regarding the insufficient evidence of clarence's accountability for the acts of other people in firing into a crowd of people resulting in the death of a ten year old boy the events of that day involve a group of games for disciples who crossed over fifty five towards a bus stop on hall's dead and several young men at that bus stop decided to fire a gun and in fact shot a gun towards the clearance is around the corner and well down the street he's at the end of a strip mall near a sandwich shop and he hears those gunshots he fires a reactionary shot into the air away from the group now the only evidence that would connect clarence to the young man at the bus stop is provided by john brown but the record here demonstrates that john brown is simply not worthy of belief the trial court correctly found that john now was the linchpin in the state's case against clarence but incorrectly found john l credible on reasonable to believe john now based on this record as it is then you should take a look at a closer look at this record and take a closer look at whether john l should be believed by some of us it's unreasonable for several reasons first of all he is the only person to actually be implicated by two different people two people involved in the shooting at the bus stop and additional circumstantial evidence but he's the one that actually escapes charges he's the only person that figures out that not only can he see charges by deflecting the blame on to clarence williams but he happily ties the state's case up for them up until this point absolutely everyone discusses the situation sure i mean there are two people who are clearance admits that he fired and got understood we have two other people figure i was one who was driving a car and he saw presumably clarence he did see a shooter by the sandwich shop he saw him from the back never saw face he's says he gives conflicting evidence he says that clarence fired a gun southwest which according to tierra merchant who was the high school student in the sandwich shop who also saw clarence fired the gun she says he fired southwest and southwest is actually the direction of the gas station the group of the gangster disciples is due west of clarence so he's firing away both from party figure out his testimony and certainly from t r merchants testimony so that's that's number one group but that's not true because he also says that he fired southwest which of course was not where the group was your honor just just as how as you asked whether we should give deference to the trial court's findings and i just want to return to that point briefly because i do think that it  accountability because we know just a gang membership is not enough you actually have to have a shared in time a common design and intent to actually aid and abet those those young men at the bus stop and there's there's no credible evidence of that gross or was there evidence at trial however is for the first couple of hours during his to his conversations with the police he is absolutely all over the place everyone is involved with everything and he admits that all of that is a lie and then a trial who prays for everything  writes well although he does work in the third hour of speaking with the detectives that's when he says that no you know what this is what happened john brown is the one that orchestrated the shooting he not only asked me if i had the gun but he then told everyone stand back on wait until the disciples are closer before you shoot then he takes off his shirts and in a white tank top starts saying as the gangster disciples are coming across the intersection starts waving his arms and saying here they come now here they come  and you can actually see a man in a white tank top in state's exhibit number six which is a video clip of the shooting from the bus stop and you see this man in the white tank top coming to the top right hand part of the screen which is of course the area closest to the intersection where the disciples are coming over and he's waving his arms and he's yellow and he's clearly an agitator he's not you know any sort of peacemaker and he's sort of innocent bystander and according to sees testimony that he's probably that knows probably that guy in the video but while we should take the trial courts in just to follow up on your point your honor well we should take notice of the judicial finding that current's was not in a gang that's actually supported by the record there and has no gang tattoos he never and he has never involved been admitted to any sort of gang involvement but where the trial court's findings are actually refuted by the record that's why no deference should be given and i want to give three specific examples of that the first point is where the trial court noted that john l placed himself and clarence at the shooting and sort of you know lent him some credibility because he voluntarily placed himself there we know that's not true see even in jail told the police pretty soon into their discussions that john now was involved and not just involved he actually helped orchestrate the entire shooting  of the crowd again completely not true john no actually never testified that he saw clarence fire a gun and in fact it would have been of course physically impossible for john l to see that because clarence was around the corner and well down the street here we know where he was tears here in march and puts him outside the sandwich shop down the street for at least five minutes before the shooting we also know that he wasn't even firing in the direction that le sean was firing he was firing again southwest towards the gas station when the disciples are due west of him the final point i just want to make with respect to the trial court's erroneous factual findings is that she noted that clearance was placed at the scene of the shooting by andrew steve and teddy plummer again completely not true tony plummer is another high school student who happened to be walking home at the time of the shooting i was actually at the bus stop he does not mention clarence whatsoever and stephen interval say that clarence was not there they never spoke to him they never planned a new shooting with him they didn't really give clarence much of a thought it's very likely that the trial courts ended up computing some of the simultaneous but savard jury trial as to apply against clarence but in doing so the trial court actually created some of the missing evidence in the state's case you know the john l is unbelievable simply based on the fact that you know he's he's a drug dealer a drug user he has several prior felony convictions he was facing additional prosecution of the time of clarence's trial and he openly admit that he wanted to get back at clarence for mistreating his sister all of the soap absolutely pales in comparison to his biggest motivation to lie which is the fact that he is the only person that's implicated by two people involved in the bus