JUSTICE KUEHN delivered the opinion of the court:

Angela Knuckle and Rosario James worked for D&D Motors, a used-car dealershipin Fairmont City, Illinois. On December 31, 1998, they were the only employees working. Everyone else was enjoying the day off, awaiting the imminent celebration of a new year. Any plans that Angela and Rosario may have had for a festive evening were not to be. Neither would be celebrating that night.

Around noon, two men appeared at the dealership. As Angela and Rosario readiedthemselves for a possible sale, they discovered that the men did not come to buy a car. Theyfound themselves looking down the barrels of two handguns. Byron Madison, thedefendant, trained a .32-caliber automatic on them. His cohort, John Pickens, wielded a .38-caliber revolver.

The defendant and Pickens tied up Angela and Rosario at gunpoint. After the twosales attendants were securely bound, the armed duo easily gathered loot. They pocketedall of the dealership cash on hand, a tidy sum of more than $3,000. Pickens noticed thatAngela was wearing a diamond ring, a token recently placed on Angela's hand after heracceptance of a marriage proposal. Pickens removed it.

While Pickens robbed Angela of her keepsake, the defendant looked over the keysto the car lot's inventory. He grabbed a set in order to commandeer a dealership car on theway out.

With Angela and Rosario unable to summon any immediate help, an easy andundetected getaway was ensured. But first, Pickens wanted to rob Angela and Rosario ofone more thing-their future. He walked over to Angela, lowered his .38-caliber handgunto her head, and squeezed off a round. After inflicting a point-blank head wound, he firedanother bullet into her back for good measure. Rosario watched. He no doubt realized hisperil as Pickens turned toward him and again aimed to kill. Pickens raised his weapon,trained it at Rosario's head, and fired off the first of two rounds. He aimed and fired asecond shot at Rosario's back. Pickens left the dealership, content in the belief that he hadended things for Angela and Rosario. He certainly did not expect to hear from either ofthem again.

Pickens' best efforts notwithstanding, neither Angela nor Rosario died. The bulletintended for Rosario's head passed through his neck instead. The second bullet lodged inhis back. Rosario did not lose consciousness. It was the stroke of luck that saved Angelaand Rosario from bleeding to death on the dealership floor. Both of them lived to recountthe events of that New Year's Eve day and to identify their assailants.

The defendant and Pickens found the car that fit the keys taken by the defendant. They got in and drove off, confident that their ride would not be reported stolen for quitesome time. Rosario watched them depart. Spurred by his desperate condition and a will tolive, Rosario struggled to free himself. In spite of his critical condition, he broke free andreported the robbery and shooting to the police. He also reported the make and model of thecar in which the defendant and Pickens had driven off. An all-points bulletin was issued forthe stolen car.

Moments later, an Illinois state patrol officer spotted the reported vehicle. When heengaged his sirens and attempted to close in for an arrest, a high-speed chase ensued. Otherofficers joined in. The chase ended when the defendant, who was driving the car, lostcontrol and crashed. The police grabbed their stunned prey, removed them from thedamaged car, and searched them. They found more than $2,000 in cash on Pickens andmore than $1,000 in cash on the defendant. A later search along the route of the attemptedescape yielded the two handguns that the defendant and Pickens had used in the robbery. The .32-caliber handgun was inoperable. The other weapon, a .38-caliber revolver, was inworking order. Tests established that it was the gun used by Pickens in his effort to killAngela and Rosario.

The defendant gave the police a self-serving statement. For some reason, the Stateintroduced it into evidence at the defendant's trial, allowing the defendant a theory ofdefense without having to testify. The following self-serving claims were thus made knownto the jury, without the test of cross-examination.

The defendant claimed that before he agreed to take part in the robbery, he toldPickens that he did not want anyone to get hurt. Based on his belief that Pickens wouldhonor his wishes, he announced, when he entered the dealership, that no one would get hurt. He also claimed that Pickens' gunplay came as a total and unexpected surprise. In thisregard, he pointed out that he had armed himself with a broken weapon that could not beused to kill anyone. In addition to these self-serving claims, the defendant admitted hiscomplicity and role in the armed robbery.

Based upon these claims, defense counsel fashioned a defense that allowed him tostand before the jurors and tell them that the defendant should not be found guilty ofanything other than robbery. The jurors disagreed. They found the defendant guilty ofarmed robbery, two attempted murders, and two aggravated batteries with a firearm.

The trial judge sentenced the defendant for committing the two attempted murdersand the armed robbery. He found that the defendant's history of criminality fit the statutorycriteria necessary to impose a punishment reserved for habitual criminals. Hence, hedetermined that the defendant's sentences for all three offenses should be the same. Thedefendant currently serves three prison terms, none of which expire until he does.

