People v. Jackson

• Decision Date: 30 June 2005
• Docket Number: No. 1-03-1489.,1-03-1489.
• Citation: 832 N.E.2d 418
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Clinton JACKSON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 418

832 N.E.2d 418

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Clinton JACKSON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 1-03-1489.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Fourth Division.

June 30, 2005.

Office of the State Appellate Defender, Chicago (Michael Pelletier, Deputy Defender, and Henrik Essunger, Assistant Appellate Defender, of counsel), for Appellant.

Richard A. Devine, State's Attorney of Cook County, Chicago (Renee Goldfarb, Veronica Calderon Malavia and Colleen M. Nevin, of counsel), for Appellee.

Justice QUINN delivered the opinion of the court:

Following a bench trial, defendant Clinton Jackson was convicted of distributing harmful materials to a minor in violation of section 11-21 of the Criminal Code of 1961 (720 ILCS 5/11-21 (West 2000)), and sentenced to six months in the Cook County Department of Corrections. On appeal, defendant challenges the constitutionality of section 11-21 and argues that the State failed to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. For the following reasons, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

The following evidence was adduced at trial. In August 2001, defendant was a staff member at Maryville Academy's Scott Nolan Center (Center) in Des Plaines, Illinois. The Center is part of Illinois' Juvenile Justice Program (JJP). Sixteen-year-old G.B. was one of the Center's youth-residents whom defendant supervised. On the evening of August 4, 2001, as G.B., other youth-residents, and staff members were watching television in a dayroom at the Center, defendant inserted a videotape labeled "1998 Bulls/Jazz Game 3 & 4" in the video cassette recorder (VCR) and pressed the play button. Though he watched the tape for only a couple of seconds, G.B. saw a girl, a couch, and defendant on the tape.

Sometime thereafter, G.B. watched defendant's tape a second time, though he was unsure of the exact date. During this second viewing, both he and defendant were in the dayroom. When G.B. asked defendant what was on the tape, defendant replied, "Check." After pressing the play button on the VCR, G.B. observed defendant and an unknown woman engaged in various sexual acts. The genitalia of both defendant and the woman were clearly visible on the tape. According to G.B., the television audio was kept muted because defendant did not want anyone to know about the tape. G.B. testified that he enjoyed watching the tape.

After watching the tape, G.B. went to his room. On the way, he met staff member Hector Escalera in the hallway. G.B. told Escalera that he had just watched a good movie.

G.B. testified that two or three weeks later, he spoke to Mike Schoenwald, a supervisor at the Center. Brian King, a floor manager at the Center, was also present during this conversation. G.B. told Schoenwald and King that he had seen a sexually explicit videotape and identified defendant as a participant in the sexual activity depicted on that videotape. G.B. also spoke with James Spruyt, the individual who "runs the Center," about having viewed the sexually explicit videotape. G.B. was later taken to the police station, where he told Detective Matt Kulak what he had seen on the tape.

Escalera testified that on August 4, 2001, he was watching a football game while monitoring activity in the hallway at the Center. After hearing "a lot" of excessive noise emanating from the dayroom, Escalera went to investigate, believing that the youth-residents might be arguing or fighting. Instead, he found a group of youth-residents watching television. On several occasions that night, Escalera checked in on the group in the dayroom, but each time he approached the room, someone turned off the television. On the last occasion, Escalera saw G.B. and other youth-residents coming out of the room. When he asked what the commotion was about, a staff member identified as "Christopher" showed Escalera about 30 seconds of the videotape. Escalera did not remember seeing defendant in the dayroom at any point that evening, nor did he discuss the videotape with defendant.

Instead, on August 6, 2001, Escalera reported the incident to Schoenwald. Later that day, as defendant showed the videotape to a group of adult staff members in the dayroom, Spruyt entered the room, confiscated the tape, and called the police and the child abuse hotline at the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). A DCFS investigator subsequently interviewed G.B.

Schoenwald testified that when he confronted defendant about the tape, defendant denied showing it to the youth-residents. However, defendant apologized to Schoenwald for having brought the videotape into the Center.

Spruyt testified that he confiscated the tape once he learned of it. Spruyt stated that defendant was standing next to the videocassette recorder when he confiscated the tape. Defendant told Spruyt he had not shown the tape to any of the youth-residents.

