priest two issues in the brief concerning the trial court's instructions to the jury relating to the elements establishing the offense of resisting a peace officer injuries neither issues instruction that present in the brief was preserved in the trial court however this court recognized people versus james in two thousand and four the fundamental fairness requires a tryout court to give correct instructions relating to the elements of the offense and that a failure so provide the correct instructions can constitute plain error and i respectfully request that the court consider the issues raised here as a matter of plain error as it did in james what was the offense of the offense was predatory criminal sexual assault what was the element  it was it was a misleading instruction relating to the definition of penetration resisting was the proximate cause of the injury and abrasion to us or carlton's knee the court further instructed the jury under i p i criminal four point two four that when i use the expression proximate cause i mean a cause that in the natural ordinary course of events produced a person's injury it need not be the only cause nor the last or nearest cause it is sufficient if it combines with another cause resulting in injury with the language beginning it need not it need not be the only cars etc in the second part of that instruction the contents to four point two four it raises three salient points it first although there are several criminal statutes in illinois that refer to the concept of proximate cause at least specifically in cases involving resisting a police officer with injury it declined to take a position on whether the tragedy should instruct the jury using the language that begins it need not be the only cause or the last or nearest rise and third when dealing specifically with the phrase the proximate cause in cases involving resisting of the scots or with injury the the best spin that i can put on his that they were not the direct result of this or jeffrey's physically punching or kicking the obvious or they were instance a dental to the movement and the scuffle that males going on see the problem is then answer the question what what they were not my question is what is statement as to how to account for the injuries the officer s  james is the culmination of a long line of cases beginning with people versus organs all of that so that has a common thread running through it in the common threa is that the jury it's the recognition that the jury is the bedrock underlying our whole g digital system and profiling the jury with the wrong instructions on how to apply the law to the facts to establish the essential elements of an offense undermines the trust the initial system places in the jury to reach a just and correct result and i think that principle applies to all that that i raised in this case now just to finish up on the first issue if you can by the plain language of the statu defining the class four level of offense as requiring that the act of resistance was the proselytise of the officers injury you read that in the light of the committee comments  conclude that the phrase the oxman was expressly limited the effect of the statute to situations where defendants act was an immediate or direct cause of the officers issues as opposed to simply a with regard to the second issue raised in the brief under people versus sense deletion geoffrey's retain a right of self defense even in circumstances of resisting arrest where he had a reasonable belief that force was necessary to protect himself against the enemy use of unlawful words if the hands of the arresting officers in the circumstances of this case in these specific circumstances the use of i p i criminal twenty four dash twenty five point twenty specifically instructing the jury that mr jeffreys was not entitled to resist under any circumstances i wrongly sleep directed a finding against him on a disputed issue of whether he was justified in using force to protect himself against the officer's use of excess evidence at trial raises an inference of self defense that becomes an element which the state must overcome this court recognize that failure to properly instructed yury on elements of the offense can constitute playing air especially in cases where the evidence is closely balanced and in this case  despite officer carlton's obvious injury to his chin the jury acquitted mr jeffries on both counts of aggravated battery with regard to that chin injury and given the conflicting evidence and the jury's verdict it is extrude be difficult to discern which facts the jury accepted as true or whom the jury accepted as credible it was an all or nothing of the per i don't know that we we don't know that for sure but for instance part of the teaching of the supreme court's rejection of the doctrine of inconsistent verdicts that we're not going to be putting too much into the jury find the defendant guilty of x and i thought the of why just because they could do it this is all we're going to well my take on that is that the evidence here clearly conflicted and the jury's verdict recognise that there was a conflict in the evidence so if the jury returned you wouldn't be making this are you i would probably still be making right i think i think but i believe that the fact that the jury returned acquittals on actually the more serious felonies this type of aggravated battery against police officer in cars and causing injury to a police officer is a class two felony that's an indication that the jury did view the evidence as close and  they were struggling over it and i think that informs us that informs the analysis of whether to plot to apply plain error in this situation and one can discern from the evidence action argue for the entire area of the defense all along in this trial was that mr jeffreys did not resist and that the officers used excessive force that was the theme that counsel use throughout the trial and it's cross examination the state's witnesses and of the officers i you know he really he repeatedly used