Justia Juvenile Law Opinion Summaries

The baby was exposed to cocaine in utero; the state took the child into protective custody and filed a petition pursuant to 705 ILCS 405/2-13. The petition did not seek termination of parental rights. Mother was personally served; abode service was made on father by leaving the summons and petition with his mother at the house they shared. The circuit court made the baby a ward of the court. By the time of the permanency hearing, mother's whereabouts were unknown. Although father did not comply with all aspects of the service plan, the court continued to set return to the family as the permanency goal. When the baby was about 18 months old, the court allowed foster parents to intervene and the state to begin termination proceedings and subsequently entered a default judgment against father. The appellate court reversed because the state had made no attempt to serve father. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed. The court noted many procedural defects and that father had made progress in meeting goals during nine months following the adjudication of neglect. Because he was not found to be deficient until after that period, the petition for termination was untenable as a matter of law. View "In re Haley D." on Justia Law

The state filed a neglect petition, naming Long, the legal guardian of her grandchildren along with the children's biological mother and father, as respondents. The biological father waived adjudication. Long and the biological mother stipulated that the children were neglected. The trial court terminated the guardianship and dismissed Long from the case. The appellate court reversed, holding that the legislature could not have intended that a guardian could be dismissed from the case based simply upon her dismissal as guardian. The Illinois Supreme Court reversed, holding that, under 705 ILCS 405/1-5(1), once the court directs the removal or dismissal of a guardian, that individual no longer is a guardian and, thus, no longer a party respondent to the proceedings. The appellate court erred in looking to the children's best interests in deciding that Long would remain a party to the case even after she was dismissed as the children’s guardian. She is not without recourse; pursuant to section 1-5(2)(a), she may have the right to be heard as a previously appointed relative caregiver interested in the minors.View "In re C.C." on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Appellant Scott Brockelbank was convicted of aggravated criminal trespass and assault. The Court of Appeals affirmed Appellant's judgment and sentence, holding (1) the evidence was sufficient to disprove Appellant's competing harms defense because there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find that the State disproved at least one of the elements of the defense; and (2) the sentencing court acted within its discretion by permitting the State to introduce information related to Appellant's nonpublic juvenile adjudication during the sentencing proceedings to the limited extent reasonably necessary to respond to and explain information introduced by Appellant related to the same adjudication. View "State v. Brockelbank" on Justia Law

Defendant violated several terms of the youthful offender agreement and, at the subsequent sentencing proceeding, Supreme Court imposed a determinate prison sentence of three and one-half years plus five years of post-release supervision. On appeal, defendant contended that reversal was required under People v Catu. The court held that, having elected to advise defendant of the consequences that might flow from the violation of the youthful offender agreement, Supreme Court referenced only a prison term, omitting any mention of the possibility of post-release supervision, thereby giving defendant an inaccurate impression concerning the sentencing options. Accordingly, the court concluded that reversal and vacatur of the plea was appropriate. View "People v McAlpin" on Justia Law

When he was fourteen years old, D.C. and three other boys broke into the home of an elderly woman, ransacked the home, and injured the homeowner. At a dispositional hearing, the juvenile court imposed on D.C. a determinate commitment of two years at the Department of Correction to be followed by an indeterminate commitment. D.C. appealed the dispositional order, arguing that the juvenile court incorrectly ordered both a determinate commitment and indeterminate commitment. The court of appeals agreed and reversed in part and remanded with instructions that the juvenile court impose a determinate commitment only. The Supreme Court granted transfer and reversed the trial court's dispositional order, holding that the determinate and indeterminate commitment statutes in question were unambiguously mutually exclusive, and thus the trial court could impose only one of the commitments on D.C. Remanded to the trial court to decide, in its discretion, which type of commitment was appropriate. View "D.C. v. State" on Justia Law

Twelve-year old Frances G. told a law enforcement officer that she threw a rock or brick against the windshield of a vehicle and carved something into the side of the vehicle. After a trial before a justice of the family court, Frances was adjudicated to be wayward. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the trial justice was not clearly wrong when she allowed the vehicle's owner to testify about what her daughter told her she saw Frances do to the car because the statement qualified as an "excited utterance" under R.I. R. Evid. 803(2); and (2) Frances knowingly and voluntarily waived her Miranda rights before speaking to the law enforcement officer, and therefore, the trial justice did not err in admitting the statement into evidence. View "In re Frances G." on Justia Law