The defendant wants us to overturn his multiple convictions. Or in lieu of an outrightreversal or a new trial, he asks us to vacate his natural-life prison terms. He maintains thatwe should remand for the imposition of a punishment within the statutory range availablefor offenders who are not habitual criminals.

We have already decided one of the sentencing questions raised here, when wereviewed the life sentences of the defendant's accomplice. See People v. Pickens, 323 Ill.App. 3d 429, 433-34, 752 N.E.2d 1195, 1199 (2001) (holding that the habitual criminalenhancement provisions contained in section 33B-1 of the Criminal Code of 1961 (720ILCS 5/33B-1 (West 1998)) are constitutional and do not offend the constitutional ruleestablished by the United States Supreme Court in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466,147 L. Ed. 2d 435, 120 S. Ct. 2348 (2000)). The defendant asks us to revisit our decisionin his accomplice's case. We think we decided it correctly and decline the invitation toreverse ourselves.

We turn to the other three questions presented for our review.

The first question raised by the defendant has two paradoxical parts.

First, he embraces a brief passage of dicta written by Justice Cunningham in 1992and submits it as authority for the proposition that an accomplice must share in his cohort'sspecific intent in order to be held criminally responsible for specific intent crimes committedin the course of another agreed-upon criminal venture. Justice Cunningham commented: "Accountability, tied as it is to the crime charged, must comport with the requirements ofthat crime. Thus, for example, the charge of assault with intent to rape, a specific intentcrime, must require a specific intent for one who is accountable as well." People v. Stanciel,153 Ill. 2d 218, 234, 606 N.E.2d 1201, 1210 (1992). Based upon this observation, thedefendant maintains that in order to be held accountable for attempted murder, he had toshare the specific intent to kill manifested by Pickens' conduct. He asks us to reverse hisattempted murder convictions, arguing that the evidence belies a specific intent necessaryto attribute guilt. Additionally, he points out that the jury was constantly misinformed aboutwhat was necessary in order to hold him criminally responsible for Pickens' murderous bent. In his submissions to the jury, the prosecutor who tried the case steadfastly maintained acontrary view of criminal responsibility. He informed the jury from the trial's beginning toits end, in voir dire examination and during closing argument, that he did not have to provethe defendant's specific intent to commit attempted first-degree murder. He repeatedly toldjurors that once he established a common design to commit armed robbery, the law imposedcriminal responsibility for the attempted murders, regardless of the defendant's state of mind. The defendant asks us to grant a new trial because of this submission of damningmisinformation.

The second part of the defendant's first argument completely reverses position on thestate of the law. The defendant maintains that his lawyer was constitutionally deficient forpursuing a baseless defense premised upon the exact view of criminal responsibility thatunderlies his prior request for a reversal or a new trial. He argues that his attorney pursueda course doomed to failure because the State has no burden to prove a shared specific intentto kill when holding one armed robber accountable for a cohort's effort to kill robberyvictims. He contends that his lawyer possessed a misguided view of the law that resultedin an ill-conceived defense fashioned in such a manner that counsel virtually conceded guilt. The first part of the defendant's argument must yield to the second, for only thesecond part is based upon an accurate statement of our law of accountability.Notwithstanding the dicta set forth in People v. Stanciel, criminal responsibility in Illinoisis well-settled. "[W]here two or more persons engage in a common criminal design oragreement, any acts in the furtherance thereof committed by one party are considered to bethe acts of all parties to the common design and all are equally responsible for theconsequences of such further acts[.]" (Emphasis added.) People v. Kessler, 57 Ill. 2d 493,496-97, 315 N.E.2d 29, 32 (1974); accord People v. Batchelor, 171 Ill. 2d 367, 375-76, 665N.E.2d 777, 780-81 (1996). The defendant did not have to share Pickens' specific intent tokill in order to be held accountable for attempted murder.

We turn to the question of whether the defendant was denied the effective assistanceof counsel because his lawyer fashioned a defense that lacked any legal efficacy.

