understand since you wrote your briefs there's been substantial new law whether it's pluralistic or whatever you want to call it but i would hope that you would mainly address williams and leach and oh one other qualification it's my understanding so i am know from the briefs that look like you were saying that they were something was admitted into evidence when it was not it and i'm sorry not or something basically them that witness's testimony was admitted in the testimony yes you say follow a mandate was there a mandate what is the mandate the mandate from the united states supreme court simply to vacate this course earlier decision and to reconsider in light of williams versus illinois my understanding is there were a large number of these cases pending williams itself has no presidential value to the extent the lower courts have like i said there's a large number of these cases other courts are placed in this position as well and what's to figure out what century you make of it to the extent there's overlap of five or more justices in the opinion  doing that to be a holding and trying to take something from that mckay's but actually because of the similarity between this case and williams there is no personal values or what's in the same position of there being a four one four split on the court and it's justice kagan pointed out  thomas who says you have to have the indicia of formality or solemnity which is his position consistently and in this case you know you don't have that yet why don't we why can't we follow that you know analysis where the problem  this case there's not actually overlap so you have justice thomas disposition which is the one that stands by itself but also it is separate concurrence he specifically rejected every single aspect of justice alito for justice factions opinion so that there's not the sort of prosecution but what about and just that one narrow finding that says these are not that the evidence in this particular case is was williams is that an affidavit is that testimony doesn't have the solemnity or formality  marks case that the state sites where you had a three justice for reality which you think that's not nearly enough to actually be the law to hold in the future but actually the two justices concurring in that case actually had a broader interpretation of the first amendment that was  anything how are we supposed to file that after we have the least decision which appears to say you know it stands for something the chance for autopsy reports and it's an example of a lower court as i mentioned taking williams as a whole and trying to an allergist the sort of d n a evidence that you have in a case like this where the d n a is going through the illinois state police crime lab in connection with an open sexual assault investigation and it's contracted out to so mark in baltimore getting connection with this open investigation so even if this were an past harmless error if we want to just sort of avoid this whole williams leach the reality what is it stand for can't we just hang our head on harmless error here but certainly with the court did it in leached of each other i get a much more difficult problem than i have here in this case the how can you ignore what the victim testified to that did corroborate what he was wearing where it occurred how it happened how he covered her up how he told her to count to fifty how he told her to give him personal information how do you ignore that i don't think you should ignore it i think your honour's mistaken a few of the particulars of that certainly could be she was unable to identify specifically where it happened and she did her best to true but her testimony was not only on able to identify him she actually was turning to both come in case which is the most media case prior to williams resort which had a five justice majority that kate that case held very similar to the facts of this case that you cannot get out of syria get witness in this case we had a doctor reynolds from so much labs find out to chicago to testify concerning testing that was performed by analysts that saw some are that she did not observe that she had no personal knowledge of they had the option of going out one of those analysts probably had less of a cost but instead they flew out dr re well at the time they believe that would be the case that would be valid not held but in two thousand and eleven the united states supreme court specifically condemned that sort of what they called surrogate testimony and said if you're going to have forensic evidence it has to be put on through somebody  performed or at least observe the tests and therefore was in a position of personal knowledge of what the analysts did and therefore could be cross examined remembers all the context of the confrontation clause there's to be some sort of basis to cross examine the expert on what exactly occurred in the lab testing that she did not conduct any of the testing and these are the two factors that the united states supreme court said was salient in people that she's mean all coming result in mexico so therefore if we had we're left is for one four split in williams and it doesn't stand for anything and just as kagan said we should look to becoming a melendez the is to figure out what's the law for forensic evidence and of course the score should also look to leach because this is going on its own i supreme court decision but it's leach itself is not on point on a in fact it distinguishes the any evidence as i've explained both coming as i was saying condone the sort of surrogate testimony at issue in this case and once that decision came down that was deemed to be testimonial hearsay and inadmis and terms of which pacific wash apply and what will the presidential value of williams as this court held in mercury indemnity company that these sorts of decisions about majorities have limited presidential value and that case th ferguson versus mackenzie and the court for many cases if a majority merely agrees to a particular result without agreeing to the grounds for the decision and i would say that's what we have in williams the parties are bound by the decision but the case provides no binding authority beyond the immediate archives so the parties and williams are the people but also mr williams in this case we have different defendant different parties there's no presidential value that can be assigned to future cases you know if if the leach court had said then you know it's not presidential and there's nothing to follow i'd be with you that i don't think they really have i think i don't think they're with you but why would some of that they didn't have to address the issue that it like your honor said avoided the quagmire found among other things that it bill coming so to say that that's the law is to say that this dissenting faction is announcing along the land when there's five votes specifically against it not only in both coming in the end is the is but in williams there are five votes against that so whatever the law is it's not just the your daughter's pointing out at a point of quagmire say you lose under any of four different theories and i believe chief justice killed my point of it out and said is you know this court should just had a specific holding and stuck to it but they're aware of the fact that there's a split on this autopsy issue  very likely to be the next issue to be taken by the united states supreme court and haven't just been possibly burned on williams and that's hard to say what it stands for they don't want to burn again another autopsy case so they're kind of protecting themselves by having all these multiple holdings good morning your honor so again my name is assistant state's attorney in what help on behalf of the people the question your honor is asked at the beginning of the argument is what is there avoidance to follow that is certainly an open question as courts in this country go forward and attempt to apply the body of case law finding following offered most recently williams to factual scenarios or issues that have not yet been addressed by the u s supreme court this court need not delve too deeply into it here because what we have in this case are d n a report specifically a cell mark report and that issue has been addressed before i even get to that though i'm going to