People v. Margaret C.

372 Ill. App. 3d 817
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedApril 6, 2007
Docket1-06-2661 Rel
StatusPublished

This text of 372 Ill. App. 3d 817 (People v. Margaret C.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Margaret C., 372 Ill. App. 3d 817 (Ill. Ct. App. 2007).

Opinion

PRESIDING JUSTICE FITZGERALD SMITH

delivered the opinion of the court:

Following adjudicatory and dispositional hearings, minors/ respondents-appellees Gabriel E., Jr., and James M. (G.E. and J.M.) were found to be neglected due to an injurious environment and were declared wards of the court. G.E. and J.M.’s mother, respondent-appellant Margaret C. (appellant), appeals from the orders entered in the cause, contending that the trial court erred in finding the boys neglected. She asks that we reverse the trial court’s holding and direct that the petitions for adjudication of wardship be dismissed. For the following reasons, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

J.M. was born to appellant and Jose M. 1 on March 11, 1993; G.E. was born to appellant and Gabriel E., Sr. (Gabriel), 2 on October 29, 2004. Both boys lived with appellant and Gabriel.

On February 3, 2006, petitioner-appellee, The People of the State of Illinois (State), filed petitions for adjudication of wardship for G.E. and J.M. pursuant to section 2—3(l)(b) of the Juvenile Court Act of 1987 (Act) (705 ILCS 405/2—3(l)(b) (West 2004)), stating that the boys were neglected due to an injurious environment. The petitions cited supporting facts including a prior report of injurious environment, statements from J.M. that Gabriel was hitting him, G.E. and appellant, and Gabriel’s continued living in the family home after appellant was instructed by police and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to keep him away from the boys.

An adjudicatory hearing was held on June 6, 2006. Gloria Crosby, a DCFS investigator assigned to the case, testified that DCFS received a hotline call on June 18, 2005, that Gabriel had a knife to G.E.’s throat and was threatening to throw the boy in a garbage can. Crosby interviewed appellant the next day, and when Crosby asked her if she and Gabriel had fought, appellant stated that she had only a “little argument” with him and a neighbor had called DCFS. Crosby then asked appellant if Gabriel was still living in the home, and appellant told her he no longer was as of the prior evening. Crosby testified, however, that she then looked in the family home and saw a man’s shoes and jewelry, which appellant explained belonged to her brother who sometimes spent the night there. Crosby noted in a written report that while she was visiting the home, someone knocked on the door; appellant did not answer, telling Crosby that it was probably just her landlord. When the knocking occurred again, appellant went to the door, whispered something to the person outside, and returned her attention to Crosby. Appellant told Crosby that police had advised her after the knife incident to take G.E. to the doctor and not to let Gabriel back in the home; Crosby repeated the same to appellant, who agreed that she would follow these recommendations. Crosby noted in her report that she did not believe appellant’s story about the visitor during their conversation being her landlord, for when Crosby left appellant’s apartment, she saw a man fitting Gabriel’s race and age walking around the complex.

Crosby testified that on June 22, 2005, appellant called and told her she had taken G.E. to the doctor, who had diagnosed him with asthma and provided him with medication. Crosby asked appellant if she knew where Gabriel was or how he could be reached, and appellant told her she did not. Crosby then asked appellant if she had any contact information for him, and appellant stated that Gabriel did not have many minutes on his cell phone. Crosby testified that she found this suspicious, as appellant first stated she did not know where Gabriel was but then stated she knew how to contact him. Crosby testified that about 20 minutes after her conversation with appellant, she received a phone call from a man who identified himself as Gabriel. The man told Crosby that his sister had been the one who called police on June 18, 2005, that appellant had been at his sister’s home, that his sister did not allow her to return there, and that he had been forced to leave with G.E. The man refused to give his information to Crosby or to meet with her.

Crosby further testified that between June 22, 2005, and July 29, 2005, she attempted several times to talk to and/or meet with appellant to make a safety plan for G.E. and J.M., but appellant would never return her calls or answer her door. Crosby sent appellant a certified letter demanding that appellant contact her. On July 29, 2005, Crosby finally met with appellant and confronted her with information she obtained during her investigation from outside sources, including that it had been appellant and not a neighbor who had called the DCFS hotline regarding Gabriel, that Gabriel had been arrested, and that Gabriel was continuing to live in the home with appellant and the boys. Crosby stated that appellant did not deny any of this but, rather, became defensive and angry at the accusations made against Gabriel. Therefore, Crosby indicated a report for DCFS citing an injurious environment based on appellant’s continued placement of the boys at risk by her noncompliance with the safety plan and her noncompliance with being forthcoming about information regarding Gabriel’s whereabouts.

On cross-examination, Crosby testified that she never saw Gabriel in the home, there was no evidence of him living there as of July 29, 2005, and upon her examination, G.E. appeared to be healthy and well cared for.

Juliann Chitwood, appellant’s mother and G.E. and J.M.’s maternal grandmother, testified at this hearing regarding several incidents. She stated that she, the boys and one of Gabriel’s sisters were present one day while appellant and Gabriel were moving together from one apartment to another. Chitwood witnessed an argument arise between appellant and Gabriel about a stove; Gabriel raised his fists twice, but did not strike appellant, whereupon Chitwood intervened. Chitwood further testified that she babysat for J.M. for five or six days in December 2005, while appellant went to California to meet Gabriel, who had just been released from prison there, and to bring him back home to their apartment in Chicago with the boys. When Chitwood advised appellant not to go, appellant told her it was none of her business. Chitwood further testified that in January 2006, while J.M. was again with Chitwood, he told her he was afraid to go home; when Chitwood inquired as to why, J.M. told her he was afraid all the time that Gabriel was going to do something to him.

Denice Plump, another DCFS investigator assigned to the case following statements J.M. made to a teacher, also testified. She averred that on January 25, 2006, she met with J.M. at his school and J.M. told her that he, G.E. and appellant were being repeatedly hit by Gabriel, who was living with them in their apartment. He told Plump that he had stayed home from school a few days prior because Gabriel had hit him in the head and face, and that he was afraid of him. Plump then met with appellant that same day at J.M.’s school and told her about J.M.’s statements and her concern that Gabriel was living at the home and hurting the boys.

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Bluebook (online)
372 Ill. App. 3d 817, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-margaret-c-illappct-2007.