IL: Illiniois Supreme Court upholds conviction of registrant who entered park to retrieve his own son
You won’t believe the absurdity of this one… The Illinois Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man who entered a public park to retrieve his son.
Patrick Legoo had a 2006 conviction for a sexual offense. A decade later he rode his bicycle into a park to tell his son, who was there watching a game, that it was getting late and it was time to come home. He then left the park without incident. The whole event took less than 5 minutes.
Coincidentally, a police Sergent who was in the park with his grandson recognized Legoo, knew he was on the sex offender registry and called the police, who went to Legoo’s home and arrested him.
Illinois does have a law prohibiting a sex offender’s presence in a park, and the Supreme Court upheld the conviction. Pretty ridiculous! The only redeeming part of this absurd scenario is the dissenting opinion, which seems to indicate that the law is stupid.
You can read the opinion here: https://courts.illinois.gov/Opinions/SupremeCourt/2020/124965.pdf
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While several have opined that the fault was the legislature’s, it really is up to the appellate courts to interpret the laws and resolve conflicts in the laws. That’s what controlling caselaw is all about. The simple fact that this man wasn’t reported to have tried to communicate with any other children in that park shows that he wasn’t trying to take advantage of the law’s exception. Both laws can’t be correct, because one law permits conduct that the other law prohibits. When that happens, the courts MUST fix it. Thus court failed miserably. They should have freed the defendant and formulated a rule that everyone could understand in the future.
Gerald
You said something that was what I was trying to think of and I said it but wanted a certain word but had a senior moment.
Interpretation of the law was what I was trying to convey.
4 different judges could look at a law and come up with slightly or even vast differences in the way they interpret the meaning of said law.
Also when I was in college ( majored in Criminal justice ) I remember one my law professors stating that just “ONE” word can change the entire understanding, meaning and therefor interpretation of that law.
I for one disagree with the court’s contention that there is no right to be in a public park. If thw registrant pays taxes, he has just as much right to be there as anyone else.
Further, someone’s simple presence is not a danger to anyone, no matter who, where, or what they’re thinking. That others may be uncomfortable is beyond the registrant’s control. Discomfort is not danger, and whoever is uncomfortable in a registrant’s presence is free to leave if they choose.
Exactly! Why hasn’t there been a class action suit to say that if we can’t go anywhere then make us tax exempt?
Maestro
You brought up a valid point. On my taxes it states that these pay for services like policing, parks and recreation etc. If we cannot use the parks or even walk through them without being arrested by the police WE are paying for, why should our taxes have to go for these services we are BANNED from using????????????????????????? BOOM
Mind blown.
That is like an impact fee for Florida residents to pay for an airport in Georgia.
My taxes pay to secure Ft Knox, but they won’t let me in
Are you implying that is relevant somehow?
Anything that I pay for as a citizen should be just accessible and usable to me as a citizen as it is for any. I am being forced to pay for parks, schools, police, etc., and I have every right to the same use as anyone else. Anything less than that is simply theft by a criminal regime. Nothing legitimate or moral about them.
Jacob
Legal rebuttal,
ALMOST ALL people except sex offenders can go to parks. ALMOST NO ONE except verified employees can enter for knox so your point cannot be comparative in nature.
What else you got? Sound like you are sticking up for the courts instead our rights???
I am on record as winning one of the biggest landslide decisions in history against GM with NO attorney other than myself. They were so amused I represented myself that they did not even show up in person (Which was first according to the judge ) but called in on conference call)
Although any criminal matter I would for sure use an attorney. A lot of guys spent time in the law library in prison, I never did. I got jumped once and in hearing, the other inmates denied jumping me and said I beat myself up. Their charges were dropped and I was given an addition 6 months on my prison time for fighting??????????????? Who the Hell did I fight, myself?
Sometimes you cannot win even when you are right because the cards are just automatically stacked against you. I was really into a recent show call “for life”. It was a true life story of a black man locked up for life for dealing drugs even though it was his employees who were dealing, HE was held liable for it, not them.
Unfortunately, the show was not renewed which pissed me off. Although after fighting for decades, he did finally get a ruling and was released and exonerated.
