{ "id": 186545, "name": "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. BLAINE GEMENY, Defendant-Appellant", "name_abbreviation": "People v. Gemeny", "decision_date": "2000-05-25", "docket_number": "No. 2\u201499\u20140140", "first_page": "902", "last_page": "914", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "313 Ill. App. 3d 902" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "294 Ill. App. 3d 809", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 35378 ], "year": 1998, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "817-18" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/294/0809-01" ] }, { "cite": "142 Ill. 2d 204", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3236877 ], "year": 1991, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "226" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/142/0204-01" ] }, { "cite": "106 Ill. 2d 237", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3138930 ], "year": 1985, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "261" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/106/0237-01" ] }, { "cite": "105 Ill. 2d 486", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3141899 ], "year": 1985, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "500" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/105/0486-01" ] }, { "cite": "191 Ill. App. 3d 388", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 2513529 ], "year": 1989, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "403" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/191/0388-01" ] }, { "cite": "299 Ill. App. 3d 593", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 221450 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1998, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "599-600" }, { "page": "600" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/299/0593-01" ] }, { "cite": "178 Ill. 2d 551", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 385516 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1997, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "561-62" }, { "page": "570" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/178/0551-01" ] }, { "cite": "74 Ill. App. 3d 214", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 3266591 ], "year": 1979, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "217" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/74/0214-01" ] }, { "cite": "106 Ill. 2d 478", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3138057 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1985, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "483" }, { "page": "482-85", "parenthetical": "where client elected to use insanity defense at criminal trial, thus allowing admission of mental health records there, he waived the statutory privilege at that trial and at later proceedings" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/106/0478-01" ] }, { "cite": "184 Ill. 2d 260", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 926981 ], "year": 1998, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "269" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/184/0260-01" ] }, { "cite": "296 Ill. App. 3d 80", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 222586 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1998, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "83" }, { "page": "83" }, { "page": "83-84" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/296/0080-01" ] }, { "cite": "175 Ill. 2d 166", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 295827 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1997, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "171" }, { "page": "171" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/175/0166-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 1074, "char_count": 27809, "ocr_confidence": 0.761, "pagerank": { "raw": 1.351210059450334e-07, "percentile": 0.6335917653886385 }, "sha256": "77db76a9b5691452a41bdce0ff59b9e10bb6740d308252ebf115de8aa07ed1fe", "simhash": "1:3ef357090629ee7a", "word_count": 4536 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T18:54:53.541010+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. BLAINE GEMENY, Defendant-Appellant." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "JUSTICE GALASSO\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nAfter a bench trial, defendant, Blaine Gemeny, was convicted of unlawful communication with a witness (720 ILCS 5/32 \u2014 4(b) (West 1998)). The trial court denied defendant\u2019s motion in arrest of judgment, sentenced defendant to 30 months\u2019 probation, and denied his postjudgment motion. Defendant appeals, arguing that (1) the indictment is void, (2) the trial court erred in admitting communications that were privileged under the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Confidentiality Act (Confidentiality Act) (740 ILCS 110/1 et seq. (West 1998)), and (3) he was not proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We agree with defendant\u2019s second contention of error. Therefore, we reverse the judgment and remand the cause for a new trial.\nThe indictment alleges that, on August 27, 1998, defendant, \u201cwith the intent to deter John E. Kelly from testifying, fully and truthfully to a matter then pending in the Du Page County Circuit Court, the criminal prosecution of the defendant, did point at John E. Kelly and state: \u2018you\u2019re going to get it buddy.\u2019 \u201d Defendant did not move to quash the indictment. The cause proceeded to a bench trial. We summarize the proceedings there.