Criminal Law

Defendant was charged with three counts of aggravated driving under the influence. The trial court granted defendant’s pre-trial motion to exclude the results of her blood-alcohol concentration test from blood drawn four hours after the traffic stop, finding it inadmissible under IRE 403 because its probative value was outweighed by the risk of unfair prejudice under the facts of the case. The appellate court reversed. The supreme court affirmed the judgment of the appellate court, finding that the BAC test result was relevant and highly probative and that the risk of unfair prejudice in misleading the jury was remote if the jury was allowed to consider all of the evidence on the BAC test result and assign it the appropriate weight. (THEIS, ANNE M. BURKE, NEVILLE, MICHAEL J. BURKE, OVERSTREET, and HOLDER WHITE, concurring)

Defendant was convicted of committing various sex acts against his minor daughter and sentenced to prison. On appeal, he argued that two counts of the indictment failed to sufficiently charge the offense of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child because the two-year period in which the alleged conduct took place included 14 months before the effective date of the statute in creating the offense. The supreme court affirmed, finding that while the counts of the complaint were defective for charging defendant for conduct that occurred before the statute took place, the issue was raised for the first time on appeal and, under the appropriate analysis, the indictment appropriately apprised the accused of the offense charge and was not prejudiced in the preparation of his defense. (THEIS, ANNE M. BURKE, NEVILLE, MICHAEL J. BURKE, OVERSTREET, and CARTER, concurring)

Defendant was convicted of one count of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child and sentenced to 20 years in prison. On appeal, the defendant argued that the trial court erred in quashing his pre-trial subpoena duces tecum without first reviewing the requested discovery documents in camera and that the State failed to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The supreme court agreed with defendant’s argument regarding the subpoena and reversed and remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings. (NEVILLE, OVERSTREET, CARTER and HOLDER WHITE, concurring and MICHAEL J. BURKE and THEIS, dissenting)

On appeal, the supreme court answered the following three questions: 1) whether pictures of young children that the defendant modified to depict sexual conduct constituted child pornography under section 11-20.1 of the Criminal Code, 2) if so, whether section 11-20.1 is consistent with the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and 3) whether sufficient corroboration existed to satisfy the corpus delicti rule as to defendant’s convictions for various sexual offenses. The court answered all three questions in the affirmative and affirmed the appellate court’s judgment. (ANNE M. BURKE, NEVILLE, MICHAEL J. BURKE, OVERSTREET, and CARTER, concurring. HOLDER WHITE took no part in the decision)

Defendant pled guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and one count of aggravated battery with a firearm and was sentenced to three consecutive 15-year prison terms. The issue on appeal was whether the defendant’s motion for rehearing of the denial of his Rule 604(d) motion to reconsider his sentence tolled the time for filing his notice of appeal. The Supreme Court held that the time for filing a notice of appeal began to run after the trial court denied the defendant’s Rule 604(d) post-sentencing motion and the subsequent motion for rehearing filed by the defendant did not toll the time for filing his direct appeal. The supreme court affirmed the appellate court, finding it correctly held that the defendant’s notice of appeal, which was filed long after the denial of the Rule 604(d) motion to reconsider sentence failed to confer jurisdiction on the appellate court to hear the direct appeal. (THEIS, ANNE M. BURKE, NEVILLE, MICHAEL J. BURKE, and OVERSTREET, concurring. HOLDER WHITE took no part in the decision)

Defendant was found guilty of two counts of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child and appealed, arguing that the trial court committed reversible error when it denied his pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment. The Supreme Court agreed and reversed, finding that the State violated the requirement of section 111-3(a) that the indictment must include all elements of the charged offense because the charging instrument did not allege that defendant acted for the purpose of sexual gratification in engaging in the offenses charged. (THEIS, ANNE M. BURKE, MICHAEL J. BURKE, CARTER, and HOLDER WHITE, concurring and OVERSTREET, dissenting)

Defendant was convicted of driving while license revoked and sentenced to a term of 30 months followed by one year of mandatory supervised release. Defendant appealed, arguing that his conviction should be reduced from a Class 4 felony to a Class A misdemeanor because the charging instruments allegedly failed to comply with the strict notice requirements of section 111-3(c) of the Code of Criminal Procedure by failing to identify the prior convictions used to enhance the sentence. The appellate court affirmed, finding that indictment sufficiently informed defendant of the charge and the basis of the possible sentencing enhancement. (WELCH and CATES, concurring)

Defendant was charged and convicted of one count of residential burglary. The supreme court considered two issues on appeal. First, whether video clips of surveillance footage that were re-recorded on an iPhone were barred either by IRE 1003 or 1004 or by the best evidence rule and, second, whether the defendant had forfeited his argument that the cell phone video clips lacked adequate foundation for admissibility. The supreme court affirmed defendant’s conviction, finding that the recordings were admissible and found that the issue of foundation was not properly before it. (THEIS, ANNE M. BURKE, NEVILLE, MICHAEL J. BURKE, OVERSTREET, and CARTER, concurring)