## Facts

- Police responded to a disturbance at Sean A. Peck’s residence.
- Peck acted belligerently and spit on an officer’s face, glasses, and cheek.
- When officers attempted to arrest and handcuff him, Peck resisted by kicking and pulling away; three officers subdued him.
- At trial, the State presented testimony from three officers and three neighbors; Peck and his girlfriend testified for the defense.
- Peck claimed any spitting was accidental; the jury convicted him of aggravated battery to a peace officer and resisting a peace officer, and acquitted him on an additional aggravated-battery count.
- The trial court imposed concurrent sentences of six years’ imprisonment (aggravated battery) and 364 days (resisting).

## Issues

1. Whether evidence was sufficient to prove aggravated battery to a peace officer where the physical contact consisted of spitting, and the defendant claimed it was accidental.
2. Whether the resisting-a-peace-officer conviction had to be vacated under the one-act, one-crime doctrine because it was allegedly based on the same physical act as the aggravated battery.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed both convictions and sentences.
- Spitting on an officer’s face constituted physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature sufficient to establish battery and, given the victim’s status and duties, aggravated battery.
- The jury could credit the State’s witnesses and reject the defendant’s claim that the spitting was accidental under the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard.
- The resisting conviction rested on a separate act—kicking and pulling away during handcuffing—so multiple convictions did not violate the one-act, one-crime rule.

## Legal Principles

- Battery may be proved by physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature; spitting can satisfy this element.
- Aggravated battery to a peace officer requires proof of an underlying battery plus knowledge that the victim was a peace officer performing official duties (including arrest or attempted arrest).
- On sufficiency review, the question is whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could find the elements proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Under the one-act, one-crime doctrine, multiple convictions may stand when supported by distinct physical acts, even if closely related in time, where each act independently establishes a different offense.

## Conclusion

The court upheld convictions for aggravated battery and resisting a peace officer because intentionally spitting on an on-duty officer is insulting or provoking contact constituting battery, and the defendant’s later physical struggle during arrest was a separate act supporting an additional conviction.


People v. Peck, 260 Ill. App. 3d 812 (Ill. App. Ct. 1994)