001okay first I'd like to welcome everybody here today that's actually here physically in the Performing Arts Center with us but we'd also like to thank your fellow classmates who are in the classrooms watching us being live-streamed welcome everybody and I want to give a special thanks to dr. Dozier for arranging this presentation and I don't want to take anybody's time here they have a very important message so I'm just going to introduce the panel Chief Judge Andrew Gleason judge Dan mg judge Hines rid off Judge John O'Gara a judge Chris Coker give him a mighty maroon welcome and then I'm going to turn it over to Matt judge Hines Rudolph thanks principal Martin so good morning how's the old oil s doing here well we're really excited to be here to give this presentation to
002you here today the worries of the World Wide Web we know that the Internet is so important to you in your daily lives and what we are here for today is just to talk to you a little bit from our world inside the courtroom some of the legal pitfalls that we see and so we hope when you come out of here that you have some additional tools that you can deal with the internet so I'm going to turn it over to a Chief Judge Andrew Gleason good morning everybody you know I knew I should have been in the plays in high school and then I would have known what these bright lights were that's my very first time in these bright lights and I can't see a thing I wish I could see all of
003you but thank you for letting us into your school day today I'm just gonna make a couple of brief remarks because we're gonna have a the program and we're kind of on a tight tight time schedule you know the first thing I want to say to you guys and girls is that you know you live in the greatest country that civilization has ever known and whether you know this or not you as a group of citizens enjoy the greatest set of rights and freedoms that any group of citizens that the world has ever known and so we're here this morning to emphasize that to you because we understand you know 40 years ago I graduated from high school so I was in those seats that you're in and we understand that you have dreams and
004aspirations of what you want to do in and with your life and we're here to tell you that we want you to succeed at that we want you to have the courage to pick up and lift up each other as you go through this this journey of life when I'm at my 40th reunion those people much like those that in this room with all of you are some of the most important people that I have in my life they've been my friends almost my entire life and that's the experience you're going to have and so when we talk about this bullying and the way that people treat each other and some of the issues and perhaps pitfalls that you may face what we're here to tell you is that you with these freedoms and these
005rights that you have you have choices you can be that courageous student that lifts up their fellow classmate you can be the one that says hey that's not right you shouldn't do that to a fellow human being we care about each other here at Belleville West we want each other as we go through this journey of life to have the absolute best experience that we can have that's what this is all about that's why we're here that's why we're so excited to be a part of your school day today so thanks and here we go Jojo Guerra well again good morning and thank you for having us here you do have that power right now you have that tremendous power I noticed coming into the school above the doors on the way out is the
006issue of bullying and the reason why it's such an issue and the reason why we're here today is the Illinois judges Association put this program together for because we were starting to see way too many cases where people your age and younger we're getting into a whole lot of trouble either texting or using the internet inappropriately so we're here today to maybe try to stop this into the future to talk and maybe reach just one of you here today one of the things that we realize from studies is that with bullying people that are bullied and particularly bullied because of your access to social Internet issues because you're surrounded by it people that are bullied often turn to violence sometimes that violence is against themselves you will see stories at the end of this presentation
007today of young men and women your age who turned to violence and couldn't take it upon themselves sometimes that violence is turned to your fellow classmates we see this and unfortunately you are that generation that has to live through the very real threat of school violence that's why the bullying issue is important that's why we're here today one of the first things we're going to want to show you today is a video that has been viewed I believe several million times at this point it was produced by a young man who was the victim of being bullied and I hope you will enjoy the video [Applause] [Music] we all knew what was going on we knew about the beatings and we knew who was doing it we knew who locked him in a cupboard and
008we know who sent him really bad tweets and messages but I think we all expected somebody else to do something about it I wish I could apologize to him now I would never avoid him but if you're not part of the solution it could still be part of the problem I think I'm being bullied right now but I can't be sure there's one kid in particular who tries to make me feel inferior in every way he knows how he sometimes throws stuff at me flex me in the head punches me calls me ugly and stupid he tells me he would beat me up if I ever fought back it's like his daily mission and that's just in school on the way home on the bus I get very bad text messages and I'm embarrassed to
