unwarranted introduction of the hoboken reference during its cross examination of a defense witness the second it involved the repeated admission style the witness credentials of references throughout the government's third involve the court in adequate handling a highly prejudicial news article that was published and then republic during the trial which contained facts they were specifically excluded from the record and which named both defendants in the murder as related to the murder of the confidential informant that was important for the government's case now your honour's the government's key evidence relied on the confidential informants testimony during four interactions which comprise the government's case unfortunately the confidential informant was murdered before trial began and as such was unable to testify to compensate the government introduced again references throughout the trial and specifically introduced the gang reference the hoboes during its cross examination the whole gang as you runners may know is an infamous chicago gang that is constantly mentioned in the news as being a perpetrator of violent acts and and the government relied on a supposed open door for its justification to introduce the gang up and however that open door was meritless because the defense witness dennis myers who knew and which and whose cross examination reference was introduced only testified as to to refute the voice and phone identification on which the government primarily relied had any journey member known of the word hobo and known what it meant and inform the other it would have cut compromise the jury deliberation deliberations as a whole and there was no linking evidence between the gang and the charge crimes to make matters worse a highly prejudicial determine whether any of them had seen the article or any articles related to the case if the judge did ask the jury as a whole if anybody had seen it yet and one jurors said yes yes so and then the rest were excused and there was an individual foreigner of that turn he was dismissed that's correct your honor and then but so that happened on a friday afternoon so we have no idea whether any other jurors saw the article because she never asked them so we don't know if the jury deliberations are compromised and this article was so prejudicial that had any jerk read it it would have they would have been unable to unring the bell of prejudice so to speak and so it was imperative in this case with actual scenario to question the jurors upon their return on monday morning to determine whether any of them had seen the article what he did he did for a day or the jury collectively about whether they had seen here and only the one juror responded and right one pulling the jury one time upon publication of the article may have been enough but the facts of this case were so agree just and so unique that the court needed to at the very least question them again upon their return from the week end before deliberations started and what had happened over the weekend that would have required that the fact that a we knew that one juror at the very least had seen the article and the jurors had s let me back up so thursday the whole gang reference was introduced so regardless of whether any juror had previously known of the whole booking reference they now had all weekend to research what that meant and whether or not they came up they came across that article that  days to look into that and so we're supposed to waste the time that they did all this independent research no your honor but we don't know what happened during the jury deliberations because there was no questioning of the juror as a whole as as a whole or individually well you can't you can't question jurors about what happened during deliberations exactly but they could that's why it was the fourth year saying we had to knowing the judge had to the judge had to ask the jurors on monday morning to determine whether any of them had seen the article the article had been published the week before many before the week long before the weekend so why does he have to come back to it at the end of the weekend so your honor the article was originally published on monday night and then the jerk who had to be excused discover the article on friday afternoon so regardless of when the article was published jurors had the opportunity to find it and the article was so prejudicial at united to be suggesting that that he couldn't rely on having the jurors are there anybody who'd seen the article he had a duty to come back to it every day and make sure that they hadn't seen the article correct once they had told him that they hadn't seen the article well they had only told him thursday and as just posner mentioned very i mean i don't know but jurors are unlikely to collectively raise their hand or collective or individually self report which is what the court asked them to do the court asked the jurors to self report if they had seen the article and that is a very of jurors especially given the highly prejudicial nature of this article which involved the brutal murder of the confidential informant and directly implicated both defendants in the hobo gang which had been explicitly referenced during the trial your honour's of the whole record of this case is problematic with the game reference as every day of trial games games were reference then the prosecution on thursday after all of these gang reference is specifically interjected the name of a notorious chicago gang this is particularly problematic when examined with this highly prejudicial article that discussed the hobo gang in the murder of the confidential informant who was can absolutely absent during trial without any indication of why and your honor just to come back on one jury and asked them about that before the end of the week and you cleared up the problem then and nothing happened publicly over the weekend there was no further news coverage that's and you're arguing that he had a duty to come back on monday just because of the passage of time even though there were no intervening events he had a duty to come back to them to the jury because of the highly prejudicial nature you should be arguing a different argument should us russia thrown out the jury should have started may you know wait of wait a couple of weeks maybe a month then a brand new jury the articles forgotten you have a clean slate a career ender  article in question here the record reflects that the district court was exceedingly careful and cautious and added this is a very funny really the notion that yeah you tell a jury you ask a jury did anyone do this read that you can trust trust them well you know there's an article by a professor morris and she turned to a bunch of jerks and you know the lawyers and the witnesses and the judge were not giving us information that was essential to us and therefore we did this illegal research  the government is you realize that i i i don't agree with with the premise that the the findings of this particular article that you're referencing are illustrative of every single case and ever juries in fact i think there is there's a lot to be said for the relationship that that develops generally has been my observation between jurors and the presiding judge which the respect that develops there i think actually does in induce jurors to be honest with the judge and i think that in this case that was reflected by the conduct of the one juror who's wife told him about the article that he had not previously seen and he immediately