Nos. 105849, 105952 cons. In re A.W., Jr.

Appellate citations:
No. 3-06-0830 (unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23).
No. 3-06-0859 (unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23).

JUSTICE KARMEIER delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.
Chief Justice Fitzgerald and Justices Freeman, Thomas, Kilbride, Garman, and Burke concurred in the judgment and opinion.

After proceedings in 2006 in the circuit court of Peoria County, two children, then 13 and 8, were placed in the guardianship of the Department of Children and Family Services pursuant to findings that they were neglected based on an environment that was injurious to their welfare. The appellate court reversed.

An investigator for the DCFS had testified that the older child told her that he did not want to go to his Peoria home because there was a lot of chaos there and the father was mad and yelled all the time. He also said that his mother and father fought and his mother would sometimes leave home. In the proceedings, evidence was introduced of a pattern of hostility and anger on the part of the father. Some of these incidents were outside the presence of the children. Two of the eight incidents introduced into evidence involved physical violence, while others involved threats of violence, and several involved erratic, aggressive and angry behavior.

In this decision on appeal, the Illinois Supreme Court rejected the father’s challenges to the admission of evidence, finding that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in admitting those examples of the father’s behavior which occurred outside the presence of the children. The finding of neglect based on injurious environment was upheld as not against the manifest weight of the evidence. The appellate court was reversed and the circuit court was affirmed.