**Need help with completing attached file**You are a paralegal at the firm of Adams, Jefferson, and Lincoln, P.C. Your supervising attorney, Lauren Legal, provides you with a written statement (see below) from a client, asking you to draft a Memorandum of Law. She has provided you with two cases, asking you to determine if Illinois law supports the use of social media posts in criminal cases.
Please look up the cases in Lexis and draft a memorandum of law.
Issue: Whether the Instagram post by “JohnBGood” would likely be admitted in court against our client Johnny Nogood.
You are given the following cases to use in determining the answer to your issue & cite in your Memorandum:
1. People v. Brand, 2021 IL 125945
2. People v. Kent, 2017 IL App (2d) 140917
Your attorney, Lauren Legal, provides you with the following facts you will use to write your Memo:
Our client is Johnny Nogood. Nogood is charged with Aggravated Battery with a Firearm. It is alleged by Chicago Police that on the night of August 22, 2020 at approximately 9:00 PM, Nogood fired a .22 caliber semi-automatic weapon in the direction of Vera Virtue. Virtue was struck once in the left flank. Virtue is a former girlfriend of Nogood and is currently engaged in a battle for child support payments. Virtue alleges in that case that Nogood owes her $1200.00 in arrear child support payments. Our firm is representing Nogood in his criminal case but NOT his child support case.
The prosecution has tendered in discovery a photo of an Instagram post which they allege was posted by Nogood and intend to use/introduce at trial against him.
The Instagram post was posted by a “JohnBGood” on August 23, 2020 at 1:00 AM and is a photo of a .22 caliber gun with the following caption, “Silver saves the day again! Who wants to celebrate that I’m debt-free?!” A mutual friend of Nogood and Virtue sent Virtue that post later in the day on August 23. Virtue turned the photo over to the Chicago Police Detectives assigned to the case.
The Assistant State’s Attorney also provided records from Facebook, the corporation that owns Instagram, that indicate that the name registered to the account of “JohnBGood” is Johnathan Nogood.
Vera Virtue will be able to testify that Johnny also goes by the name “Johnathan” and that she recognized the gun in the photo to be Johnny’s based on the times that she has seen him with it in the 3 years that they were dating. Nogood denies posting this post on Instagram
