People v. McKown

This case presents question as to whether defendant was properly convicted of possessing child pornography, where said pornography consisted of “collages” that combined non-pornographic images of actual children that defendant had cut from parenting magazines with images of adult male genitalia that defendant had cut from adult magazines. While defendant argued that his handmade collages could not qualify as child pornography under Illinois child pornography statute because his collages were generated from otherwise lawful magazine images of children and adults who had never interacted with each other, Appellate Court, in affirming defendant’s possession of child pornography conviction, found that any images of real identifiable children that were combined with images of genitalia fell within coverage of 720 ILCS 5/11-20.1(a)(1)(ii). Appellate Court also affirmed defendant’s aggravated criminal sexual abuse conviction, arising out of allegations that defendant had placed his penis in anus of grandchild and had transmitted semen into grandchild’s anus, where, along with defendant’s statement that his penis and semen had touched grandchild’s buttocks, grandchild testified to instances where defendant’s penis made contact with and penetrated his anus, as well as grandchild statement that he had to wipe semen off his buttocks. Fact that there were variances between grandchild’s version of events and defendant’s statement did not, according to Appellate Court, establish corpus delicti rule violation.