before doing anything immediately even after leaving the courtroom didn't wait till the next morning immediately contacted chambers to describe this event i think that is to me is a is a wonderful astray ssion of  the from the judge and the lawyers and the witnesses what they need the temptation to look at elsewhere is very great i think it may be in some cases and in other cases they may recognize that the significance of the role that they playing requires them to meticulously follow the rules that are handed down to them and i think that we see that time and time again i don't know how you could shoot well i gan i give you just from this case a lot of we can we could debate this more generally in another context a different time but in this case alone i think you have very good evidence of it you have a juror who immediately reported the first time that he got any inkling of this and that to me is a good illustration of the fact that number one the other jurors hadn't seen it and number two that the jurors were being careful about following the admonitions that received from the court do we know that this jerk who was excused did not have any further contact with the jury yes he was specifically questioned about whether he had contacted anyone else and he had said no and he said no and then he was directed by the court not to have any further contact with anyone on the subject and no fuel no indication whatsoever was ever given that anybody else had ever seen it the court as you are pointed out earlier the court questioned the jury specifically about this more than once that co very carefully consulted with counsel for for all parties with respect to every step that he took and was and the defense lawyers in this case of really to every step that the floor talk and made no requests for any additional steps to be taken although the court specifically asked them if they if they wanted anything else to be done or if they had any for now this is this is no prosecution for gang activity correct the investigators the officers on whether they whether they do gang work your honor because that's that's clearly that's making the jurors think that there must be getting activ why are they putting on all these officers who have who who work for the you know the guy and sector of the police department your honor we recognize that there is a sensitivity to any mention of gang here in the background of an agent and the potential prejudice in a cause and we have the opposite actually has taken steps to ensure since the struggle took place that that our ses are treating this issue with with proper care and and deliberation and even we were both present on the day that the last case was argued i think you know and after that incident occurred and we were asked to bring that the case to the attention of our supervisors in fact the front office sent out written guidance to all of the criminal it was there is with respect to the subject so it is something we are sensitive to and it's something that we are taking steps to deal with however i would point out as we pointed out in the br this court has held on more than one occasion that the mention of the word gang revile and sort you know these types of things in the context of an agent's background is is typically appropriate and not prejudicial and in this instance just focused on this case alone it clearly was not anything but you know there was no there was no potential prejudice in my mind but certainly it was minimal in this case given that no one ever tried to connect the activity or the background of the agents to the specific backs of the case no one was called a gang member and in the case that didn't happen and if in fact it is they are the minimal nature of any potential prejudice was highlighted by the fact that the defendants although they raise the issue of the reference to hobos in their pre processed trial motions they did not even raise this issue of the issue of the general background references in their post tr illustration from say from the perspective of a person who was there on the ground during the trial with respect to the mention of the holdovers that it is incorrect that the door was not opened to that evidence what happened here was that the witness was called to identify an individual who was present in the car on the day of the june ninth transaction that individual was his son his name is patrick davis and the idea was to suggest that there was another person there who may have been or was perhaps the one who was actually working with chester and who was conducting the drug transaction the problem with that is that the without evidence true evidence which which we could have put on without the evidence showing that patrick davis just like mr dillard just like mr chester or is a member of the hoboes gang and that this was actually even though this was the jury was being shielded from this information the fact is this was a hobo drug transaction and these all three of these people were hobos there who are putting recognize those you know this testimony in these questions as opening the door to testimony that he had been careful to preclude and you know expressed to some distress over what had happened and allowed questioning to proceed now what wound up happening which eliminated any potential prejudice really at all but one of happening is that when the prosecutor asked the nischelle question have you heard of the term hoboes the answer he g was i read about him in the paper which stopped the prosecutor flat and that was the end of it and it went it went no further and that was the end of the discussion and it was never raised again and so door was open and you're just correct when they judge later was still presiding throughout the trial judge feinerman took over after the trial with complete for her my understanding of the record to really quickly that door was not opened here because there had been no evidence on the record that the gangs were at all involved so regardless of whether the prosecution claims that these individuals were all connected through gangs there was no evidence on the record that that was at all the case and your honor mr meyers was the defense witness also testified that these individuals had known each other since high school there since childhood and had grown up together in the projects so regardless of whether there was any bias by mr myers or by mr davis which was the third individual that was already proven or shown through their connections and childhood so there is no need to introduce the gang evidence and your honor you mentioned that jurors look on the internet and do their own independent research that is exactly why the mention of the word hobo here was still problematic regardless of whether it did not go any further just mentioning the word and then mr meyer saying oh i heard of it in the paper and then later he says no no i don't you know i don't mess with that that  that is the not to give the jury indication but that was some sort of an important word that maybe required further research which because the court didn't question or because maybe jurors aren't willing to admit that they into it in internet research we don't know what happened in the jury deliberation room or whether any jury girded independent research that gave him light to what the hoboes where the explaining your your problem and i'll make sure that the lawyers you know present were sent to senator your honor i can't remember if that was done on the record i don't specifically remember it but i