was that it was not believable he didn't want west had to lose as an inmate in a prison citing that he would have instigated a violent confrontation with a correctional officer and that it was only the correctional officers pattern of harassment and  defensive action on west part and to support this theory he sought to testify about his motive to avoid conflict around the time of the offense he wanted to testify that he had been trying to avoid trouble to get to his a coming parole board hearing and the quote rules that this testimony with and open the door to west thirty prior accusations of assaulting other correctional officers and inmates over the years was a group but there's some indication in the record that they were really too old to have had any relevance or probative value journey west sentencing hearing to ben's counsel represented to the court that all of the prior assault admit evidence that results a false or misleading impression left by the other party's evidence but here i let's just talk that occurred years and years ago decades ago perhaps would not provide testimony about west brown the defendant testified that he had been previously convicted of petty but had not gotten arrested or gotten into any trouble for the last five years and the state and the court then cross examine the defendant in front of  than it was more like with motive evidence in the cases cited by the state the defendant testify that they were a peaceful character generally or that they had never committed crimes that's not really the kind of testimony we have here established that these weren't in fact very old incidents and to the extent that there's any indication in the record it seems that they probably were very ill and they were wrong and that's right was they dropped the issue bit and by that mean that they find it in test and then offer the proper testimony that's correct the court noted for the record that defense counsel was informing him that easley there were somewhat similar circumstances there the illinois supreme court held that found it didn't forfeit his constitutional issues by failing to testify because it was clear the erroneous ruling was the reason defendant defense counsel that prior to having his client testify said judge you made this pretrial ruling i just want to check and make sure i i'm defense going to be or proffering this is what's a friend it will be testifying to this doesn't affect your prior ruling and the state then took the opportunity to say you know we are going this time is that open the door to these prior incidents and the state said you know and the state heard argument from both sides and said you know i think i agree with the state if you do offer this proper testimony then i'm going to allow this impeachment evidence to come then so i would argue it was a ruling it certainly would have affected his eyes as much to look at that issue or feel he and there i think it was just a failure you can't be positive i think it was just a failure to testify on your home issues like here and so so i think according to easily that would support our position that his failure to testify did not forfeit this error and you know he put on the record ok i'm going to decline to offer this testimony because of this court's ruling and and so so our position is that he not forfeit the constitutional issue per easily what was the pretrial ruling it would have likely been considered by the jury is propensity evidence on and so they he had little choice then but to decline to offer his testimony that would have supported his theory  evidence that's it they define it was that the defendant wanted to testify that he had a parole board coming up a parole board hearing coming up in the near future and because of this parole board hearing he had a lot to lose he didn't he was trying to stay out of trouble at this that it was officer cochran that was continuing his pattern of aggressive behavior towards this and  impermissibly just purging west from preventing i wouldn't that would have bolstered the kind of his credibility that he was not the aggressor and on the other hand you have the state improperly bolstering the credibility of this with the witnesses based on their an informal representation of what his testimony would be regarding his staying out of trouble for this little boy here to defend it would not be entitled to a new trial where his testimony would have opened the door to his p his violent behavior the defendant's if he again if you would have testified to not being a troublemaker he would have been intentionally misled the jury regarding statement intending to mislead the jury regarding his promote misgivings then no then the people are then allowed to present evidence for impeachment refutable purposes which is what we would have here the record as far as what else would have been said or what any of that was it so i mean without even even if there was no event like a general that regarding you i mean regarding every comment on the actual comments that were made as to credibility i realize that that's sort of been dealt out already but it was it was just that these people relied on these three incidents as an aggravating factor however the trial judge makes just note of those incidents when his language is such that there's these thirty incident you're in the system for these the good with the checking system going to prison for these thirty incidents and i have the trial judge you know noted he had no details he had no timelines he relied on other aggravating  factors such as the victim impact statement a pre sentence investigation or on itself and the defendant's parker action for murder and unlawful restraint which is why he was incarcerated and deterrence for others particularly where he says he mentioned it as an aggravating factor at the sentencing hearing and then repeated it on the motion to reconsider and said this was one of the factors i considered in my sentence work number one well because there were just you know you have a due process right to be sentenced on the basis of accurate and reliable information and there were no indication of reliability here and i  in but those cases are distinguishable because those are all of those cases or cases where you have records officers coming in to testify on to say on this take this infraction occurred this was the sanction that w for example like in one of the cases in word which i did not cite and i don't think the state cited it but people who were it was a case where they allowed prison infractions and inmates records come in and sentencing in aggravation  telling somebody taking down information looking at something from his ideas the file we don't know what it was it was just a list of how many times he's been charged was there a hearing for these things we don't we really have no idea they're just i our position is there just wasn't sufficient letting the cat out of the bag and having the jury already hear all this stuff and then objecting afterwards he says he was seeking a ruling prior to having the testimony martin had this information come out that he thought would be so harmful for the jury to you're not going to reverse person you're ruling you're right correct and the courts and the state piped up and said no then we're seeking to let all of this history end and the judge said yes i'm going to rule that that can come in and i'm ruling that will come in should he testify that way