give the court the most direct route to reject defendant's arguments which is as justice but since he noted the fact that dr reynolds the d n a expert from  based on what happened factually and that with mr de domanick oh what mr basco did deceased analyst fosco that was never admitted into trial that was to never discuss that w split into different multiple to see of multiple items and initially mr bastow would have done the i felt one of those and then everything else is stored and secured and then it went to some art then another to point to some art and they did the modern s t r testing on that would certainly be away i'm that the trial court here essentially found that any error in any admission of any d n a would be harmless when he found defendant guilty he said that he said even ignoring all of the d n a d n a evidence that was presented at trial i would still find this defendant guilty because of the way that his confession dovetails with the very compelling testimony of the victim as to specific details such as the fact that after he finished assaulting her he told her to come to fifty before she got out but the fact that he used hoodie to cover her face the fact that he approached her on the street from behind put her in a lock her neck with his arm took her to a grassy area i mean there are details he identified a photograph of the victim he was on a photograph of the victim when he gave his statement and he said yes i assaulted her and then proceeded to describe the assault in detail and her testimony dovetails she was not able to identify him in court but that's because she never saw space but she did provide a lot of detail about the know given the state of the the law and the confrontation clause issue in light of williams and leach if you were writing this decision would you take the path of least resistance or is there some way of trying to segue you into your next argument is there some way that you can find you know to get this through the morass that is left here hamas would be the most that would be this is the simplest route the second simplest would be to find see if you see a problem there which i still maintain there is not you could find any testimony about mr vasco was certainly harmless one because no results are details of his analysis were ever admitted and to be a because the ultimate king opinion came from from mr domanick that was the modern s t r testing so it would have wouldn't be the right word since nothing came in from mr bastow but it really is just you know a step in the chain and an earlier testing done at a prior point in time that with the results were never admitted or in any way used against him would be harmless any references to him would be harmless when demonic testified about his results and then also that there were no signs of contamination or anything like also able to assess that data when you say relying and he's able to look at the d at the entire case file and he did testify based on his experience and his review that there were no signs of contamination the issue of extraction would not be a problem with the profile would be if there was a problem with  here no report of any type was admitted into evidence as an exhibit that's one distinction a factual distinction no report was also admitted and williams however the us supreme court considered actually got the report when it was lodged with the court so they actually looked at a s like reports are not testimonial certainly when i state police lab notes are not testimonial there's no distinction there's no factual distinction this was an all suspect case the same as williams there's really no i  distinction but it's a distinction that i know that arguments are being made by defendants in cases as a means to distinguish so what i'm saying is is that i actually don't think that doesn't mean an arguable means of distinction but in so medical examiner and not an autopsy report so right leach does is essentially and actually explicitly count votes so and we each takes the tact of looking at the primary purpose analysis because that analysis is found throughout all of the cases post crawford's opinions so that that is a that is a an aspect of the crawford confrontation analysis that appears in all of the cases that appears to be the one paragraph where they're really trying to say what william stands for and paragraph one twenty two we conclude that whichever definition of primary purpose is applied the autopsy report in the present case was not testimonial because it was one that prepared for the primary purpose of the using a term of visual or two for the primary purpose of providing evidence a criminal case is that about all leakage says william stands for well leach says that williams if you're if you're in a situation where you have to to apply a primary purpose analysis leach looks to williams as authoritative instructive on where again in a kind of a counting votes approach where different votes may lie to then apply a primary purpose formulation to a new a new scenario so that's what i would say it's if at the very least williams definitively stands for the fact that some like reports are not testimonial an solemnity is is a very important focus of of the confrontation clause analysis now if you're going to apply williams in this case if you do go that route and you certainly if you could direct that language law it would be if there were five who said that you know in order for the confrontation clause to be triggered you know there has to be you know the evidence of solemnity for mail the whatever and what you just said shared the following two characteristics a they involved out of court statements having the primary purpose of accusing a targeted targeted individual of engaging in criminal conduct and b they involve formalized statements such as affidavits depositions prior testimony or confessions notes hammon is arguably inconsistent with that but however that was not addressed in the williams briefing and that because that was not an issue at the time of briefing and that kind of ties into justice fryers concurrence where he felt that this was something that should have been addressed more often should have been addressed again an additional briefing all right so if there are no other questions we ask the state or excuse me as this court to a family i would just note that we would ask this court to affirm flawed analysis and disagreed with every respect now had justice thomas agreed with that particular narrow thing that applied in this case you would have a five just majority it would have gone to the trouble certainly chief justice roberts were never allowed for a situation where there was a spare one fo case with all these remains looking a mess for lower course you know with there was no overlap at all that's why it's for one for someone that he means something very specific to justice thomas that are currently does not mean to any of the eight other justices that's why it's a one in the four one the civil case but sherman case you've got wrecked the confrontation right we have a sixth amendment right here and this is a person who doesn't know exactly what happened this is not enough to put on the court made it very clear both coming and if we're going to talk about for justice decisions ins for just this opinion made it very clear until a majority of this court reverses or confines melinda's the isn't becoming i would understand them is continuing to go burn in every particular the admission of forensic evidence certainly said some specific questions with respect to the facts of the case for example mr bosco's notes what mr basco allegedly performed was he actually took the physical evidence and extracted d n a from it and reduced it swabs that were sent  so i would submit that's forensic work by an analyst that requires some kind of technical skill to do that also i think there was there's possibly some one uncertainty with what happened to the physical evidence it was basco those tubes that were sent to saumur for testing the and the other evidence presumably are still in cold storage at the only state police or somewhere else the state actually could have had those retested and had a much cleaner chain and with respect to dr reynolds testimony they could have very easily discarded one of the analysts who actually perform the