Comparing the local park where one’s children play to Fort Knox is almost laughable. I spent time at the Pentagon which is paid for by taxpayers, however, just any ole taxpayer cannot roam the hallowed halls. I worked there and had to get a security pass to get to my office. There are certain places where all taxpayer support these places and can visit and other places where there is only limited entry. RSO taxpayers support parks and therefore should be able to go there or their taxes should be reduced accordingly. Quite frankly I do not mind supporting parks but at my age I really have no desire to go to one…they just ain’t my cup of tea.
There are parks I would be afraid to go to even during the day. Drug dealers and murderers are allowed to loiter in parks all day and night but an “EX” sex offender is not even allowed to go pick up their child from a park??
The courts have again gotten into a bad batch of Grandma’s special recipe.
It is even more ludicrous than that!! There are regular people who are not allowed to go into parks simply and only because they are listed on a big government Hit List!
But this harassment scheme does make sense. Its purpose is not public safety so a person should not try to think about it sensibly with respect to that. The scheme’s purpose is to make dumb people feel better. The purpose is to keep big government big, give them business/customers, and keep them paid. So, it does make sense.
Cherokeejack, I always enjoy your commentaries.
Thank you Charles.
Jacob, you are on to something! Your taxes ARE used to SECURE Fort Knox. So you then verified that Fort Knox is secure by driving to Kentucky and knocking on the door and you asked the guards if Fort Knox is secure, because, after all, that is what you are paying taxes for. You then verified this by asking if you could take a tour inside, and the guards told you “no”. Satisfied that Fort Knox is secure, you drove back from Kentucky happy to know your taxes are spent wisely as Fort Knox is secure. Thanks, Jacob for answering this burning question we all were on wondering about!
Roger, great response!
While I am understandably catching a lot of flak for my Ft Knox analogy, Maestro and Dustin do raise an interesting question: why HASN’T there been a suit to exempt registrants from taxes if they are banished from a public place? Or, conversely, why hasn’t banishment been challenged on the basis of tax paying?
FAC Legal, is it a matter of lack of legal funds, or have courts simply not been asked to look at this?
Ordinarily, I would not drag out the conversation, but these are questions apparently of interest to members and that won’t go away.
We prioritize our suits by (1) which requirements have the most debilitating impact on our population, (2) which raise legal arguments that have the most merit, and (3) which suits we can afford to bring.
There are some suits which have strong legal merit (ie: Proximity Ordinances) but they only impact select counties (ie: Brevard and Seminole) so it’s tougher to raise funds and we have fewer members who will benefit. Another example is the registration fees. That would be a great case, but not all counties charge them, so we would have to collect from only those that do, because people who stand to gain nothing from a win are less likely to donate.
There are a world of other factors that come into play. Some challenges require multiple expert witnesses ($$$) and others don’t because the harm is apparent. The Ex Post Facto Plus case is SUPER heavy on expert witnesses, whereas another challenge that’s on our radar (the branding on drivers licenses) would likely not require many experts.
It would be one thing where an elderly lady says she shouldn’t owe taxes for parks and other services she never uses. She would be told however that they are there for you IF you do decide to use them.
In OUR situation, we pay taxes for something we are not allowed to use. I agree it would be a waste of class action resources, but still BS that we have to pay to support amenities we are banned from using. Image if you got a water bill each month but the county/city never connected the pipes to your house?
AND it is not just BEING in a park that can get you arrested, some cities have distances you have to be away from a park to be arrested. Heck you could be 3 blocks away picking up a pizza and get arrested for being NEAR a park. What school did these lawmakers graduate from anyway?
We have a finite amount of resources raised to bring legal challenges. You can see the amounts on the thermometers on our site.
I think there are so many potential challenges to bring and if enough of our members feel strongly enough that the amount of taxes allocated to parks is the battle we should take on, I will defer to the majority and apply resources to that fight.
Candidly, however, laws that create homelessness, that separate families, that restrict necessities of life are the types of challenges that are more compelling when I sit down with an attorney or legal aid org to encourage them to take a case. Keep in mind, the money we raise goes towards costs, not attorneys fees.
I think you misread what I said I agreed with you :
“I agree it would be a waste of class action resources, but still BS that we have to pay to support amenities we are banned from using. ”
The ultimate goal is to do away with the registry all together and this would cover all the other issues in one clean swoop.
However, if that lawsuit ultimately fails, we may have to take on individual ordinances as with the way things are going with “Pushing” the law to the limits, we may be arrested for merely leaving our own homes.