009show them to my parents it is my daily mission just to get through the day it makes my world very small because that is now my sole focus just surviving everything else has fallen by the wayside it is very lonely [Music] [Applause] [Music] one time last year when I was in fifth grade there is a new girl in our class everybody made fun of her just because she looked a bit different and had a different accent to us one day after school I was walking to my next class with the new girl and then my other friend saw her and was like you are you hanging out with her she is cross-eyed and you might get sick of something I felt so bad for her because they made her cry in the Carter the worst
010part of my school day is lunch somedays I can sit wherever I want but then without any reason I'm told I need to go find another table they say go sit at the losers table or go sit with the ugly not knowing is the worst not knowing who to sit with and launch her on the bus it changes everyday they constantly abused me both physically and emotionally [Music] when I get home from school I go to my room and cry as I get more alerts on my phone about the things they were saying now a kid from my same grade is making up rumors about me on the Internet some of my other friends think I'm a bad person because of what they are reading on Facebook fati stupid simple whalebone Ariel whose nurse Lucy
011died dork and a lot worse I want to tweet what the threats just scare me my phone now scares me school scares me the bullies are faceless help [Music] [Applause] you have to believe that good people who are willing to help you are around you just have to find them one afternoon on the way back to my locker I noticed this kids getting booked in the hallway his stuff went everywhere and I could tell he was humiliated and upset although I didn't know him I went back and helped him pick up his stuff I felt really grateful and said that we should hang out the hallways were a cool place in school I have fun and meet up with friends but there's these shady kids who hang out in corners one day I was walking
012into class and they tripped me up into the class my books flew everywhere and the whole class was laughing someone I thought was in my math class came over and picked up my books took them to my desk it was a very cool thing to do wouldn't it be awesome if everyone was like that now my tweets the snapchats look like awesome dude friend pal amigo cool football nice hey mango great in the morning when I head to my locker I see my friends that give me a high five I am sad that I have to share my story but I know it'll help others in my situation [Music] in the United States over three million students are victims to bullying every year bullying can be physical sexual verbal or emotional in 2016 it's almost
013impossible to guess how much of this goes on after school on facebook twitter kik poke whisper tumblr boxer vine or Instagram my dad told me that when he was a kid the bullying would stop at 3:30 every day I told him it's not like that anymore they can get you 24/7 they can get you anytime anywhere and it's happening to you you have to tell someone if you're doing it just think about this that it's easy to be nice as it is to be mean and manners and respect to cause nothing our school years are short but the days can seem forever if it's happening to you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] well we're here of course understanding that bullying is part of this but we're here of course today to talk to you about
014the Internet the old-fashioned name the World Wide Web right and it's all throughout the world so we know that whatever we do whatever footprint we leave whatever social media footprint we leave whatever we do can go throughout the world now there is a special word that we use at the courthouse for any text that you send any email you send anything at all that you do on social media that word begins with the letter e does anyone have a guess as to what that word is evidence everything you do think about it this way every time you send a text every time you post anything it's evidence and you know what else it's permanent and it goes on and we can find it you are not gonna hide it it can't be done away with
015there's this thing called the Wayback Machine anybody here this website you can actually they take a picture of the internet every day they can go back in time and try to find things that you may have attempted to delete they can find the FBI has forensic experts that look things up on your phones your computers and whatever device you're using things don't go away they're permanent and you can't erase them and they go throughout the world we're here to tell you today a little bit about how ill annoy law might apply to what kind of trouble you might get yourself into if you don't think that everything you do is evidence new details on the arrest of those two girls charged with using Facebook to taunt and bully their 12 year old schoolmate until she
016killed herself police are now looking into charging their parents too and ABC's Matt coven has latest on the case from Bartow Florida good morning Matt good morning George those girls just 14 and 12 years old now that 14 year old is waking up in this mosquito infested jail this morning she'll be here for another nine days until she's arraigned locked up by a sheriff who now says he's investigating her parents this morning a community is reeling from the failure to prevent the suicide and what police say was a bullied twelve-year-old girl Rebecca said two girls 14 and 12 years old arrested charged with felony aggravated stalking notice the age of those two girls 12 and 14 that's your age and even younger our point by this is kids can even even kids that are 12