Detective Kulak testified that after speaking to G.B., he called defendant and asked him to come to the police station. Defendant went to the station, but declined to give a statement in the absence of counsel. After Detective Kulak spoke to Spruyt and watched the videotape, he arrested defendant.

At trial, the State played portions of the three-hour videotape for the circuit court, including one scene in which defendant asked the woman to say "This is for my boys at the JJP." The record does not indicate which segments of the tape were shown to the court or whether the portions of the tape that the court observed were the same segments that G.B. had seen while in the dayroom.

Defendant failed to object to the fact that the State did not show the entire tape to the circuit court. Instead, the parties stipulated to the following:

"This particular incident goes on for a while. And then after this scene, there is a scene in a garage in reference to what [G.B.] had said as well, where a girl is put into handcuffs, [and] another girl is displayed. And there is intercourse with that woman as well."

After the State rested and after the circuit court denied defendant's motion for a directed finding, defendant testified on his own behalf. He testified that he had brought the tape, along with several others, to the Center believing it contained the basketball games labeled on the tapes. Defendant explained that after he began to play the tape, he realized, "in 2 or 3 seconds" that he had brought in the wrong tape. Realizing his mistake, defendant took the tape out of the machine, placed it in his bag, and put the bag in his office. Defendant testified that he never authorized anyone to show the tape to the youth-residents.

Defendant testified that he did not know that any of the youth-residents had seen the videotape until learning it during the course of the trial. He admitted to showing the tape to his adult coworkers, but testified that no one under 18 years old was present. Defendant also testified that he told the woman to say "This is for my boys at the JJP" because she had teased him earlier about accepting a job at the Center. At the time he made the videotape, defendant claimed he had not yet begun to work at the Center. Defendant also testified that he did not believe that the material on the videotape was any more harmful than the regular nightly programming on cable television.

The circuit court found that G.B.'s testimony was credible and that defendant's was not. In discussing the videotape, which the court stated it had viewed for "some period of time," the court noted that the tape contained "sex in all ways, all types of sex, oral, regular, hidden from the back, legs up, giving each other head, the whole nine yards." The court further stated:

"[I] really saw nothing socially redeeming about [the tape] in the context of the way it would be viewed in this community. * * * [W]e did not see anything that redeemed it, anything other than the prurient interest of the watcher and possibly the maker as well."

The circuit court then found defendant guilty of exhibiting harmful material to a minor and sentenced him to six months in the Cook County Department of Corrections.

In his posttrial motions for a new trial and for a reduction in the sentence, defendant did not object to the State's piecemeal presentation of the videotape to the trial court or argue that the tape did not qualify as "harmful" material under the statute. The circuit court denied both of defendant's motions. Defendant filed a timely notice of appeal.

ANALYSIS

A. CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE

Defendant first levies a constitutional challenge to section 11-21 (hereinafter Harmful Materials statute), arguing that the statute (1) does not conform with the United States Supreme Court's decision in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973), which set forth guidelines that a state must meet when it seeks to regulate "obscene" material and (2) is unconstitutionally vague.

We begin our analysis by recognizing the well-established rule that "[a]ll statutes are presumed to be constitutional, and the burden of rebutting that presumption is on the party challenging the validity of the statute to demonstrate clearly a constitutional violation." People v. Greco, 204 Ill.2d 400, 406, 274 Ill.Dec. 73, 790 N.E.2d 846 (2003), citing People v. Sypien, 198 Ill.2d 334, 338, 261 Ill.Dec. 294, 763 N.E.2d 264 (2001). This presumption means that, if possible, we must construe the statute "so as to affirm its constitutionality and validity." Greco, 204 Ill.2d at 406, 274 Ill.Dec. 73, 790 N.E.2d 846, citing People v. Fuller, 187 Ill.2d 1, 10, 239 Ill.Dec. 582, 714 N.E.2d 501 (1999).

The cardinal rule of statutory construction is to ascertain and give effect to the true intent of the legislature. People v. Ward, No. 98124, slip op. at 3, 209 Ill.2d 599, 286 Ill.Dec. 171, 813 N.E.2d 228 (May 19, 2005). The best indication of the legislature's intent is the language of the statute, which should be given its plain or ordinary and popularly...