The defendant asks us to forego an examination of trial counsel's representation underthe well-settled, two-part standard of review established by the United States Supreme Courtfor sixth amendment ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims. U.S. Const., amend. VI;Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674, 104 S. Ct. 2052 (1984); seePeople v. Albanese, 104 Ill. 2d 504, 473 N.E.2d 1246 (1984). We customarily review claimsof substandard lawyering under a test that requires a defendant to demonstrate more thandeficiencies or failures in how his defense counsel performed. In order to obtain relief froma lawyer's substandard legal assistance, the defendant must also show that in the absence ofdefense counsel's professional errors, a different trial outcome was reasonably probable. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 80 L. Ed. 2d at 698, 104 S. Ct. at 2068. Thus, the defendant'srequest that we test counsel's performance under a different standard is critical to hisargument. He cannot begin to argue that but for counsel's professional errors, a likelihoodexisted that the outcome would have been different. With the insurmountable amount ofevidence that the defendant provided to the State, it is hard to imagine how the outcome inthis case would ever change, no matter how well defense counsel performed.

The law recognizes that in rare cases, defense counsel will provide legal assistanceso flawed that it is tantamount to no assistance at all. Where the legal assistance providedto an accused fails to meaningfully test the State's case, the adversarial process that underliessixth amendment rights is rendered unreliable, and trial's outcome under that circumstanceviolates the constitution. United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 659, 80 L. Ed. 2d 657, 668,104 S. Ct. 2039, 2047 (1984). When the State's case has not survived the crucible of ameaningful adversarial test, the defendant need not show how counsel's deficienciesproduced prejudice. Cronic, 466 U.S. at 659, 80 L. Ed. 2d at 668, 104 S. Ct. at 2047.

We review what happened here under the latter standard and decide whether defensecounsel performed so poorly that his performance resulted in an utter breakdown of theadversarial process. We do so mindful of an obvious concern that accompanies claims likethe one raised here, claims that defense counsel completely failed to subject the State's caseto a meaningful adversarial test. Some cases do not afford much with which the defendant'slawyer can work, regardless of his or her skill and training. Nonetheless, as long as adefendant chooses to persist in a not-guilty plea, even in the face of insurmountableevidence, counsel is obligated to pursue a defense consistent with his client's innocence. SeePeople v. Dodson, 331 Ill. App. 3d 187, 771 N.E.2d 586 (2002). Defending clients whohave left a trail of evidence that makes guilt obvious can be a daunting task. Often therelationship between counsel and client becomes strained when the client shuns soundadvice to enter a guilty plea and show some contrition in an effort to mitigate punishment. Any strategy engaged in under that circumstance deserves to be weighed in light of what thedefense attorney confronted. When we decide whether counsel provided a meaningfuladversarial test of the State's case, we must necessarily judge efforts to defend theindefensible with a tolerance for the word "meaningful." The more undeniable thedefendant's guilt, the more tolerant we need to become.

Here, trial counsel for the defendant employed the defendant's self-serving statementsto build a defense grounded in the claim that the State could not prove that he shared guiltfor everything that Pickens did. The entire defense hinged upon convincing the jury that thedefendant did not plan to shoot the armed robbery victims, did not expect a shooting tooccur, and had completed his sole criminal objective before any shooting started. Defensecounsel tried to convince the jury that it was reasonable to doubt the defendant's shared guiltfor acts which he did not anticipate, did not commit, and did not condone. This effort topersuade was engaged in under well-settled law that assigns criminal responsibility for anyact done in furtherance of a planned criminal objective and as a part of a common criminaldesign. Kessler, 57 Ill. 2d at 499, 315 N.E.2d at 33.

In People v. Chandler, 129 Ill. 2d 233, 543 N.E.2d 1290 (1989), the Illinois SupremeCourt confronted an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim analogous to the one raisedhere. Defense counsel conceded his client's involvement in a residential burglary but arguedthat his client could not be found guilty of the murder that his accomplice committed duringthe burglary. Chandler, 129 Ill. 2d at 241, 543 N.E.2d at 1292. The felony-murder doctrine,as interpreted under Illinois law, was completely at odds with the tendered defense. SeePeople v. Hickman, 59 Ill. 2d 89, 319 N.E.2d 511 (1974). The supreme court reversedChandler's conviction, noting:

"Although defense counsel was faced with a difficult case, his performancewas clearly deficient. Counsel chose not to cross-examine several key prosecutionwitnesses ***. Counsel's cross-examination of other witnesses was extremelycursory. Moreover, he called no witnesses to testify, not even defendant, despite hisassertion in his opening statement that defendant would testify and tell the jury whathe did and did not do. By failing to comprehend the law of accountability and felonymurder, counsel's strategy and actions amounted to no real defense at all. Theprosecution's case, therefore, was not subject to meaningful adversarial testing, anddefendant was deprived of a fair trial." Chandler, 129 Ill. 2d at 248-49, 543 N.E.2dat 1296.