Scary stuff
I’d be really curious to know what percentage of the total taxes we pay would apply to the tax-funded places or things that we (uniquely) are banned from? I’d imagine that tax percentage would amount to well under 2%.
Dustin, I like your train of thought on this.
With such a nonsensical law enforcement action it is no wonder that people are on the streets all around the country protesting the police. Don’t get me wrong, I support the concept of having a police force but with actions like this, and I do not support street riots, I’m starting to understand the anger and frustration. When common sense is removed from law enforcement the police can easily become an enemy of the public. If anyone knows the location of this action please let me know so I can hit the local newspaper with one of my “poison pens”.
Do police 🚔 make Florida a safer place when they arrest a 6 year old girl in her school and take her to juve? Watch body cam footage and decide for yourself! As a parent how do you feel about your 6 year old daughter’s hands being restrained as she is taken to ride alone with 👮 policeman.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/crime/os-ne-orlando-police-body-camera-6-year-old-arrest-20200224-rlg2ukttdvhehpoj2ki7irqe74-story.html?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=exchange&tblci=GiDx8_AZOkzM27AuF0pHap0MqG5mgI870HFXCE8LtUi6JCCP3z8#tblciGiDx8_AZOkzM27AuF0pHap0MqG5mgI870HFXCE8LtUi6JCCP3z8
It is decisions like this that make me really wonder if the register will ever be reversed other than on individual challenges. If we are hated So badly that you cannot even retrieve your OWN child, the judges are sicker than they accuse us of being. This to me is mental illness, hate bigotry, and discrimination at the highest level.
So now this man may not even get to see his son grow up now depending on what he was sentenced to.
I have even further lost faith in the system. The same system where I passed a polygraph then said “Well you are just a good liar with no conscience”. But if I had failed they would have brought it up in court even though it supposedly is not admissible.
Here, the ‘letter’ of the law has been broken, but not the ‘spirit’ of the law and they should have saw that knowing that it is the ‘spirit’ of the law that causes the ‘letter’ of the law to be written.
These obviously were ‘letter’ of the law judges who are the worst type!!
They are void of understanding and rational human compassion and only judge by the letter only.
I don’t really see the judges in this case as the villains or morons. Fault here lies with the legislature for passing idiotic and convoluted statutes, and the prosecutor who pressed charges.
Why in God’s name would a prosecutor waste time and taxpayer’s money to bring charges under these circumstances? The only answers I can think of are ambition or some personal ax to grind. Given their prosecutorial discretion, they are the ones responsible for differentiating between the letter and the spirit of the law.
I disagree with David about “letter-of-the-law” judges. That is what judges are supposed to do, i.e. to interpret the laws as written during the guilt or innocence phase. Of course sentencing is a different matter. If judges are free to inject their own feelings as to the spirit of the law, tremendous inconsistencies would result. It is worth noting that most judges in the chain expressed discomfort with the decisions they felt compelled to render.
Veritas.
Felt the need to chime in here with Ed C. Much agreed on the Judges doing what they signed up to do. And VERY much agreed that the fault lies with Legislature and the politics that lay behind it.
Ed
I totally disagree. If not for a very compassionate judge, I would be doing time at the rock with 1000 tattoos about now. The other judge sentenced me beyond the sentencing guidelines and I lost three appeals before I got before a judge who saw the sentences for what they were, Filled with emotion and not case law, evidence or fair. The prosecutor about had a seizure right there in the court room when the judge ( who know sits on the state supreme court ) threw out my sentence ( but not the charges ).
ALL judges have discretion and those judges in this case could have thrown the case out as absurd, not based on the law but based on the extenuating circumstances which absolutely be considered when overruling a law.
It is against the law to jump the white house fence but if you did it to save the life of a law maker you saw having a heart attack, would you expect that person to be charged? They very well could be by a jerk prosecutor but doubt it would ever make it to court.
Judges have more discretionary power than you give them credit for. That is why prosecutors sometimes object and even file grievances against judges on occasion if they feel the judge over stepped. Checks and balances.
Would hope this guy can appeal these charges based on circumstances of the safety of his own child.