the word beat you beat my client did you not that was that was the theme of the of the  he did not resist and that the officers used excessive force in a case like this where the applicable law under people versus sent and it was just the culmination of earlier cases that was the most recent case that i could find the state of the law under people versus sims is that even a resisting arrest if there is some evidence presented that the os are to use excessive force then the defendant is entitled to an instruction that any force that he use to resist was is that when the evidence can raise and inference in his own defense the poor should not speculate it's not it's not in the prerogative of a trial judge to take that away from the jury that's a question for the jury they should be instructed on the out of all applicable law they were not instructed on the applicable law in this case regarding the right to send the instruction it would defendant was totally gandhi like he in fact he explicitly said i did nothing to defend myself i stood motionless he never did anything construed as taking an active defense and you have to admit he acts in order to invoke the right to self defense there was absolutely no evidence both he and the chapman case where no instruction on self defense is applicable to an act that the defendant denies and the defendant explicitly den he didn't do anything in self defense that he was completely submissive and his wife said the same thing so i think that's a death knell to his to live she didn't see the other part she saw go after art after that but that was she saw the first part of this episode oh not the second part  with regard to the mom how would you how could the tribe jeff decide he was the aggressor if he says he did nothing and one witness says he did in terms of striking the first blow i could the judge way that if s instruction was submitted but that would be some evidence on the issue of whether and i realize that you can take bits and pieces from state's evidence and i'm saying if the instruction has been offered yet there's a question about whether he was the aggressor because his testimony would have to be weighed against the other testimony and the travelers wouldn't be able to pick and choose a trial judge would be required to give in this case had a self defense instruction been offered with the trial judge have to have given my my position is that he would not have because of the defendant's testimony because of the defense evidence yes but you said the evidence showed he w aggressor that's an evaluation and it's bad isn't a reason to give or not give the instruction well you have to or like this that it's true that you can look the state's evidence as well but the state that could support the claim of self defense and everything that the officers did if you're looking strictly at the state's evidence everything that they did was proportionate to what the defendant did he's the one that the definition of proximate cause that's the pivotal definition but actually they were given the simple definition it really doesn't make any difference because it is kind of an academic question given the fact that the you know i i submitted i didn't do anything and there there was no issue about proximate cause the defendant to attribute the injury or the immigration problems me to anything that he did and his defense attorney attributed the actions that officer  coming ham was the one that delivered the negro's right before the defendant put his hands behind his back they were having a battle and that at that point after he was on the on the ground and so there was nothing that the defendant testified to that could be an alternative proximate cause for the injury karl said it was wrestling that he has to engage and when he was on his knees and they were trying to roll the defendant over on his stomach as the preliminary to getting his hands behind his back and it was the proximate cause was a proximate cause no i think it's you go right to the fact that in this situation in this particular case it's not it really doesn't matter whether he has the than the r excuse me less than one hundred percent up proximate cause and he said it makes no sense if he is meant to be the sole proximate  how can you have less then are or less than one hundred percent if in other words if they find that somebody is more than fifty percent responsible for an incident then they can't recover anything in his logic is that if it's if it's exclusive if it's the sole reason how how can you have that kind of instruction in the civil case and then he looked to the fact that in the hudson the illinois supreme court said that the civil proximate cause subject that you see and believe in even though the instructions in that case said he was definite article all three of them on the same page that there was there was no error and this case is on a different it's completely different because the jury was instructed about the definite article so focus is upon the proximate cause instruction that they received and again i don't see that proximate cause was really an issue in this case they're saying that the officers in  the defendant said that you know he was motionless he did absolutely nothing to cause this injury self defense the defendant is entitled to the instruction it does these cases do not limit that principle to strictly evidence presented by the defen cognizant about what was fair in a particular case what was what was fair what was due process in particular case before the court and my suggestion is in this particular case trial court failed to short the jury we're not going to reverse roe what can you provide some guidance on how we would make that call  demonstrate the id ice committee's skepticism with regard to justice in its observation in that case and they tend to support justice observations that this is a problematic area of the law and that it's problematic to use this definitional instruction in the specific case of resisting a police officer with injury if there are no further quest