidence it's not just looking at the state's case which is what the appellate court appears to have done but also looking at all of the evidence in context and what the defendant presented here was confusing  inconsistent and really left the jury with no credible theory other than the people's theory the defendant made the centerpiece of his defense the allegation that aereo them the victim's mother had attacked her rather than him but in his own testimony the defendant her categorically denied that that happened that left the jury with the confusion something it could not resolve it had no consistent theory from the defense the theory that it had was consistent credible was the people's  at whether the error in this case influence referred to this court has said throughout the history of plane air that there are two types of clean air you can look at the hair and decision of two thousand pipe where it talks about there being pressure these presumptive prejudicial errors which are structural errors and then there's the type that we're talking about in this case the areas where prejudice must be must be shown and the court made this explicit in white in two thousand and eleven where it's  at not just the balance of the evidence but also we're looking for some some objective demonstration that there was a possibility this in error influenced the verdict we can't presume it we can't merely speculate about it we have to uncertain and it said we're just going to presume prejudice from the closeness of the evidence if that is the case then we're mandating a perfect trial in every case where the evidence is closely balanced because no matter how small how silly the error if there is no prejudice component then because the balance test would mandate it so if an attorney asking questions asked an improperly leading question early in the examination no defendant's reading that wouldn't matter because he says that there is no prejudice component again that's not how this court is always apply player looking again at heron in two thousand and five the court found it relevant that the  pertaining to something important pertains to the eyewitness identification jury instruction and in that case the eyewitness identification was a crucial part of the evidence conversely this court in case is like people the williams from thirty one beer was fishing to well there's a lot of different ways your are if there were anything in the record there were multiple colloquy about the role for thirty one principals which is this court now those are the burden of proof presumption of innocence multiple here at the outset of the trial and again in the jury instructions there was never a point where the jurors even during while here where they were invited to talk and respond to the court no never did a jury say i don't understand that could you repeat that give me a moment anything of that in fact all of the jurors except it the role for thirty one principals they just were not separately asked whether they understood another thing that i'm sure that a defendant might do is point to a lengthy deliberation from the jury look this was clearly a very close case the jury was out for a dac the jury in this case was out for under two and a half hours they did not view it as a hard case they did not think that there was anything to be confused about and that makes it very similar to this court's decision in wilmington which i also doubt will for thirty one there and there the court said that there was no prejudice because in part there was no indication in the record that the jury at any time had reached an impasse but that the jurors themselves consider this a c that in the record so i do agree that there is conflict within here there's a lot of different language in here and it was a decision that was really grappling with a lot of issues about playing there and there's some language that may be inconsistent with white but also inconsistent with itself so this court should really make those president this president's consonant by following its subsequent decisions in white and adams which are indeed also consistent with their hair and is the case has a little bit of language that goes well i would also note that this court dealt with rule four thirty one error in the class for matter in two thousand and nine and it said that because there were jury instructions as there were in this case three times there were jury instructions that explained the burden of proof presumption of innocence you couldn't presume prejudice from the rule for thirty one err as the court said in that case to do so would require us to pursue the citizen that is absent in this case and we would ask this court reverse for that review turning three flee if i could to the merits of the cross appeal defendant has challenge the sufficiency of the evidence the evidence in this case was sufficient for much the same reasons that it was not closely balanced i would add that each of the elements first three matter was a sad list here the findus challenges to the evidence and in both of his arguments really relate primarily to credibility those credibility issues are for the jury the jury knew in this case that it was dealing with informant witnesses who had many convictions there was a power point percentage of the convictions it knew that the witnesses had some issues that could be problematic with the jury apparently chose to believe those witnesses the jury had the opportunity to gauge their demeanor to gauge their responsiveness to questions and make their credibility discrimination this court isn't going to overturn that decision sort of sad in people demanding that informant witness testimony like any other witness the credibility is a question for the jury the court one over rule it and similarly the defendants ask for some inferences from the evidence to be made in his favor that's not what the court does and sufficiency of the inferences are the people  is the end of that argument i would also add there was no prejudice from that a legit error either because the jury was thoroughly instructed both that opening and closing statements are not evidence and that it should not be moved by sympathy or prejudice had what was termed a pervasive pattern of prosecutorial misconduct where you had not just some off color remarks or questionable remarks in closing but also the deliberate presentation of emotionally charged evidence that had no relevan e i think the memorable piece of that is that there was a blood so police officers uniform that was put on this later in the trial and that combined with the multiple forms of misconduct including including asking to send a message about crime likening the defendant to an animal and this characterizing the law and evidence that all together was the purpose of pattern of misconduct that was plain air and resulted in reversal that is miles away from where we stand today and so over these these facts or page after page after page page after it's analysis of these stacks was exhaustive it was fully engaged with the facts of these cases for approximately seventy paragraphs and the most important what more the appellate court done and it is not clear exactly what the state would have had the appellate work done so to answer this this this this course question the appellate