On March 20, 2014, the Illinois Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in People v. Melongo that struck down Illinois’ eavesdropping statue on constitutional grounds. The Court found that the Illinois’ eavesdropping law making it a felony to record conversations without the consent of all parties involved (720 ILCS 5/14-2), criminalized a wide range of innocent conduct and criminalized recording conversations that did not have an expectation of privacy. Significantly, the Court also found that the law’s prohibition against the publishing of recorded pubic conversations was also unconstitutional. In People v. Clark, a related case decided the same day, the Court held that the eavesdropping law placed an overly broad unconstitutional burden on public speech.