017and 14 can get in trouble you can be charged with a criminal offense for this type of behavior your age is not going to protect you there is such a thing called the st. Clair County juvenile detention center you can be held there it's like a jail for juveniles there's also such a thing called the juvenile Department of Justice of the state of Illinois it's essentially a prison for juveniles for people under 18 and you can be held there if you're sentenced there you could be held there for an indeterminate period of time but you have to be released before you're 21 so you can be held there if you're 14 or 15 until you're 21 years old that's a long time so there are there there is consequences for this type of behavior even
018for juvenile offenders as Judge o'gara said earlier the other thing we want to stress to you is keep this communication you send over the internet via social media is not private the whole world has access to it and again criminal charges can result for this kind of specific behavior so these types of words can be threatening or can result in criminal charges words that are deemed to be harassing bullying or threatening or intimidating and it doesn't matter read this text message you effed up this time dude chill you are dead it doesn't matter what the original sender of the message is the one that said you are dead it doesn't matter what they think those words mean what matters is what the receiver the guy that said dude chill what matters is what a reasonable
019person in his or her shoes believes that message means that's what the legal standard is for determine whether a crime has been committed in this instance or not so think about it if you received the text message that said you are dead what would you think what do you think that's a serious threat yeah you wouldn't you wouldn't take it lightly there's no context behind those words you can't tell from those words whether the person that senate was kidding joking laughing whatever you can't tell so if you got this you would take that seriously you would think that really is a threat one of the weird phenomena that we're starting to see in cases and it's going on throughout our circuit are people that setup aggravated battery they're setting up fights and they're videoing them
020on their on their phones they're are egging people on to do this than to taking it taking video of it and posting it online now when you're doing that you're as accountable as the people that are in the fight there was a case in Clinton County a few years ago where there was a fight they've been drinking all night right before their graduation unfortunately from high school there was a fight there was one punch thrown that killed the other person in the fight if you if you hit a person in the right spot with the right force you can take their life and end up in one of them ended up in juvenile court one of them ended up in the tenshun center-right which isn't mosquito-infested but Judge Coker what's the what's you've been to
021the detention center yeah the the thing I always like to point has anyone here toured the county jail I see some of you raising your hands I could see one of the things that I didn't realize at juvenile Center and the jail is the food so it's bad enough that you're in there and it smells and you're locked up with some crazy people but in order to accommodate all the different religions they can only make one thing and it's turkey loaf and does anyone here have any baby brothers and sisters yeah you ever changed their diaper it's about what it looks like and it comes out in a roll and if they may say we're having steak tonight its turkey loaf they may say it's hamburger they might put a bun on it but it's
022turkey loaf and it smells so badly most people when they first go in won't eat it for days in fact if you saw the scared-straight that had the county jail the producers of that took back some of that turkey loaf to Hollywood and they have a worse food in the nation contest we won I guess that's something to be proud of unless you have to eat it right let's talk about underage drinking posts okay if you're dumb enough to do this number one think about it this way if you're dumb enough to post a picture of yourself drinking a beer or or doing a bong hit or whatever dumb thing you might be thinking and doing now that stays permanently on the internet right we can get ahold of it and let's fast-forward you're applying
023to college you're hoping for a scholarship and the school realizes that you are stupid enough to put social videos of yourself out there doing things that are illegal okay your chances aren't good that and getting that scholarship potential employer they can look back and see that you again you're dumb enough to get post pictures of yourself on social media judge em gee can you tell us about a case that you were familiar with so it doesn't even have to be that you're dumb enough to post pictures of yourself I'm from a small town in Washington County Ashville is the town that I'm the judge in and we've got a high school there that's got about 600 kids and it our whole town could fit in this school it's not very big but there was a
