facially unconstitutional as an impermissible restriction on the right to free speech
as guaranteed by the United States and Illinois Constitutions. U.S. Const., amend.
I; Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, § 4. The State filed a direct appeal challenging the
judgment of the circuit court. Ill. S. Ct. R. 603 (eff. Feb. 6, 2013). We now reverse
and remand the cause to the circuit court for further proceedings.
¶2
I. BACKGROUND
¶3
Defendant was engaged to be married to Matthew, after the two had dated for
more than seven years. Defendant and Matthew lived together along with her three
children. Defendant shared an iCloud account with Matthew, and all data sent to or
from Matthew’s iPhone went to their shared iCloud account, which was connected
to defendant’s iPad. As a result, all text messages sent by or to Matthew’s iPhone
automatically were received on defendant’s iPad. Matthew was aware of this data
sharing arrangement but took no action to disable it.
¶4
While Matthew and defendant were engaged and living together, text messages
between Matthew and the victim, who was a neighbor, appeared on defendant’s
iPad. Some of the text messages included nude photographs of the victim. Both
Matthew and the victim were aware that defendant had received the pictures and
text messages on her iPad. Three days later, Matthew and the victim again
exchanged several text messages. The victim inquired, “Is this where you don’t
want to message [because] of her?” Matthew responded, “no, I’m fine. [S]omeone
wants to sit and just keep watching want [sic] I’m doing I really do not care. I don’t
know why someone would wanna put themselves through that.” The victim replied
by texting, “I don’t either. Soooooo baby ….”
¶5
Defendant and Matthew cancelled their wedding plans and subsequently broke
up. Thereafter, Matthew began telling family and friends that their relationship had
ended because defendant was crazy and no longer cooked or did household chores.
¶6
In response, defendant wrote a letter detailing her version of events. As support,
she attached to the letter four of the naked pictures of the victim and copies of the
text messages between the victim and Matthew. When Matthew’s cousin received
the letter along with the text messages and pictures, he informed Matthew.
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