thank you florence from or on they have a rosenquist and associates some weeks in a zone of representing lawrence jackson we were not trial counsel undoubtedly this is a very emotional and tragic case no one including the jury would like to hear the details of a brutally murdered person as you know the victim had begged for his life and the circumstances were very tragic however the defendant in this case received a are intertwined throughout my argument i believe the are the issues well overlap first of all regarding the insufficiency of evidence we have the case where  there was two supposedly eyewitness testimonies there are i witness witnesses their testimony was very problematic and their stories were very different number one being vanessa cross this was a woman who said that during the day that the victim died she was drunk she was doing drugs she was using crack cocaine methamphetamine and it's something that she regularly uses she was drinking forty ounce malt liquor and she was the witness who brings up the testimony about that battle dome corner if you recall your honour's that testimony this was listed on cross examination the term battle dome was not mentioned by mr cross until two weeks before the trial and the other supposedly eye witness raymond jackson says he never heard that term before this was a theme that was used throughout the trial for the government to say that mr jackson was guilty miss krause also says that no one is afraid of lawrence jackson except for her she's so afraid that she doesn't leave she continues to live with him and i'm being sarcastic when i'm saying she's so afraid she continues to live with him after the murders she has her children in the house with him after while the body is being disposed she goes to sleep she's a very  direct appeal well we can bring in a direct appeal if the evidence shows that it was he was ineffective during the trial and the counsel was ineffective during the trial and we have that and the very biggest circumstance is the forum for be evidence calling it a tactical decision it won't make any sense because the first thing counsel does is file for a for be motion says don't have this evidence about the antonio jackson beating then he withdraws it which is that part's not so bad but then we get to the next across examination and during her examination counsel opens the door to the forum for be evidence it was not brought up by the government examination so we didn't have to have that antonio jackson evidence there he brings it up in such a way that it's instead of having her explain what was it should be coming out as the story everything that happened with antonio jackson instead he makes a very very small question to her and then the government says during their redirect ok we're going to go into everything that has to do with the antonio jackson matter the defense and you can tell it's not a tactical decision because the defense counsel objects and the court says you open the door to th she gets to do the evidence during the redirect she gets to ask the questions during the redirect opposing counsel is flabbergasted and said well i want to chance to do redirect and that the court says you don't get to redirect the redirect that's it you've opened the door tactical for the case so the only way to fix that is to call the defendant as a witness and have him talk about it by then it looks to the jury as if it was something that was trying to be hidden and then now it's discovered by the government if it's going to be tactical it's going to come out or it's not going to come out if it's either in one or the other and what the defense counsel does is so kind of bring it in so the government's able to bring it with a big bang and severely prejudice the defendant two witnesses in this case the two eyewitnesses that the government relies on their testimony contradict each other and is really problematic and they both have reason to testify which is to save themselves raymond jackson's testimony is is very important and first going back to the next across she never testifies that she sees she never sees defendant in the bathroom where the victim was stabbed she never sees defending with a gun or knife and the government's theory is that he was that lawrence jackson beat the victim with a gun she never sees the defendant hit the victim with the gun and she's also vaguely remember stuff from that day because she's so drugged then we have raymond jackson who test is testifying because he is there with that testimony which allows you to be charged as a juvenile so he'll be out of prison in three to four years i think he was sixteen or seventeen when it happened he gets released when he's twenty one both the next across and raymond jackson admit that they lied initially to the police two or three times and then when they get to trial were telling the truth were truthful braman jackson is also not credible as well because he says i am so fearful of this defendant he was so fearful and again sarcasm he hides the body in the desert and the defendant is not even with him there was testimony and this and  i know the court is thinking well the jury was there to decide this again goes back to then effective assistance of counsel that the defendant during his sentencing stated that investigation was not done in his case he during his own testimony the defendant's own testimony he stated that there was a witness who knows that could have been called to support his case that was not done he was prejudice and he and they simply observed different portions of many of the events and noted the court said at page fifty eight the standard instruction to the jury you may believe part you may believe all of what a witness says so under the standard that this court reviews this matter with all the inferences in the government's favor there is no question that a rational jury could have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt i would also know it's just simply not correct to say that all the government had was cross who had who had credibility