024party about three or four years ago during the football season and it was a bonfire type party outside and there were kids there and they were drinking beer and some of the kids were football players and there was a group of football players sitting around drinking beer and somebody that was at the party walked by him and took a picture and posted it to their Facebook account of these football players drinking beer now some of you may be athletes in this room is it against school policy to drink and use drugs yeah so the school of athletic director saw this Facebook post and suspended the boys that were the football players for four or so games the rest of the football season so those kind of things can result and remember those boys didn't post
025that somebody else that was at the party took the picture and posted it so everything you do you've got to be aware that somebody may be videoing you doing it or taking a picture of you doing it so that's why you can't do anything stupid because you never know who's watching this next portion with child pornography this unfortunately is really becoming a real problem not only in this area but just all throughout the state and what we're finding on is this is the scenario I'll give to you so we were actually at a school judge Hill guaranteeing we're about to present and an instructor came up to us and this was a scenario boys walking down the hallway has his phone gets a picture from his girlfriend and it's a lewd photo and you know
026what I'm talking about in terms of a lewd photo guy walks next to him sees the phone screen shots it and then apparently went to the cafeteria had airdrop on and everybody that had that got that photograph and what we're here to tell you is that that picture or that phone is child pornography that's a felony and if you take that picture and you send that off that's what we're referring to as distribution of child pornography and throughout this presentation we'll explain to you the legal ramifications of sending out that photo in the lengthy video posted live on to a woman's Facebook account on Tuesday at times the captors mention the incoming president this case was out of Cook County the girl that set this up the girl that invited the guy over there who
027got beat up and tortured for about four hours she took a plea deal last spring in Cook County and got eight years in the Illinois Department of Corrections eight years in prison the people that were beating on this guy and harming him during this are now looking at probably six to maybe as much as 60 years in prison for this notice they put it on Facebook live they probably figured all it'll just go away it's just going to be broadcast and done it became evidence is one of my favorites it wasn't lost on us that when we were showing you that video clip and they were putting up the various apps you were laughing and the reason why you were laughing this program was actually designed in January of 2017 and already many of the
028areas that were the kids were going at that time you don't go there anymore and so who here does not have a phone Yeah right that maybe two people who who uses an iPad on a daily basis here yeah raisin desktop computer you old like me still use a desktop okay how about laptops absolutely come on raise them you're not under oath you use them what about a gaming system absolutely every day what is it fortnight or whatever so here they are who uses this what's this right you guys still use that what's that yeah you've been snapping all morning what's this is the one you guys use pic is that why you guys were laughing yeah we figured what's that all right who tweeted this morning outside the president anybody else okay this is
029an interesting one Joe Joe Gary always corrects me where was a set Valmeyer solo girl Joe Joe Gary and I are presenting in Valmeyer this pops up and she I say what looks like a calculator she says our own own judge we left that's where I hide photos from mom and dad this morning investigators in Colorado or seeking search warrants for phones they confiscated in a school sexting scandal police say students in Canyon City collected and exchanged hundreds of nude photos secretive apps helped them keep the images hidden from parents and teachers when she was betrayed not by technology but by an ex-boyfriend who allegedly leaked her risque pictures she trusted this person and then the person ended up showing everyone not just in the middle school but also in the high school and like
030the whole town knows about it so there are no secretive apps right this became evidence and the whole town knows about it let's follow it through our court system for a moment okay let me tell you what our main focus is to begin with I had a case when I was still a lawyer some years ago small town over near the Indiana border guy is out in the woods a young 16 year old girl goes back into the house she and somebody else are hooking up I guess the guy goes back in later and he decides it would be funny to take up-close pictures of her cuz she's laying there with not a stitch of clothing on he sends those pictures to his friends they send him to another set of friends and then that
031set of friends goes up to that girl and says are these you she had no idea that that went on so I am here to tell you and I think every one of these judges would be here too you today this as well our focus in our courthouse when we're talking about pictures like this are is primarily and first and foremost with that victim that girl did not sign up for that or authorize that but we can watch how this whole thing evolves it gets sent out it gets sent to friends it gets sent to teachers her mom and dad knew about it as that young girl in the other video said the whole town knew but let me jump in here from not just a legal viewpoint because there are a lot of legal