The defendant thinks that People v. Chandler is so akin to the present case that itcompels a reversal. We think that the lawyer's actions in that case and the lawyer's actionshere are worlds apart.

We have reviewed the entire common law record and the proceedings at the trial inthis matter. That review demonstrates an attorney doing everything legally possible to shieldhis client from the State's goals, despite a hopeless set of circumstances. Counsel's pretriallawyering was relentless. He filed a motion to substitute the first judge assigned to the case. He filed a motion to disqualify the assistant State's Attorney assigned to prosecute the case. He filed a motion for an expert witness. He filed a motion for discovery sanctions. Furthermore, he filed no less than eight motions aimed at either suppressing evidence orexcluding evidence. During the trial, his cross-examination of State witnesses was alwaysaggressive and vigorous. Indeed, given the nature of the defense, his aggressive attack ofthe police officers' and the victims' credibility appeared somewhat ill-conceived. While afew things counsel did could be second-guessed, there is one thing for which we could neverfault him-lack of effort. This record presents the antithesis of the surrender and capitulationwe discussed in People v. Dodson, where we found that counsel failed to provide ameaningful adversarial test of the State's case. Dodson, 331 Ill. App. 3d 187, 771 N.E.2d586.

More importantly, we think that counsel chose the correct, and only, path of defenseleft open to him. It was a course dictated by Angela's and Rosario's survival and the hotpursuit that it provided. The defendant was virtually caught in the act of committing thecrime. Defense counsel confronted an obvious and undeniable truth that his client hadcommitted armed robbery. The defendant admitted in writing that he had committed armedrobbery. Two eyewitnesses appeared from the edge of darkness to confirm the truth in thatadmission. Police officers who chased him down after a desperate flight for freedom, whopulled him from the wreckage that was once a dealership car, who found dealership moneyon him and his accomplice, and who found both armed robbery weapons jettisoned duringthe chase spoke further of his unquestionable guilt. It understates the strength of the State'scase to call the evidence of guilt overwhelming. No reasonable person could possibly havedoubted it. Defense counsel astutely confronted this reality and dealt with it as best hecould.

Furthermore, the defendant is simply wrong when he maintains that his lawyer'sstance was at odds with the law of accountability in this state. Unlike the defense attorneyin People v. Chandler, this attorney knew how the law of accountability functioned, and hefashioned his defense to comport with it. He understood that the accountability statutewould assign criminal responsibility for Pickens' acts, if done in furtherance of the armedrobbery and as a part of a common criminal design to commit that crime. Counseldemonstrated awareness of the fact that the efficacy of the defendant's claims depended uponconvincing the jury that the agreed-upon armed robbery was completed before any shootingsoccurred. When he emphasized his client's claims, a lack of intent to kill or hurt anyone, andcoupled them to a lack of actual participation in the shootings, counsel knew how theywould prove germane to the inquiry. He had to persuade the jury that the common criminalventure was over, its objectives having been achieved, before the shooting started.

Defense counsel tried to convince the jury not only that the defendant was anonparticipant in the shootings but that his responsibility for them ended with thecompletion of his sole criminal objective. He reminded the jurors that the law only assignscriminal responsibility for another's acts if aid and assistance is given either before or duringthe commission of the crime. He then maintained that leaving the car dealership and drivingthe getaway car was assistance rendered after the armed robbery was complete. It was notan act that would allow the shootings to be considered a part of the armed robbery.

To be sure, the defense was factually imperfect. Pickens and the defendant couldhardly drive off in a dealership car without furthering the ongoing objective of robbery. Thecommon design was incomplete, and still in play, when the shootings occurred. This factualdeficiency in the defense does not allow us to conclude that the defense was tantamount tono defense at all. Defense counsel offered the jury a construction of the facts that wouldallow it to return favorable verdicts. Jurors who believed the defendant's claims that he didnot buy into murder, and who were hesitant to assign guilt for serious crimes in which hedid not actually engage, were given a way to reach a verdict of not guilty. The fact that theycorrectly rejected the notion that the car was effectively taken, and the robbery wascomplete, when the car keys were selected and in the defendant's possession only confirmshow hard a case this was to defend. It does not mean that counsel failed to subject theState's case to an adversarial test that was meaningful.

The defendant was not deprived of his constitutional right to the effective assistanceof counsel.

Next, the defendant argues that the trial judge committed reversible error when heruled that the State could impeach with a prior armed robbery conviction, should thedefendant choose to testify in the case.