problems and raymond jackson who is the defense did a very co job of pointing out received a deal if he'd been prosecuted as an adult he could been facing life as a juvenile he got a a four year sentence the other evidence involved  person the ex girlfriend of raymond jackson that the defendant threatened and said if you talk to harm your children and make you watch in other words consciousness of guilt evidence you also had the physical evidence on the nine millimeter gun so the idea that this was the government would be entitled to prevail even if it was just a scrape street credibility determination for the jury to resolve but the fact was the government did have much more evidence than that  blunt force trauma which likely occurred in the living room and from the stab wounds which occurred in the bathroom so there are alternative theories of how the victim died certainly the over one hundred stab wounds in the bathroom were fatal but witness being both of them stabbed them there were two different knives used so that's why there were sufficiency of evidence even if you were just to focus on the stab wounds as the cause of death you know his his plea deal and i need at his change of quick what he said was myself and a group of others killed the victim let me turn to the alleged ineffective assistance of counsel first i should note it is the government's position that this is not a developed record for this court to deal with this under rector view it would be useful and interesting to the court to have an affidavi from defense counsel as to certain strategy decisions i should ever if this court does want to address that at this point i should note that it's that there was a defense strategy as the defense said in its opening that the jury was going to hear some very bad things about the defendant to defense previewed this in its opening and in its closing in this  are sixty six and sixty eight it said speaking about the defendant why he would testify now he didn't have to testify he had a right not to testify but he got up on the witness stand and he told you and now i'm no longer quoting all these bad should believe me when i don't it to something and the defendant's argument was that he wins the credibility determination between himself and vanessa cross and raymond jackson and that is clearly a strategic decision that counsel had i should note for example why would defense counsel bring up or why would he allow defendant to testify from the witness stand that the defendant possessed drugs and sold them after getting out of prison and the answer is because that supported the defendant's alibi that he had gone to daniel's house that night and had left the night the victim was murdered so that he could smoke week why would the defense counsel allow the defendant to testify that he possessed multiple nine millimeter guns which is not evidence of a of a law abiding person who's been in prison and the answer is because that makes it much more likely that the gun used in the murder may have been his but was not in his possession and was used in his absence so there's no question that damaging information came out about the defendant but that was clearly part of the death and it strategy to portray the defendant as coming from a difficult environment and having been the best person from a difficult environment a person that the jury should believe  counsel would be you know whether or not the defendant absolutely insisted on testifying because a review of this record shows that no matter how persuasive the bennett may have thought he was going to be he likely hurt himself greatly with his own testimony he had a lousy alibi he had difficulty explaining many things including why he would be threatening other witnesses including raymond jackson  the gun evidence which had the blood of the victim on it and he acknowledged well that that is essentially the gun that that i've had all of those factors are what is likely what led to his conviction but again this is best addressed in a b s proceeding at this point i do need to say however that there was absolutely no failure to identify witnesses keeping in mind  that smith could not testify because he the fifth amendment right revealed was under indictment she couldn't testify had been charged by complaint four days prior to the trial she was not available to testify and none of that mattered anyway because the defense the fend its claim was i simply wasn't there and so the crucial witness it was from was the defendant it's clear from the record and the defendant said in his own testimony through his alibi witness daniel i gave all of that information to my defense counsel but he couldn't find him because daniel is on the run from the police and this is daniel the alibi witness with somebody that the defendant could not name his wife couldn't say where he lived he just said he lived in a bar and somewhere it was just inherently incredible so the idea that the defendant himself admitted there was no way to find daniel so daniel couldn't have been produced for trial there was no witness that the defense counsel failed to produce who could have helped defend it or exculpate did exculpated him and so the argument that there was a failure to call  three john dixon does not tie the defendant to the murder she does say that she was threatened but the defendant did not go to her and say go say something because i killed the victim she was the girlfriend of rainman jackson so there is a likelihood that she was going to be saying something to protect her boyfriend and her boyfriend was the main prosecution witness smith in this case too i think is important because he does a change of plea and he just says group but he doesn't ever identify lawrence jackson so although there's other individuals supposedly there no one identifies lawrence jackson except the two i didn't understand the government to  exactly but he says group he doesn't individually name anyone and it's only raymond jackson and the cross who get vanessa cross who nothing happens to her ra