\nJohn E. Kelly, a domestic violence counselor with Du Page County Psychological Services, testified that in April of 1998 he met defendant and performed a psychological assessment. The purpose of the assessment was to enable Kelly to provide defendant with domestic violence counseling that had been ordered as part of defendant\u2019s sentence in a criminal case (No. 97 \u2014 DV\u20141803). Kelly stated that his next contact with defendant was a message defendant left on Kelly\u2019s phone mail. At this point, the State sought to introduce a cassette tape containing that message and two other phone messages from defendant to Kelly. Defendant objected that the messages were privileged. The court reserved a ruling on the objection until after the judge listened to the tape in camera.\nKelly continued his testimony as follows. He had listened several times to three phone messages, which defendant left within the space of about a week. The next time Kelly saw defendant was on August 27, 1998, in court, where Kelly had been subpoenaed to testify in a proceeding to revoke defendant\u2019s probation in case No. 97 \u2014 DV\u2014 1803. When defendant\u2019s case was called, defendant approached the bench as Kelly sat in his wheelchair against a wall 15 or 20 yards from the bench. The case was continued. As defendant walked past Kelly to exit the courtroom, defendant said, \u201cYou\u2019re going to get it, buddy\u201d and kept walking. Kelly did not react immediately. Later that day, he testified against defendant.\nOn cross-examination, Kelly testified that he did not personally have a release from defendant authorizing the disclosure of any of the communications between defendant and Kelly. Kelly added that \u201cDu Page County has a release of information.\u201d On redirect examination, Kelly stated that normally a client of his office must sign a release as a prerequisite to an assessment or treatment. However, Kelly could not say that he witnessed defendant execute a release.\nDavid Smith testified as follows. On August 27, 1998, he was sitting in the courtroom gallery. When Smith first saw defendant, the latter was in the gallery area, being disruptive. Later, while the judge was still on the bench, defendant approached Kelly in a corridor between the wall and the gallery. Smith was no more than three feet away. Defendant pointed his finger within three or four inches of Kelly\u2019s face, looked at Kelly, and said, \u201cYou\u2019re going to get it now, buddy.\u201d Defendant\u2019s tone of voice was \u201cthreatening.\u201d\nThe trial court admitted the tape of the phone messages, finding that defendant had waived his confidentiality rights by signing a release. The trial judge also concluded that the tape was not confidential because defendant\u2019s treatment was not voluntary but ordered as part of his sentence in the criminal case. The trial court reasoned that defendant could not expect his treatment records to remain private because, to decide whether defendant had complied with his probation, the court in the criminal case could compel the disclosure of the nature of defendant\u2019s treatment and what was said during that treatment.\nDefendant objected that relying on the release as a ground to admit the tape would violate a defense motion in limine because the State had failed to disclose the consent form to defendant before trial. The State responded only that, until Kelly testified that day, it had been unaware that there was a release form. The trial court agreed with defendant and struck any evidence of defendant\u2019s consent to the release of the information on the tape. The court still held the tape was admissible because defendant\u2019s treatment had been ordered as part of his sentence.\nDefendant\u2019s evidence consisted of the report of proceedings for August 27, 1998, when he appeared pro se on petitions to revoke his probation in case Nos. 97 \u2014 DV\u20141803 and 97 \u2014 DV\u20142036. After the cases were called, there was a short recess. Defendant then admitted the probation violations and the court heard Kelly\u2019s testimony in aggravation (this testimony was not transcribed). The court asked defendant if he had any evidence in mitigation. Defendant apologized for getting angry over the phone at Kelly. He explained he had been upset that Kelly did not seem to understand that he could not afford the counseling program Kelly told him to use. Defendant apologized for leaving the messages, saying that he believed they were rude, but not threatening.\nThe trial judge in the case at bar found defendant guilty of unlawfully communicating with a witness. The judge explained that the messages illuminated defendant\u2019s relationship with Kelly and helped to prove that, in telling Kelly he was \u201cgoing to get it now, buddy,\u201d defendant intended to deter Kelly from testifying fully and that Kelly had reason to feel threatened. The judge also stated that Kelly and Smith were credible witnesses.\nDefendant filed a motion in arrest of judgment arguing that the indictment was defective because it omitted an element of the offense, i.e., that the communication at issue was a threat of injury or damage to the property or person of any individual (see 720 ILCS 5/32 \u2014 4(b) (West 1998)). The trial court denied the motion, sentenced defendant to 30 months\u2019 probation, and denied his postjudgment motion. Defendant timely appealed.