032issues and consequences that come from that behavior but I want you to think about this Belleville is a small town what reputation you developed throughout your life is going to be really important to you when something like this happens it not only happens to you but it happens to your mom and your dad and your grandparents and your brothers and your sisters and into a certain degree in extent to your friends to those peers that are sitting next to you so when you engage in that behavior and it might it might be something that that you didn't intend unintended consequences of that behavior become something that stick with you they that may be a reputation that as I said when you hit your 40th anniversary or your 40th reunion everybody remembers that person because of
033some story that that occurred like this so as you're thinking about engaging in that behavior just think about your reputation think about how that's going to impact you not only you but everybody else that you care about and love about in your life this is an example of what we were talking about earlier with the harassing words this is an actual charge out of Kane County Illinois up by Chicago that the defendant knowingly and without legal authority through the use of electronic means use a Samsung tablet to send multiple messages via text message including on the victims Facebook account that she was going to kill the victim and go after her family causing the victim to fear for her life and safety again what matters is what the victim a reasonable person in the victims
034shoes thinks that threat is and this this threat through electronic means it's a felony if you threaten someone through electronic means it's a felony every time a 16 year old from Mason High School described as a straight-a student is accused of threatening to shoot up the school WLWT News 5s Kristy Davis is leading the way with the hotline that led to the students arrest the high school junior allegedly made the threats via text messaging it was students in that group text who sent out the first alert to Mason High School officials while the rest of his classmates went to school this 16 year old stood in front of a judge charged with a felony count of inducing panic the charges stem from a group text sit on Sunday night the text messages that were considered
035threatening had an indication that there was going to be or could be some shooting up of the school Mason police did search the students home but say they found nothing to indicate that he could have followed through with the alleged threat because the threat was made towards a school this student is being charged with a felony reporting from Mason Kristy Davis WLWT News 5 in court the students attorney said that his client has a 4.0 grade point average is on student council tuturro skids and wants to go to an Ivy League school we know smart people do stupid things every day 4.0 grade point average wants to go to an Ivy League school tutors kids and he's on student council he made a threat later on he said I don't have any bombs or guns
036at home it doesn't matter we know people do it and we see it time and time again here's the guy that threatened to shoot up the school and then about an hour later said I was just kidding about an hour after that he and his dad were in jail this happens close to home we know this is going on where people send out threats they think they may be kidding this is Cahokia this just happened last year this year earlier this year also Anil Fallon charged with making threats it just was in the paper the other day people are charged with making threats they have to be taken seriously and they will be who's charged whoever sends the message if you let somebody use your phone if you're dumb enough to do that they're gonna
037at least question you do you think the other person's gonna say well I didn't I actually did it Johnny did it's it's not Johnny it's it's actually me no you might be on the hook so don't let people use your phone we know they're illiterate wences there are fines we could put you on supervision but Judge Rudolph likes to talk about this what about the last thing that's on there can the judge actually do that sentencing believe it or not loss of your phone and computer privileges as part of sentencing we can ban you from the internet and how do you say well how can you do that well we have a probation officer someone that monitors your usage on the internet and if you're found to violate that then you can get even into
038more trouble than you're in already so we know you guys use your phones on a daily basis and that's one of the provisions that can be done to ban you completely for the internet our next slide also points out a girl was sentenced up in Mattoon to the Juvenile Department of Justice basically an indeterminate term the judge explained to her because of the threats you made to the high school you can be held up until you're 21 if that's what they end up deciding to do there are consequences three students at a high school in Burnie are facing charges in a case of sexting and cyberbullying why they are charged with the felony distribution of child pornography and as Judy Wang reports if guilty the charges come with severe ramifications it is not over yet
039gurney police say the three boys are not the only ones who did this and they will likely make more arrests school administrators set parents an email about the issue parents and students are now wondering just how far this investigation will reach all of the students involved are freshmen at Warren Township so plain campus some students agree what happened is a crime Lake County prosecutors charged the three boys with felony distribution of child porn investigators declined to release specifics only that it involves the texting of sexually explicit photos of a female classmate and cyberbullying notice the aged freshman if we go through what could happen here how is this committed well if you're if you're taking pictures of one another and you're dating and you're in love and you send the picture on to whoever you're
