Supreme Court of Illinois

Conviction for endangerment is reversed and remanded for a new trial where: 1) statute under which defendant was found guilty contains a rebuttable presumption that a person is guilty of child endangerment "if he or she left a child 6 years of age or younger unattended in a motor vehicle for more than 10 minutes"; and 2) this provision is unconstitutional as a mandatory presumption not permitted at criminal law.

Appellate Information

• Decided 01/20/2006
• Published 01/20/2006

Judges

Court

• Supreme Court of Illinois

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Lisa Madigan, Attorney General, Springfield, and Richard A. Devine, State's Attorney, Chicago (Linda D. Woloshin, Assistant Attorney General, Chicago, Renee G. Goldfarb, Annette Collins, Margaret J. Campos, James E. Fitzgerald, Alan J. Spellberg, and John E. Nowak, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.


• For Appellees:
  
• Michael J. Pelletier, Deputy Defender, and Kathleen M. Flynn, Assistant Appellate Defender, Office of the State Appellate Defender, Chicago, for appellee.