I almost got arrested once because I broke down in front of a school. A city cop pulled up behind me and ran my tag and made a big fuss about it and told me to stay right there. He then got a 9-11 call and left and said he would be back. By then the tow truck driver had come and took me and the car away and I never heard anything else about it. if something would have come of it, believe me I would have fought it all the way to the court of Heaven LOL
Cherokee, I always enjoy your posts and your insights. Note that I was talking about the pre-conviction phase where judges really do need to follow the law, precedent, and procedure. Motions and objections preserve a right to appeal, so lawyers for both sides need to get them on the record.
In your case, a more compassionate trial judge might have given you a within or below guidelines sentence. It is in sentencing that judges essentially have unlimited discretion–statutory minimums not withstanding. Fortunately you finally got to a judge who was willing to recognize the trial judge’s abuse of that discretion.
Granted, the trial judge in this case should have leaned on the prosecutor for bringing this person to court. A judge can put tremendous pressure on either party, but dismissals must rest on the law. I think that might even be a separation of powers question. The legislative branch writes laws, the executive branch chooses how to enforce them. Judges are legal umpires.
Remember, I’m neither a lawyer nor a preacher, so please don’t take my observations as legal gospel. Keep up the good fight.
ED C
Thank you for the kind words of encouragement.
I am pretty smart cause I graduated from 5th grade 3 times. I even got a trophy for the most improved student the third time around. LOL
@Ed C and Sc, here is what i mean.
The ‘spirit’ of the law says ‘make a speed limit that is safe for commerce and personal travel on the expressway’ and the ‘letter’ of the law became ’55 MPH’ because of it.
Now, when a woman is having a child and the man or woman is caught speeding by an unbeknownst officer going to the delivery room , do they receive a ticket for breaking the letter of the law???
No!
There are situations where it is actually necessary to break the letter of the law to preserve life or property and this was one of them.
Now, if the officer arrested the man for speeding taking his wife to the emergency for delivery or if he himself had an injury or his child did and could not wait for paramedics due to its urgency, would you still stand behind the officer for arresting someone in an emergency situation because the person broke the letter of the law as you do this judge??
I personally wish more judges were “letter of the law.” Far too many of them stick to or ignore the law based on their own personal preferences, biases, or convenience. Superior/criminal court judges are elected, so politics play a role as well. Indeed, the politics of the moment swing far more discretionary rulings and opinions than the justice and fairness ever will.
There is a reason why 90-plus percent (my own personal guesstimate. It could be more or less, I really don’t know) of rulings favorable to registrants come from federal courts and state supreme courts – those judges are appointed for life. There’s no real blowback for them when they make unpopular rulings except possibly not being considered for higher courts which many of them don’t aspire to anyway.
Outright ridiculous !!!
I should not have said arrested, but ticketed. Anyhow, the Ideology is the same. There are times when the letter of the law HAS to be broken for life , property, or emergency reasons.
I don’t think anyone would agree that anyone should be ticketed, arrested, or imprisoned for any of those reasons and the judge had the power to let it go because of that but he didn’t and that is why he is a ‘letter of the law’ judge-he was one-sided and refused to be understanding in light of the situation. We don’t need judges like that.
There were many times when I was on active duty that I had to make decisions concerning individuals that were contrary to command directives/regulations. A person…in my view…is not an officer or a judge if he/she can’t evaluate a situation and come to a logical, commonsensical conclusion. The law/regulation is for those situations from which there is no mitigation. Everytime I went against a regulation I notified my commanding officer and never once was my decision overturned. Today in law enforcement, commonsense is becoming less and less common. Decisions have impact and that impact can sometimes affect a person’s and that person’s family for a lifetime. Everyday I’m starting to understand more and more what we see going on in this nation and much of it is self-inflicted by politicians who are in the “business” for themselves and not for the people they represent. It’s a dangerous situation.
What I read here was that the arresting officer didn’t witness the violation. Is the violation a felony?
Its a misdemeanor
One of you lawer types help me out here.
Doesn’t the arresting officer have to witness the offence in the case of infractions or misdemeanors?
I mean I’m sure the registrants lawer knows more than me. Maybe I’ve just misremembered this little tidbit.
Or is it a case of it doesn’t matter because a person required to register is the accused?
I would bet on the latter.
It’s considered hearsay. I’m guessing because the information came from another leo, off duty, that the arresting officer went with it.
If the person being arrested admitted to the violation… Game over.