characterized the evidence against caro ok that this case has being overwhelming i don't think so i think the evidence in this case was evenly balanced or engaged in a predatory criminal sexual assault against her that was the evidence there was nothing else there was no immediate outcry evidence she testified on the stand that it may have occurred two years prior during the summer but she wasn't sure she told her mother about this under questioning from the mother long after the events no other evidence my client throughout the night that he had done this and jury in the minor child testimony she admitted that she would sleep walk on occasion and that she may have been sleepwalking on the night when this alleged event occurred she testified that her grandmother who is my client's wife came out after the alleged assault and that the grandmother and my client had coffee well we had the grandmother testify at the time a trot and she testified that yes she was there and that she was aroused by  laughter from my client and the laughter from the brother of the minor child because the minor child would come out sleepwalking was mouthing jibberish and they found that amusing that the brother then took the minor child back to bed and that my client and his wife been handsome often now i think there's various ways to characterize that evidence but i would not characterize it as overwhelming in my argument today i would like to reverse order so i put them in my brief sort of like the way which is allegedly say their prayers from back to front and the reason for that is because the last argument is different from the other ones and the last argument that i have in this case is that the evidence to convict my client beyond a reasonable doubt now i quite understand the high bar to reach an regardless because i believe the rule is good any rational prior fact have not found i have found that it wasn't beyond a reasonable doubt i submit that this is a very rare case where i don't see how anyone any rational trier of fact could have found that there wasn't reasonable doubt because of the rebut of alibi evidence because of the admission of the minor child that she was sleepy that she may have been sleepwalking that night because of no outcry when there were various other individuals around that she could have had an outcry with and of the light between the alleged crime and when she first said anything at all about i  think these are substantial facts that were overlooked by the jury when the jury made its decision now the other arguments that i'm making in this case remind me of an old story i was told long ago walk in our lives don't remember anything else about the art class but i remember the story michelangelo had a colleague who was an artist and he had painted a portrait of an and then you notice that he had put the ring on the wrong finger of accounts maybe that's a bit more substantial then he noticed there was some cracking down on the left hand bottom left hand side and eventually there were enough imperfections that he scrap the whole painting and read it through it on the bonfire the other elements that i'm bringing up the other arguments aren't deadly in the i them selves but i think it case where we would submit the evidence was evenly balanced combine them all and i think they were required to trial in this case and what are those first steps is i think an attempt by the state to diminish the burden of proof in their closing argument they state made this statement who would want to live in a world where a victim statement is not enough a world where defendant can commit unspeakable acts and get away with it by almost the purpose of saying that well it's pretty obvious that's all they had the victim state and what they were telling the jury in effect do you want to live in a world where a victim statement can't simply be accepted because that terrible things this person did this minor child i mean that's what they were trying to put into the minds of the jury that type of burden of proof now course to come back to that is well you know we have a trial instruction that says ignore everything that those attorneys said and say none of that of greed none of the facts evidence but it's argument and there's a reason why attorneys engage in closing argument because it's often very effective and a statement like that where the evidence is evenly balanced i think it's deadly deadly to the defense the next argument whether the trial court here in not finding that the state made improper appeals to  in this case the prosecutors waxed eloquent about how the child felt when she was kind of traded allegedly by the fingers of mr kay and there were several other instances that are cited closely balanced once again that is deadly i defy anyone to come up with another rationale for why they were doing that except to excite the cur the next argument here is the state reasonable doubt and the state made the statement reasonable doubt it is a standard as many courtrooms across the nation every day of the week now if this was truly case where the evidence was overwhelming against my client i don't think there'd be anything that i could do with that argument here simply because if the evidence is overwhelming that by itself is a little thing but in this case i think the evidence was close to balanced and little things like that build up now i always thought that there is a tension between the idea that a trial court has discussed the four thirty one principles among which is the reasonable doubt but that the trial court can't define me tell the jury that they can't define reasonable doubt and it's up to them to define it themselves and then to talk about it with each other i think if anything it only mystifies reasonable doubt for the jury makes it perhaps a hard concept for them to grasp but in this case it came after people versus downs i kept it in the brief more or less to see if there were any additional cases that would come down the time period to further explain what the supreme court wants now in that area i haven't seen it but i think when you add all these factors up any case where the evidence was so closely errors i think plane air and on analysis is taken on the air by air basis we can't combine all of these into one big plane air that's the whole point of the forfeiture rules that if each of these were preserved there may be a different story here however to take them all together would just simply purge councils more to not preserve these issues so they can put them all together as a super player argument again i there's no case that i know of the that comes to that conclusion there are multiple issues addressed in this brief in the brief in this case i'll touch briefly on all of them but if your honour's have any questions about any of them at any they wanted to make sure the panel had could not proceed any issues grasping with the definition of reasonable doubt which they had to make for themselves contrast that with people versus downward downs which had been defend sided in that case the issue came out during deliberations the jury since the trial court question asking what the definition of reasonable doubt is corresponded by saying it was i cannot give them a definition was unnecessary at most it prevented a situation exactly like what would occur in the balance where potential tear down the road can't define reasonable doubt for themselves which ends with a jury questions which can only complicate we look at this one it's clear that no plane air or at most it was an unnecessary question by the trial court order as for the arguments about the prosecutor's closing remarks being improper