\nDefendant\u2019s first argument on appeal is that raised in his motion in arrest of judgment, that the indictment is fatally defective because it does not include the \u201cthreat\u201d element of unlawful communication with a witness. We agree with the State that this omission was not crucial because defendant waited until after the verdict to attack the sufficiency of the indictment. Under section 116 \u2014 2(c) of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 (725 ILCS 5/116 \u2014 2(c) (West 1998)), a motion in arrest of judgment alleging that an indictment is defective because it does not charge an offense shall be denied if the indictment apprises the accused of \u201cthe precise offense charged with sufficient specificity to prepare his defense and allow pleading a resulting conviction as a bar to future prosecution out of the same conduct.\u201d We believe the indictment met this test.\nDefendant has not shown how his defense was prejudiced by the indictment\u2019s failure to state that his words were a threat to the person or property of an individual. At trial, defendant argued and sought to demonstrate that he did not intend the words as a threat and that Kelly could not reasonably have taken them so. Also, the indictment specifies the exact words defendant used, the date on which he used them, and the witness to whom he directed them, so there is no doubt that defendant\u2019s conviction may be pleaded as a bar to future prosecution for the same conduct.\nDefendant makes no effort to show prejudice as section 116 \u2014 2(c) requires. Instead, he argues that, even though he did not attack the indictment until after the verdict, the omission of an element of the offense rendered the indictment void. However, this assertion relies entirely on cases decided under section 116 \u2014 2 as it read before August 1, 1989. Under the old section 116 \u2014 2, a trial court was required to grant a motion in arrest of judgment if an indictment did not state an offense. Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 38, par. 116 \u2014 2. The present statute employs a more lenient test. Defendant\u2019s argument is based on outdated authority. The indictment was sufficient.\nDefendant argues second that the trial court erred in admitting the taped phone messages at trial. He maintains that the messages were exempt under section 10(a) of the Confidentiality Act, which provides:\n\u201c(a) Except as provided herein, in any civil, criminal, administrative, or legislative proceeding, or in any proceeding preliminary thereto, a recipient, and a therapist on behalf and in the interest of a recipient, has the privilege to refuse to disclose and to prevent the disclosure of the recipient\u2019s record or communications.\u201d 740 ILCS 110/10(a) (West 1998).\nThe State responds that the messages are not \u201ccommunications\u201d as defined by the Confidentiality Act (see 740 ILCS 110/2 (West 1998)) and alternatively that several exceptions to the general rule of confidentiality apply.\nAs the resolution of this issue depends on the meaning of the Confidentiality Act, our task is to ascertain and effectuate the intent of the legislature. We begin by giving the statutory language its plain and ordinary meaning. Lucas v. Lakin, 175 Ill. 2d 166, 171 (1997). When the statute\u2019s language is unambiguous, we must apply it as written. Sassali v. Rockford Memorial Hospital, 296 Ill. App. 3d 80, 83 (1998). Otherwise, we may ascertain legislative intent by considering the objectives of the law and the evils that it seeks to remedy. People v. Latona, 184 Ill. 2d 260, 269 (1998). As the meaning of a statute is a question of law, our review is de novo. Lucas, 175 Ill. 2d at 171.\nDefendant asserts that his phone messages to Kelly are \u201ccommunications\u201d that section 10(a) of the Confidentiality Act protects. The Confidentiality Act defines a \u201ccommunication\u201d as:\n\u201cany communication made by a recipient or other person to a therapist or to or in the presence of other persons during or in connection with providing mental health or developmental disability services to a recipient. Communication includes information which indicates that a person is a recipient.\u201d 740 ILCS 110/2 (West 1998).\nThere is no dispute that, when defendant left the messages on Kelly\u2019s phone mail, defendant was a \u201crecipient\u201d of mental health services and Kelly was his \u201ctherapist.\u201d However, the State maintains that the messages are not privileged because they have nothing to do with the actual therapist-client relationship. For two reasons, we do not think that the State\u2019s argument withstands scrutiny.\nFirst, giving the words used to define \u201ccommunication\u201d their plain and ordinary meanings, we think that the messages, whatever their precise content, were made \u201cin connection with providing mental health *** services\u201d (740 ILCS 110/2 (West 1998)). There is no dispute that defendant called Kelly in order to set up mental health counseling sessions. The provision of mental health services was the reason for the calls, regardless of how defendant extemporized in seeking to get Kelly to honor his request. Nothing in the definition of \u201ccommunication\u201d limits that term to statements made during an actual treatment session. Indeed, in defining \u201ccommunication\u201d to include information indicating that a person is a recipient, the legislature showed its willingness to protect statements made outside the formal treatment process itself. As the messages indicate that defendant is a recipient of mental health services, they are within the plain meaning of both the first and second sentences of the Confidentiality Act\u2019s definition of \u201ccommunications.