Court Opinion

ID: 9521180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:59:46.972995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:47:45.121725
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE TRAPP, specially concurring: I concur in the affirmance of the conviction of involuntary manslaughter for reasons other than those stated in the majority opinion. Upon this conviction the prosecution has the burden of proving the reckless act which caused the death. People v. York (1978), 57 Ill. App. 3d 243, 373 N.E.2d 90; People v. Holland (1973), 11 Ill. App. 3d 591, 297 N.E.2d 310; People v. Yocum (1970), 122 Ill. App. 2d 126, 257 N.E.2d 793; People v. Manske (1948), 399 Ill. 176, 77 N.E.2d 164. The majority opinion concludes that the defendant’s reckless act was the placing of the child out of the car on the highway in the dark. The record includes the testimony of a pathologist who described the brutal injuries and fractures which were consistent with the testimony of physical evidence that the child’s arm was caught in the car door so that he was dragged beside the car for several hundred feet. The record supports a jury’s inference that death resulted from such conduct or act. In the light of the evidence concerning the cause and manner of death, the act of the defendant in placing the child out of the car in the road in the nighttime does not suffice to establish the reckless act which caused death.