again all these are forfeited in fact the trial court you would step in a trial court shoes they would have to assume respond to most of these arguments i don't think there are very many if any objections during the prosecutor's closing arguments so the would have the extra burden of suicide on the object also as applies to all of these arguments as well settled the prosecutors are given wide latitude in great leeway in the closing arguments they can discuss subjects of general knowledge common experience and common sense we can go through each individual one the first one was about reasonable doubt being proven in us courts every day this was obviously general knowledge common sense thing course there are trial criminal trials in the us every day torture is fine return a verdict of guilty on those trials every day this is not a revelation  reasonable person sitting on the jury contrast that with jones which defendant cited they are prosecutor partially to find reasonable doubt in his closing saying reasonable doubt does not mean beyond all doubt it does not mean beyond a shadow of a doubt on means beyond a reasonable doubt the same standard in every every criminal case in every county in this country the only similarities between jones in this case is that last sentence however that is the troubling language evolves the troubling language of the first  which suggests something at least that reasonable doubt isn't it's not beyond all doubt it's not beyond a shadow of a doubt that suggests a definition for reasonable doubt that's the egregious language and grounds obviously much more just in the language here still discordant grounds found that that was not quite there so clearly this less egregious language which only stated a matter of common sense was not plain there as for the prosecutor's remarks about the victim appealing to the emotions of the jurors clearly the prosecutor can talk about the exact testimony that katie gave the victim the victim testified yes defendant digitally penetrated me twice and it her this is  not even a reasonable inference for that for the prosecutor to make it's the exact testimony of the child of course that it's not improper to talk about that in closing arguments and then we get the timeline defense counsel his closing argument it's almost primary focus is to attack the credibility of the victim katie then in rebuttal the prosecutor stated who would want to live in a world where a victim statement is not enough a world where the finnick can commit unspeakable acts and get away with it this was clearly a response to defense counsel's attack on katie's credibility it was not improper to say that and more importantly it's not an accurate statement of the law all courts in illinois  well settled but a single witness if positive incredible is sufficient to convict that's what well the jury was properly instructed they were instructed on each element and that they had to prove each element beyond a reasonable doubt a jury is presumed to follow instructions nothing in the record indicates that the jury didn't follow instructions in this case  my argument there would be that the instructions which are taken back to the jury of course on top of the instruction to disregard any arguments and not based on evidence  clearly this was not does not rise to the level planer and i would say that it's not even improper the next remark was no parent should ever have to will hear the words katie said to her mother about the allegations again this is general knowledge common sense common experience no parent in the world wants to hear their child talk about sexual allegations against them the last one is that the prosecutor improperly validation for the credibility of state witnesses to this court and hope which i cited stated the a prosecutor may comment on the witnesses credibility when such remarks are based on facts and evidence or reasonable inferences drawn there from this court rejected the notion that a prosecutor improperly crosses the bounds of asserting his personal views regarding witnesses credibility if the jury has to infer the prosecutor's doing so thus we hold up for prosecutors closing argument to be improper he must explicitly state personal views stating for example this is my personal view here there's no languish indicating that that this was a personal observation like how i know katie she wouldn't lie to you i know the state's witness they won't lie to you clearly this was not the prosecutor's personal view in fact they were all the remarks cited in both briefs are based on evidence or at least reasonable inferences to draw from that evidence finally maybe most importantly with all of these improper prosecutorial remarks arguments as justice connex stated rushing as i sayd in my brief improper prosecutorial mark can be cured by instruction to the jury disregard argument not based on the evidence this is exactly what happened in this case in fact the language the court used in this case is almost verbatim to the trial court's language that they used in rushing it's based on a pattern instruction again a court is presume or a curious presume to follow their proper instructions here they were properly instructed this curate any remarks even assuming that they were improper by the prosecutor and clearly none of this rises to the level of plain error  the last argument is that there was insufficient evidence to say this was a credibility case the defendant stated that he didn't do this the victim katie testified that yes he did of course the jury was in the best position to evaluate the credibility of all the defendant the jury is not required to use except contradictory alibi testimony over positive identification by the victim in the testimony of a single witness positive incredible sufficient to convey here because the jury is in such a position we have a very high standard of review we have to look at the all the evidence in the light most favorable prosecution we have to look at our reasonable inferences in favor of the prosecution and we have to decide if any rational trier of fact find that a guilty beyond a reasonable doubt here the victim stated yes defendant did this looking at that evidence in the light most favorable prosecution there is clearly it's fission evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt and if there are no questions prosecutor uses a specific phrase that qualifies comments we disagree instead courts should use a commonsense approach to determine whether the statements of the baby who are reasonable juror that the process or believes that  civilians makes more sense simply because prosecutors aren't idiots if they suddenly hear well in order for us to be accused of vouching we have to say certain words we're not going to say the certain words and we're going to get around that we're still go although in this case i think we did have vouching which which i think what you can pass a test to poke and we heard from jamie who testified i would argue testify and of belief that day and that was the mother of victim and the prosecutor for him jamie and then the prosecutors went on to state so we had leading questions on cross at a pretty rapid pace a fast pace can a gold a minor child answer she wasn't having the thing what's the lie again what did my parents tell me to say it was easier for her to answer because it was the truth i don't think i can see how the prosecutor could possibly say that without  testimony of the witness once again this case was all about credibility so when you have the prosecutor's vouching like that that's got to have an impact on the jury and if there are any questions i'll be happy to