\u201d\nSecond, we think that the objectives of the Confidentiality Act are better served by recognizing that a client\u2019s phone messages to his therapist are \u201ccommunications\u201d under the statute. The statutory privilege exists to encourage complete candor between patient and therapist and to provide motivation for persons who need treatment to seek it. Novak v. Rathnam, 106 Ill. 2d 478, 483 (1985); Laurent v. Brelji, 74 Ill. App. 3d 214, 217 (1979). Given these objectives, it is perilous at best to try to exclude any private communications between a client and his therapist from the protection of the Confidentiality Act. The professional relationship cannot be neatly confined to what happens in formal treatment sessions; almost anything a client tells his therapist in confidence has the potential to affect the therapeutic process and its results. Moreover, the danger that such communications could be disclosed later in court could discourage those needing help from seeking it in the first place.\nWe conclude that the messages at issue are \u201ccommunications\u201d that are protected by the general privilege the Confidentiality Act creates. Therefore, we must decide whether any exemption to the statute allowed the State to introduce them. Section 10(a) of the Confidentiality Act states that privileged communications are exempt from disclosure except as the statute provides otherwise. 740 ILCS 110/ 10(a) (West 1998). However, in D.C. v. S.A., 178 Ill. 2d 551 (1997), our supreme court departed from the literal import of this language and carved out a narrow, nonstatutory exemption where disclosure is required by fundamental fairness.\nIn admitting the taped messages, the trial court here did not rely on a specific exemption or on D.C.\u2019s fundamental fairness doctrine. On appeal, the State relies on D.C. and several exemptions the statute specifically provides. We consider each claimed basis for admitting the tape.\nThe trial court held that the messages from defendant to his therapist were unprivileged because defendant had been ordered to obtain his therapy as part of his sentence in case No. 97 \u2014 DV\u20141803. The court reasoned that defendant could not claim an expectation of privacy because the trial court in the criminal case would be able to compel the disclosure of what happened in defendant\u2019s treatment. We cannot accept this reasoning. Whether the Confidentiality Act protects particular client-therapist communications does not depend on a judicial evaluation of an expectation of privacy, but on whether the communications are exempt under the specific terms of the statute (740 ILCS 110/10(a) (West 1998)) or under the narrow judicially created exemption of D.C. Whatever the intuitive appeal of the trial court\u2019s logic, it does not establish that the messages fit within one of these exemptions. Furthermore, we do not find the trial court\u2019s logic compelling on its own terms. The court was correct that some of defendant\u2019s mental health records or communications would be subject to disclosure for limited purposes in the sentencing phase of the domestic violence case. It does not follow, however, that they would or should be subject to involuntary disclosure for different reasons in a separate case.\nIndeed, the Confidentiality Act establishes a policy that records or communications may be subject to disclosure in one setting yet protected from disclosure in another setting. Section 10(a)(6) of the statute allows the disclosure of records made during treatment the recipient is ordered to undergo to render him fit to stand trial on a criminal charge, yet that section also limits that disclosure to the issue of fitness to stand trial. 740 ILCS 110/10(a)(6) (West 1998). This legislative care in limiting permissible disclosure strongly suggests that we may not assume that eliminating confidentiality in one judicial setting means eliminating it in all settings. Also, as defendant did not originally consent to the treatment in the earlier criminal case, it cannot be claimed that his conduct in the earlier case amounted to a waiver of the privilege in later cases. See Novak, 106 Ill. 2d at 482-85 (where client elected to use insanity defense at criminal trial, thus allowing admission of mental health records there, he waived the statutory privilege at that trial and at later proceedings).\nWe now consider the exemptions on which the State relies. The first of these is section 11 (ii) of the Confidentiality Act, which as pertinent here states that records and communications may be disclosed \u201cwhen, and to the extent, a therapist, in his or her sole discretion, determines that disclosure is necessary to *** protect the recipient or other person against a clear, imminent risk of serious physical or mental injury or disease *** being inflicted upon the recipient or by the recipient on himself or another.\u201d 740 ILCS 110/ll(ii) (West 1998). The State claims that this section applies because the disclosure of the messages was necessary to protect Kelly against the threat defendant made against him.\nThe State\u2019s argument is meritless. Section 11 (ii) makes any disclosure up to the sole discretion of the therapist, not the State\u2019s Attorney.\nThis section clearly contemplates that when a therapist feels there is a threat of imminent risk to anyone, including the therapist, the therapist may disclose for the purpose of preventing or avoiding the injury. This exception to the Confidentiality Act provides the therapist with the opportunity to prevent future harm or injury without legally violating the patient\u2019s rights.