conviction should be reversed where the state failed to prove that he knew the gun that was he faced today we asked this court to decide a relatively narrow legal question whether in light of more recently decided cases which expanded second amendment argument one which deals with the interpretation of the defacement statute but i will briefly address argument to regarding the trial courts of brody as answer to a jury question and argument three which deals with the highly prejudicial irrelevant testimony elicited by the state to correct an issue that created a strict liability that we know that the illinois general assembly disfavors strict liability crimes and it's in the original statute essentially said that if a firearm is defaced that is evidence of the fact that the possessor to face it and so the time the legislature corrected that issue but unfortunately with the interpretation of santley as it is those constitutional issues still remain   but it's our position that adopting a test that's more similar to the the tests used by the federal circuit eliminates constitutional concerns and so here for mr lee certainly but also for another defense in the future or currently this would be a benefit to them it would be it would eliminate a lot of burden on the courts in litigating this issue just to merely require the state to meet this burden and there are a lot of other subjects which do require not for example the possession of a motor vehicle statute would require the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt not just that they possessed a stolen car but that there was circumstantial evidence pointing to the fact that the possessor knew perhaps there are wires hanging from beneath the searing consul that would be circumstantial evidence would be very easy for the seat present and we believe that that's appropriate here in this case especially where the second amendment protections have been strengthened after people be burns and people goggle are and those cases were decided after stanley so this statute just requires  possession and to knowingly and so the statute is actually constitutional it's just the interpretation of the statute it's that's raising these concerns there's no need for the legislature to have banned this actually it's appropriate the way it is it's i mean it's just the interpretation three officers saying he knew he could we do have that here but we also have this release own testimony which directly contradicts that of the officers and so we do argue in our briefs that the state even if they weren't required or even if they had been required to meet that burden they wouldn't have reached it at the evidence here was not sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that mr to be specific we knew that the weapon was to face and we have that because of the factors that the federal courts use in a purse we do understand that th statute and also to the defacement and that's because the state is required to prove things like status so they are required to prove that someone has an illegal status as a felon or that their age is unlawful for possession of a weapon and so here too they should be defacement because a person before burns and i will arbor decided mere possession outside the home of a weapon was presumptively unlawful and now afterwards we know it that we can't presume those things and that's why the state has to prove these elements of status age not please no we cannot ignore that we're just weighing it again soon we believe that the sufficiency this really is own testimony is a college graduate no criminal record he never owned a gun he doesn't like that he was driving someone else's car in this case so even if he knew about the guns being in the car it's highly unlikely that under these circumstances where he's driving a friend's vehicle that he had time to inspect the weapons or defacement identification and so we can weigh that against the testimony of the other officers the alley one saw him drop the weapon so we're piecing together their testimony which again just goes to the sufficiency it was not one officer who saw the entire thing they saw it in different pieces from twenty five yards away for just a natter of seconds and so all of those factors go to a finding that the state did not meet their burden here in this case and this was an issue for the jury to decide of course and they clearly struggled with this issue for some time they deliberated for a long time on the  issues and ultimately they sent a they sent a question out to the judge because they were confused about the element of whether or not this really had to know about the defacement but they were also confused about a lot of the other issues and they were certainly weighing the sufficiency of the evidence in this case and so if this court is to accept that stanley and correctly interpreted the statute then that the jury instruction that was provided to the jury on this issue was incorrect because it directly tracks with the statute but of course those two they are directly linked so this court would have to find those issues and i will just briefly discuss the jury question that was sent out because we do believe it bears on the first issue which is that after deliberating for about three hours the jury sent this question to the judge asking does it matter if mr lee actually knows that the identification marks are defaced on the firearm and over defense counsel's objection asking to just send back a generic continue to deliberate about the facts and the law the judge did answer no to this question which we argue you see usurp the role of the jury as a tire of fact to because it it was answering a question which then pushed the jury to come to reach this verdict and it was for them to decide in our in our opinion that it was it was the jury's position to decide whether or not guilty well i'm not sure that that's the case we do have that leads into the third the third argument here is that there was inadmissible in any prejudicial evidence of the city by the prosecutor in violation of the judge's pretrial order they discuss elicited from four different officers testimony about the reputation of the neighborhood as being known for narcotics trafficking but that was highly relevant here where mr b was not charged with any drug trafficking crimes this was a gun charge i so i'm saying you have to realize when you're analyzing the case like this i understand and so if there are no further questions on any of the issues here i will just briefly evidentiary and with the jury so thank you it's it's tied to the possession it's one of the characteristics of bears on the possession of how stanley phrase that so we had to submit it to the jury and prove it beyond a reasonable doubt and the jury had to find it beyond a reasonable doubt so doesn't that make you know it it's part of the element of the possession though it's not a separate element such that we have to show knowledge of possession and knowledge of the face that's a separate question whether you had an injury requirement but if an element of the offense oh yes right sure yes so whether it's a gun he could again you know you still got to show that this is knowing possession but after that you know we have not the elements understandably so your belief is that it would be a crime even if it wasn't the things stanley do not apply mens rea requirement to the part of the statute that makes it a crime isn't that the problem most of the law is knowledge of the facts that make it a crime i i think that the situation  introduction legally given that you know the were that right so about the instructions i think both parties referred to the instruction that was given to the jury initially as a pattern instruction and i apologize for not catching this we actually miles bought the guns aren't defaced so we've got knowledge that we also have some pretty strong circumstantial evidence in this case it wasn't just the fact that the defendant up in the trial reached day after the fire down there he was driving the car he said it was and it was liberation gave that up and then they continue deliberating after reaching out and then they continue deliberating the next day so i think that the record does suggest that they were the jury was looking at all of the events and so to say that this was the issue that they were  law says that we have to require a mens rea for an aggravating factor like that right there isn't this more like those old chop shop cases from the ninety's where the supreme court where we are a statute was passed a committee you can't have a car certificate that hasn't been properly transferred or properly assigned and there was no mention requirement the court said no we're going to put knowledge in you have to know that it wasn't properly assigned because that's the part that's illegal possessing a car title is not illegal everybody in this room has a car title but but for it showing that you know there was an opportunity for him to tell whether or not the fire was the face even if that was a requirement the fence version of events just didn't add up in the same way what we had was he was going to drop someone off the officers testified to the fact that they were there because they were going to do it controlled by that's why we had surveillance officers force and officers of the undercover officers you know things that the jury wouldn't necessarily know if they didn't have a lot of experience of criminal justice system so i think when we talk about this issue we have to remember we're could the bad police officers kind of have to tell the jury why they were there what they were doing who these people were and the jury would understand that's why they're in constant radio contact that's why they're looking so closely at their surroundings that's why when they see these two cars driving around the block and i'm that looks kind of suspicious but another thing i want to point out just the distinctions this case from people argued that that listening to testimony from four different officers about the narcotics reputation and they controlled by it might not be the exact same words as high crime area but they're the exact same effect in this case and they did have the effect of prejudicing the jury against lee especially when they were very clearly and struggling to deliberate over a lot of facts and issues of law in this case and so having to listen to that testimony from four officers and not just one was very prejudicial and that would constitute player in this evidence and then and just briefly the state of course discussed is that they did put on evidence to prove the fact of possession and to prove the fact of actual defacement but not about the