Initially, we note that this case offers one of those rare instances where concern overa prior conviction sending the wrong message is reduced. The defendant was concedingparticipation in an armed robbery. His propensity for committing armed robbery was notgoing to be used to convict him of that crime. To the extent that the prior armed robberywas committed without injury to its victims, the prior criminality may well have provenbeneficial. It may have demonstrated that the defendant lacked a penchant for the kind ofviolence in which his cohort engaged.

In any event, there is no way for us to find error in the trial judge's ruling. Since thedefendant did not testify, he failed to provide us with a record to review. As the supremecourt has noted:

" [D]efense counsel may not have it both ways by altering their trial strategy to makethe best of the trial court's order, depriving the reviewing court of a reviewablerecord, and still maintain that the order was erroneously entered." People v.Whitehead, 116 Ill. 2d 425, 443-44, 508 N.E.2d 687, 693 (1987).

Since we have nothing to weigh in order to decide how the trial judge's ruling producedharm, we have no basis to afford the requested relief.

Finally, the defendant challenges his sentence to natural-life imprisonment as ahabitual criminal, contending that the State failed to prove the existence of the requisiteClass X felony convictions.

In order for the court to sentence an individual as a habitual offender, it must first find that the statutory criteria have been met. The statute reads, in pertinent part:

"Every person who has been twice convicted in any state or federal court ofan offense that contains the same elements as an offense now classified in Illinois asa Class X felony, criminal sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping[,] or first[-]degreemurder[] and is thereafter convicted of a Class X felony, criminal sexual assault[,] orfirst[-]degree murder, committed after the 2 prior convictions, shall be adjudged [a]habitual criminal." 720 ILCS 5/33B-1(a) (West 1998).

The question of whether the requirements set forth in this provision were satisfied inthis case turns upon the meaning of the defendant's 1981 Illinois conviction for rape, the firstof two prior convictions tendered by the State to meet the statutory criteria. The defendantmaintains that the State's proof failed because such a conviction then could have rested uponsexual misconduct as benign as the misconduct that now underlies the offense of criminalsexual abuse, a misdemeanor. According to the defendant, the State's tender of the earlierrape conviction left room for doubt about its classification and, hence, its ability to serve asone of the two requisite prior convictions necessary to impose a life sentence.

In 1984, our legislature enacted Public Act 83-1067, more commonly known as theCriminal Sexual Assault Act (Pub. Act 83-1067, eff. July 1, 1984). It repealed eight statutesthat had previously defined sex offenses under the Criminal Code of 1961. The criminaloffense of rape was repealed with that enactment.

The Criminal Sexual Assault Act "recodif[ied] the sexual offenses into acomprehensive statute with uniform statutory elements that would criminalize all sexualassaults without distinguishing between the sex of the offender or the victim and the typeof sexual act proscribed." People v. Haywood, 118 Ill. 2d 263, 271, 515 N.E.2d 45, 49(1987). Here, we are called upon to decipher which of the redefined sex offenses enactedin 1984 were intended by our legislature to supplant the offense of rape.

The task of determining the legislature's intent has been made simple by our supremecourt. In In re Detention of Lieberman, No. 91344 (July 3, 2002), the high court weighedinto whether the offense of rape, a crime not included as a sexually violent offense under theSexually Violent Persons Commitment Act (725 ILCS 207/1 et seq. (West 1998)),nonetheless constituted a crime that qualified a person for commitment as a sexually violentperson. In re Detention of Lieberman, slip op. at 9-13. In so doing, the court concluded thatthe legislature intended that the offenses of criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminalsexual assault created by the Criminal Sexual Assault Act subsume the offense of rape. Inre Detention of Lieberman, slip op. at 12-13.

The conclusion reached by our supreme court resolves the question raised here.Contrary to the defendant's assertion, a 1981 conviction for rape could not have involvedcriminal conduct other than what today would constitute either criminal sexual assault oraggravated criminal sexual assault, both of which are predicate offenses under the habitualcriminal sentencing scheme. A closer examination of what the State presented demonstratesthat this was in fact the case. The charging document under which the defendant wasconvicted in 1981 alleged the use of force, a necessary element of the crime of rape. Theuse of force is the element that separates today's offenses of criminal sexual assault andaggravated criminal sexual assault from less egregious sex offenses, the conviction of whichwould not qualify for use in pursuit of habitual criminal status.

We conclude that the trial judge correctly determined, based upon sufficient prooffrom the State, that the defendant had the three strikes necessary to be sentenced as ahabitual criminal. We uphold the life-imprisonment term that the trial judge imposed.

For the reasons stated, the defendant's convictions and sentences are affirmed.

Affirmed.

WELCH and GOLDENHERSH, JJ., concur.