-6-
Ill. App. 3d 843, 849 (2005), wherein the court interpreted the phrase
“family or household member” in connection with the domestic
battery statute, which also references section 112A–3 of the Code of
Criminal Procedure.
In Young, the State contended that the defendant was guilty of
domestic battery because the defendant and the victim were “family or
household members” by virtue of the fact that they “shared a common
dwelling” within the meaning of section 112A–3(3). At trial, evidence
was presented which showed that the night before the alleged attack,
the defendant and the victim had spent the night in the same “PADS”
homeless shelter. The next morning, the defendant and victim left the
shelter together and then spent the day together, drinking in a bar.
Later that day, when they went to check in at another PADS shelter
for the evening, they got into an argument. In the parking lot outside
the shelter, the defendant attacked the victim.
At trial, the victim testified that she met the defendant at a PADS
shelter about 1½ months prior to the attack and that she and the
defendant had stayed at various PADS shelters on several occasions
since then. The victim denied, however, that she and the defendant
were more than social friends, stating that they had been on only one
“date” and did not have an ongoing dating relationship.
Based on the evidence, the trial court found that the defendant
and victim shared a common dwelling and convicted the defendant of
domestic battery. The appellate court reversed, however, finding that
the evidence did not support a finding that the couple had shared a
common dwelling. The appellate court held that “shared lodgings are
not a shared dwelling unless the living arrangement has a degree of
permanence” and a “dwelling” is where persons stay “on an extended,
indefinite, or regular basis.”
Based on the reasoning in Young, the appellate court in the case
at bar concluded that Ethan and defendant did not share a common
dwelling. The appellate court noted that the Young court “recognized
the possibility that two people could form a household for the
purposes of section 112A–3(3) ‘by virtue of their consistently lodging
together,’ thus creating a nomadic household with no fixed place of
residence.” Nevertheless, the court found no shared “common
dwelling” in the case at bar because “there was no testimony at trial
indicating the defendant, the victim, and Hampton stayed together in