Defendant left his seriously dysfunctional home at age 14 and began living with an adult who sold him to older men for sex. They were joined by two young girls. The four engaged in group sex. Defendant was convicted of first degree sexual assault of a child, based on oral sex performed on defendant (then age 15) by a 12-year-old, and sentenced to 40 years. Wisconsin state courts rejected his claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. The district court denied a petition for habeas corpus. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting an argument that defendant received constitutionally ineffective assistance from his trial counsel, who failed to request a jury instruction including the statutory words defining the charged offense: "either by the defendant or upon the defendant's instruction." The state court determination that any error was not prejudicial was not unreasonable, in light of the circumstances surrounding the incident and the possibility that the statutory language court be read as covering situations in which a defendant allowed the sexual conduct. The court noted that it was not unmindful of the circumstances that led defendant to the situation and that it trusted the parole board to take those circumstances into account.View "Steffes v. Thurmer" on Justia Law

Termination proceedings began with 2006 charges that children, living with their mother, were neglected. The mother received Social Security benefits, but no effort was made to determine their source or to obtain a release of Social Security information. Later that year, a proceeding to collect child support from the father was initiated in the same prosecutor's office, with a complaint signed by a caseworker in the termination proceeding. In the collection matter, the father's birth date, Social Security number and description were listed The state located the father at a treatment center and obtained consent to a support order using funds from his disability benefits.The father challenged the termination of parental rights for lack of personal jurisdiction, claiming that, under the Juvenile Court Act, it was improper to serve him only by publication after attempts at personal service or service by certified mail were unsuccessful. The appellate court upheld the order. The Illinois Supreme Court reversed, stating that the state’s ability to obtain information in the child support action cast significant doubt on the diligence of inquiry in the termination proceedings and that relying on a computerized database search of a parent's name while ignoring, or not investigating, other potentially useful information, does not constitute a diligent inquiry. View "In re Dar. C. and Das. C., Minors" on Justia Law

Defendants the Colbert County Board of Education ("the Board"); and the individual members of the Board and members of the Colbert County High School appealed a trial court's judgment that granted Plaintiff Felecia James's motion for a preliminary injunction. On or about May 21, 2010, an incident occurred at Colbert County High School (CCHS) involving J.H., Plaintiff's minor child, and another minor enrolled in CCHS. The details of the incident were disputed, but they led the assistant principal of the school to suspend both students for three days for allegedly fighting on school property during school hours. Plaintiff appeared before the Board to discuss the situation. The Board apparently took no action, and Plaintiff "individually and as mother and guardian of J.H." sued the Board and the individually named defendants asserting state-law and federal-law claims She also filed a motion for a temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction, and a permanent injunction. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that the Board members in their official capacities were immune from the state-law claims filed against them insofar as those claims sought monetary damages. As such, the trial court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over those state-law claims against the officials in their official capacities. However, the Board members were not immune from Plaintiff's state-law claims insofar as she sought injunctive relief based upon the Board members' alleged fraud, bad faith, or actions that were beyond the Board members' authority or that were taken under a mistaken interpretation of law. The Court noted that the Board and its members were not immune from the federal-law claims filed against them. Based on the foregoing, insofar as the Board appealed the preliminary injunction against it based upon the state-law claims filed by Plaintiff, the Supreme Court dismissed their appeal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Because the Court reversed the preliminary injunction, the Court declined to order the trial court to vacate the preliminary injunction entered against the Board insofar as it was based on those claims. View "Colbert Cty. Bd. of Edu. v. James" on Justia Law

Jerad Parks was charged with first degree sexual assault on a child. Although Parks was twenty-four years old at the time he was charged, he filed a motion to transfer to the juvenile court because he was a juvenile at the time of the offenses. The district court denied the motion. Parks then pled no contest to attempted second degree sexual assault and felony child abuse. The district court ordered Parks to register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA). The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court did not err in denying Parks' motion to transfer because under the plain language of the juvenile code, the juvenile court's jurisdiction ends when the juvenile reaches the age of majority; and (2) because Parks pled no contest to a registrable offense under SORA, the plain language of the statute required Parks to register as a sex offender. View "State v. Parks" on Justia Law