court could not have done anything more in this case analyzes  now i'd like to take a step back and start with the state's initial arguments to section one of of their their their their their first argument is that under plainer review the first prong play here a review in court mu law that they are designed by the sound of a court to prevent having a a if ice jury and so if we would say that we have to make an objective showing of that covers the other one how in the world are we going to do that and we tried to point this out in this briefing and this is actually a magic everybody knows but your deliberations are conducted in secret jersey not under any obligation whatsoever to to inform anybody about anything  confusion about a rule or thirty one b principle we don't have that in this case and we're not likely to have that in most cases so what we have here is a case where we got a rule for thirty one b error we have evidence that th but as i understand the facts each respective panel was very it yours in this case were were asked whether they accepted these principles they were not asked whether they understood them not none of the potential jurors were asked whether they understood these it or the yes i'm trying to recall this when the record by my belief is that the jurors were asked in panels whether they understood he should be with whether they accepted his principles but they were not asked whether they understood the principles and so they were here it is that this evidence was incredibly weak all we have is circumstantial evidence that places the defendant in the proximity of this horrendous five and we have to jailhouse informants and there's no other way to put this nicely who have a very strong the senate to testify falsely and i have i have outlined a very familiar pattern and this is this is in mr of how how these wrongful convictions occur when jailhouse informants are are prodded into the mix and this happens over and over and over and over again we have a murder case a disproportionate amount of deceased victims and this is obvious can identify their attackers many times is not any eyewitnesses to the crime there's no physical evidence just like there was no physical evidence in this case and you have a defendant who won't and bats well how in the world are the authorities and going to get a conviction or just turn to these jailhouse if he is and has had to repeat itself over and over and over again we have jailhouse snitches who are incarcerated with a defendant never met this defendant before they were incarcerated with him and then testified  that and again with all due respect to the way this is this is nothing more than sheer speculation and armchair psychology your honor the state did not present any expert testimony whatsoever that would indicate they had criminal defen behave in certain ways when they have actually committed the crimes as supposed to be having in other ways when they've knocked on that drives we don't know how people behave in stressful situations even we've even one of the state's witnesses i believe was one of the  myspace reviewing courts need not except this sort of testimony in cases where where there is no absolute conviction of the truth and again with all due respect to this day this is how wrongful convictions i would like to talk about very briefly one of the state's arguments about whether there is a de minimus exception to the plane air rule and the state side or the white case in support that assertion and i think there's a couple different ways for us  in that case because the rest of the evidence was so overwhelming the evidence of this up this line up wasn't so important regardless of whether it should have been let in or not led and so the fact that they have a piece of evidence was diminish rule to say that the court shall ask these questions so this honorable court has recognized over a period of years the increasing importance of these fair principles so or for the defense was respectively or for for the state to argue that prosecutor the prosecutor sat three times in opening statement three times in closing arguments the prosecutor directed to zero as attention away from the elements of crime and try to engender sympathy for the for the young  crime and this is absolutely amazing to me in a closing argument the prosecutor said the jury i shouldn't be doing this i know that i shouldn't be doing this and let it happen he did it anyways my gosh what in the world could be more presidential than that you have a prosecutor who a partial what's relevant of the of the trial evans i think that's a fair question i think the role of us of of the trial evidence is simply because they have is that they had a standard that we used to determine whether the against the defendant that's what it should ask here and the answer to that question is no this court essentially the defendant is asking this court by presuming prejudice from the close about analysis and finding rule four thirty one in the past in glasgow or in wilmington and it is said that it is there but it is not structural err i should abide by that decision and not fight not presumed prejudice from the air in this case  again there's good reason to believe that there wasn't prejudice here because the jurors were instructed on these principles they are presumed to have understood those instructions actually highlights nicely that the concern that animates will for thirty one a biased jury and we know we didn't have a biased jury here because all of the jurors accepted the role for thirty one principals there was an among them no one who said i'm going to know if i don't agree with that i think that to finish it to prove you didn't do it they accepted the principle so there was was no concern that they were biased against them the question that wasn't asked was about understanding yeah that was error but it wasn't prejudicial error at underwhelming ten this court should not presume the pre in fact it's the opposite that credibility questions even with informants remain questions for the jury and in this case all of those issues were flushed out before the jury the jury had the opportunity to assess that in addition to assessing the witnesses demeanor in person and the way they presented their testimony and apparently the jury found these witnesses credible as finally as two defendants contention that that his unusual behavior following the victim's death is just manifestation of the fact that people result react to stress all the situations differently stress generally does not make people go to their friends and ask them on two different occasions the day that their girlfriend's daughter sick in the hospital whether they should be concerned that the police are coming after them that's not normally the first thing on a person's mind in a situation of grief he does not cause people to avoid the police for months at a time and she tell their girlfriends to please do the same thing lied to the police tell them your car broke down  could make the interview change your phone number and don't talk to them anymore that is not part of the normal grieving process that is conduct that is indicative of an understanding of guilt and this court can and should consider that in this closely balanced analysis so for those reasons we've ask