040dating well what happens after you break up right they've got the picture and they can send it to anybody they want so we're talking about if they snapchat of a picture you can always create a screenshot of anything because everything is always permanent right if you forward the picture of somebody who's under the age of 18 depicted in a lewd manner naked glued that is child pornography those were freshmen in high school charged with child pornography let me add if you if you actually are in receipt of that in possession of that picture and that persons under 18 regardless of whether you were involved in it you potentially have possession of child pornography what if the person who's in the picture wants you to have it what if it's a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship and the female
041takes a picture of herself and sends it to you and wants you to have it it doesn't matter it's still child pornography the person who's sending that picture to you is not of the age of consent they cannot consent to that picture and you're you having possession of it it is still possession and potential distribution of child pornography let me add a lot of times we see if you ever loaned your phone to somebody I meant or some kids and at a mentoring meeting might want one of my mentees I said where's your phone and he lent it to people guess what people do when they borrow your phone they go to your pictures and send them to you themselves or post them on Facebook from your phone happens all the time again that's distribution
042of child pornography that's years in prison the other the other one other thing I will add is I have a friend and she has a thing a 14 year old daughter and somehow she is a way to mirror whatever snapchats her daughter gets its sent to her wonderful female friends sent out a as Judge Rudolph called it a lewd photo of her since she's Nate half naked so I'm out to dinner with her with her mom in Arizona and she says can you believe this she goes this she got it on snapchat and she said so I screenshotted it which people do all the time and I said to her Wendy she goes what do you what she goes let me show you and I said good lord no I said that's child pornography don't
043she was going to send it to the other girl's mom I said if you send it that's distribution of child pornography I've got a story to kind of go along with something judge Gleason said earlier so there was a girl that I know from my home town that was probably in her early 20s at the time and she took a topless picture of herself and sent it to her boyfriend just for their private pleasure or whatever eventually they broke up and the boyfriend got mad at her for whatever reason and sent that picture to everyone on his contact list in his phone one of the people in the contact list list happened to be the girls grandma so the grandma received a topless picture of her granddaughter and about half of everybody else in the
044town did too and that's what we're talking about with reputation how embarrassing would that be to you if that was you in that picture you didn't intend for that picture to get sent to your grandma or everybody else in town you didn't want that to happen but it did these kind of things this kind of behavior can ruin your reputation for a lifetime to this day when I see this girl around town she's married and has kids now the first thing I think about is remember when that picture was circulated involving her that's gonna follow her for the rest of her life so please be aware of what you do about these additional consequences right loss of participation and school activities we've gone over that we've already told you about the phone how that can
045be taken away computer chimes you just talked to you about your reputation really there's very few things that want that we want to keep sacred and your reputation once that gets dinged it can get dinged it's tough to get it back privacy you lose privacy when you get charged with criminal offenses you'll have to go to court to deal with it future career choices look about those football players in Nashville guy screenshots it they get in trouble football season short eight ten games you miss half the season it could affect your ability for future scholarships and importantly criminal record right can be with you for the rest of your life we will take questions afterwards if anybody has time we know that this is going to go on we know what's happened we know it
046will continue our hope is that we've reached one of you we now want to show you some stories and it kind of comes full circle back to this issue what happens when somebody gets so overwhelmed and so bullied that that they their whole world crashes in on them you're going to see a lot of young men and women your age and please I want you to know this these are real young men and women I met one of the moms of one of these young ladies this summer this is real [Music] [Applause] [Music] on behalf of the Illinois judges Association on behalf of Superintendent Dozier and principal mertens your Chief Judge Andrew Gleason Circuit Judge DN mg Judge John ogre and judge Chris Coker and myself we want to thank you very much and we
047hope you enjoyed the presentation [Applause]