\nThe State did not present evidence that Kelly exercised discretion under section 11 (ii) to disclose the taped messages because Kelly determined it was necessary to protect someone from imminent injury. Furthermore, the State did not seek the disclosure of the taped messages to protect Kelly against an imminent threat of harm, but to prosecute and punish defendant for a threat he made long before the State sought the disclosure. By its plain language, section 11 (ii) does not apply here.\nThe State next invokes section 10(a)(1) of the statute, which allows disclosure \u201cin a civil, criminal or administrative proceeding in which the recipient introduces his mental condition or any aspect of his services received for such condition as an element of his claim or defense.\u201d 740 ILCS 110/10(a)(l) (West 1998). The State claims that in this case defendant introduced his mental state as an element of his defense by producing evidence and argument that the State failed to prove that he had the requisite mental state to commit the offense.\nThe State\u2019s argument is refuted by case law establishing that this exemption applies only when a party affirmatively places his own mental condition in issue. Mandziara v. Canulli, 299 Ill. App. 3d 593, 599-600 (1998); Sassali, 296 Ill. App. 3d at 83; Pritchard v. Swedish-American Hospital, 191 Ill. App. 3d 388, 403 (1989). Thus, in Sassali, we held that the respondent in a proceeding for involuntary commitment did not waive her Confidentiality Act privileges merely because, in opposing the petition, she sought to refute the petition\u2019s allegations that she was mentally unstable. We explained that, by filing the petition, the State had placed her mental condition in issue. Sassali, 296 Ill. App. 3d at 83-84. Similarly, in this case, insofar as defendant\u2019s mental condition or any aspect of his services was placed in issue, it was the State that did so. Defendant did not waive his confidentiality rights by defending against the charges.\nThe State next asserts that, under D.C., the statutory privilege must yield to considerations of fundamental fairness. However, the State\u2019s argument is simply that, by invoking the privilege, defendant would make it more difficult for the prosecution to prove his mental state and thus \u201cmight be able to defeat the charge against himself.\u201d Thus, the only \u201cunfairness\u201d is that present any time a criminal defendant seeks to bar potentially damaging evidence on the basis of a discovery privilege or other exclusionary rule. Any such privilege is bound to interfere with the truth-seeking process because privileges are not designed to further that end, but to protect some outside interest other than the ascertainment of truth at trial. D.C., 178 Ill. 2d at 561-62. The State would have us recognize an exemption with the potential to swallow the general rule of confidentiality.\nD.C. does not support such a result. Rather, in D.C., the court held that, under the narrow circumstances of that case, the invocation of the privilege would be substantially unjust. In D.C., the plaintiff sued the defendants for negligence after one of the defendants drove into him as he crossed the street. The defendants sought to compel the disclosure of some of the plaintiff\u2019s mental health records in order to prove that, at the time of the accident, plaintiff might have been attempting suicide; proof of that fact might absolve them from liability by showing that the plaintiff was not exercising due care for his own safety.\nThe supreme court ruled that the privilege had to yield even though no statutory exception applied. Crucial to the court\u2019s narrow ruling was that the party claiming the privilege was the one who had brought the suit. He was not merely defending himself against an action to which he had been subjected. The plaintiff could not rightly use the protections of the Confidentiality Act \u201cas a sword rather than a shield\u201d to prevent the disclosure of otherwise admissible evidence that might fully negate the claim he had asserted against the defendants. D.C., 178 Ill. 2d at 570; see also Mandziara, 299 Ill. App. 3d at 600.\nHere, defendant seeks to use the Confidentiality Act only as a shield against the prosecution that the State initiated. Fundamental fairness to the State does not require that defendant surrender his statutory privilege.\nThe State next calls our attention to section 10(a)(6) of the Confidentiality Act, which allows the disclosure of records that are \u201cmade during treatment which the recipient is ordered to undergo to render him fit to stand trial on a criminal charge, provided that the disclosure is made only with respect to the issue of fitness to stand trial.\u201d 740 ILCS 110/10(a)(6) (West 1998). The State argues that defendant\u2019s court-ordered treatment is \u201canalogous\u201d to the type of examination covered by section 10(a)(6). We do not see the relevance of this observation even if it is true. The plain language of section 10(a)(6) shows it has no application here, and the Confidentiality Act does not allow us to carve out nonstatutory exemptions merely because they would resemble those the legislature has seen fit to create.