stop shooting as rose circumstantial evidence but he escapes charges join now stands alone in accusing clarence of directing the sean to wait before firing the gun at the gangster disciples w significance of the words we heard this from your church i mean it i think it goes to intent to share common design really want to get these guys and we want to make sure that we actually hit one so wait until they get a little reality john now was involved in a much a larger component in orchestrating the shooting and the fact remains that steve andrew less sean and john now were involved in the shooting at the bus stop hearing the shots that only seen the green the gangster disciples approaching clearance fire the gun in the air away from the grape there's absolutely no credible evidence that clarence had a common design with the young men at the bus stop or that he shared any intent to eat or about them at most clarence should be convicted for that crime the offense that's actually supported by the evidence which is aggravated just charge thank you shooting he had voluntarily attached himself to the group of people who have been who have pled guilty to murder in this case and have been found guilty of the murder in this case what the examined is what i at least view as being a major deficiency in the proof here i don't know what is left of general brown in terms of any credibility after he leaves the witness how how is this court to give cross examination i don't i just don't know what is left at the end of the day from his testimony other than his prior testimony from the grand jury was important to remember is it in making her determination  brown as the very focal of this case you know he he made that have survived the experience very well but he was coached by the practice of accountability he was put in there specifically to tiny this defendant mentioning the crowd coming over to the east side from the west side and i believe when he's talking about the crowd he's he's he's talking about his people he's talking about the stones and the people who he is affiliated with mr jackson was the one who fired the gun that killed this child and the defendant was should be held accountable to him because he was involved in the same gang activity and involved in the fight and told the defendant to wait until are credibility in the sense that he sat the fight the initial fight again less than half an hour before the shooting doesn't partake in the fight because he has a gun and feels he needs to leave the area because he has a gun but then he returns with a just can't see what he does with them and therefore i think the ability if you have to have some kind of evidence of a kind of design or plan and i know you're not going to get direct evidence of that but what is evidence of the direct well of the direct is that he he  down on the wings neck and now you can be depending on this weight statement to show accountability at this point in light of the testimony of merchant merchant saying i saw the descended in these five minutes before the shooting started the light of the fair that the trial court specifically found that he was not involved in the gang how can you say he was involved with them before involved with them after is if that's still in play or the trial court found to the contrary well  it i mean clearly the defendant's actions and cells which side he's alive he's done some little pride i think if the if the court had found that he was involved in this case and he was a gay member and that he was directly involved in  testimony to connect defended the two to the whole offenders here obs she said she didn't believe the whole trial for that is said she didn't believe the statement however she said as she said case the the the the weakness of in the credibility of the witness brown was before the court and it was for the court the balance was so when you take that into consideration the actual visual image of how the intersection and the events played out you can see that here is testimony make sense that clarence the statement makes sense the figure was testimony of clarence choosing southwest is consistent with here and clarence a couple of additional points the seat is sort of backing away from john knowles accusation that clarence is the one who told him to wait and instead is relying on this idea that clarence is associated with steve mccaskill and you're bradley jackson he might be geographically linked to them because i think he lives in that area of town but there's absolutely no evidence that that he's friends with them he knows them everyone's dating everyone sister apparently and he knows them from the area everyone's running away from the fight the running in the same direction they happen to run into each other but there's no evidence that they hang out but they're good friends that they're related there's nothing like that in terms of the defendant's acts it's a stretch to say th his acts are unreasonable he did not just happen to shoot he shoots in reaction to seeing a group of angry gangster disciples crossing out of their territory coming towards you know the street that he's on he doesn't know where the shots are rusty he is in fear i'm sorry if he's on the other side and he's in fear why is he not a party to this group well because involved with anything that happened at the bus stop what happened at the gas station started as a one on one fight between a disciple and a stone to settle the score when that escalated and it got quickly out of hand i think there was about twenty five exact moment you're for a reason out of our right in other words right in my gang member or i am dating one of their they're fellow members and i carry a gun evidence does not support that conclusion nor did the trial court find that but if the evidence had supported that then the we might have something but it would not be enough because we know that guilt by association is thoroughly discredited we don't do that here you here also fired at those same targets and if we look at the evidence of a light was through the prosecution we can say well they have a common design to shoot at this target and how do we get around the chair and i would i would agree with th we just let people shoot guns of their own lives to really not he should be held accountable for firing a gun on the streets of chicago but the evidence for that goes to aggravated discharge of a firearm there's absolutely no intent to murder anyone or intent to aid and that those young men at the bus stop who did have intends for murder what he did was wrong but what he did was not murder it was aggravated just charge of a firearm again if you take a look at the state's exhibit number seven you can see a good clemens shot southwest it's very likely that he was not the one to actually inflict any harm i mean again basically the state's backing away from john now as their lynch and of the case they mentioned that is not the case of people versus