\nFinally, the State asks us to remand the cause for a hearing on whether defendant consented to the disclosure of the taped messages by signing a consent form as a prerequisite to treatment. The State recognizes that, in granting a defense motion in limine, the trial court ruled out consent or waiver of the statutory privilege as a basis for admitting the messages into evidence. However, the State asserts that this ruling was erroneous because the defense motion applied only to \u201cstatements\u201d and defendant\u2019s signature on the consent form was not a \u201cstatement.\u201d\nThe State\u2019s assertion comes too late. At trial, the State did not raise this argument in opposition to defendant\u2019s motion in limine. Issues not raised at the trial level are waived on appeal. Western Casualty & Surety Co. v. Brochu, 105 Ill. 2d 486, 500 (1985). We decline to remand the cause to allow the State to reargue the consent issue.\nWe hold that the phone messages are communications protected by the Confidentiality Act and that the State has failed to prove that they are exempt from the statute\u2019s protections. Therefore, the trial court erred in admitting the tape. Given the importance the trial judge attached to the tape as evidence of defendant\u2019s guilt, we cannot say that the error was harmless. Therefore, defendant\u2019s conviction cannot stand.\nWe must still decide whether defendant may be retried. Defendant argues that the evidence, including the taped messages, is insufficient to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. As we have ruled that the taped messages are inadmissible, we need only consider whether the remaining evidence is sufficient. We conclude that it is and that defendant may be retried.\nIn reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we ask only whether all the evidence, when considered in the light most favorable to the State, is sufficient to allow any rational fact finder to conclude that the elements of the offense have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. People v. Collins, 106 Ill. 2d 237, 261 (1985). We defer to the fact finder\u2019s determinations of the witnesses\u2019 credibility, the weight to be given their testimony, and the reasonable inferences to be drawn from their testimony. People v. Steidl, 142 Ill. 2d 204, 226 (1991).\nAs pertinent here, a person commits unlawful communication with a witness when, with the intent to deter the witness from testifying freely, fully, and truthfully to any matter pending in any court, he communicates directly or indirectly to the witness a threat of injury or damage to the property or person of any individual. 720 ILCS 5/32\u2014 4(b) (West 1998). Defendant argues that his words to Kelly were too vague to amount to an imminent threat to Kelly\u2019s person or property and that there is no evidence that defendant intended to deter Kelly from testifying fully, freely, or truthfully in the probation revocation proceeding.\nWe believe that the evidence is sufficient to support a conviction of unlawful communication with a witness. The State had to prove that defendant communicated a threat of injury; the statute does not require an \u201cimminent threat.\u201d We think that a rational fact finder could construe defendant\u2019s words, \u201cyou\u2019re going to get it, buddy,\u201d or \u201cyou\u2019re going to get it now, buddy,\u201d as a threat of injury to Kelly.\nWe agree with defendant that the words must be taken in their context. Defendant spoke his words shortly before Kelly was to testify for the State in a proceeding to revoke defendant\u2019s probation; this was obviously a serious matter that could motivate defendant to threaten Kelly in order to influence his testimony. According to David Smith\u2019s testimony, defendant confronted Kelly at close range, pointed his finger only a few inches from Kelly\u2019s face, and spoke to him in a \u201cthreatening\u201d way. While defendant may be correct that the words \u201cYou\u2019re going to get it now, buddy\u201d are not per se threatening and might have an innocent meaning in some situations, a reasonable fact finder could conclude that, under the facts of this case, they were indeed a threat of injury. Therefore, we believe the evidence is sufficient to convict defendant of unlawfully communicating with a witness.\nFinally, defendant makes several cursory arguments that are supported by no pertinent authority. These arguments are waived and we need not consider them. See 177 Ill. 2d R. 341(e)(7); People v. Nakajima, 294 Ill. App. 3d 809, 817-18 (1998).\nThe judgment of the circuit court of Du Page County is reversed, and the cause is remanded.\nReversed and remanded.\nBOWMAN, EJ., and COLWELL, J., concur.", "type": "majority", "author": "JUSTICE GALASSO" } ], "attorneys": [ "Donald J. Ramsell and James R. Doerr, both of Ramsell & Armamentos, of Wheaton, for appellant.", "Joseph E. Birkett, State\u2019s Attorney (Martin P. Moltz, of State\u2019s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor\u2019s Office, of counsel), and Sally A. Swiss, both of Wheaton, for the People." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. BLAINE GEMENY, Defendant-Appellant.\nSecond District\nNo. 2\u201499\u20140140\nOpinion filed May 25, 2000.\n\u2014Rehearing denied July 13, 2000.\nDonald J. Ramsell and James R. Doerr, both of Ramsell & Armamentos, of Wheaton, for appellant.\nJoseph E. Birkett, State\u2019s Attorney (Martin P. Moltz, of State\u2019s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor\u2019s Office, of counsel), and Sally A. Swiss, both of Wheaton, for the People." }, "file_name": "0902-01", "first_page_order": 920, "last_page_order": 932 }