Judge questions child abuser's mental state before sentencing

Journal Star wrote: PEKIN — A Tazewell County judge wants to know the state of a convicted child abuser’s mind before deciding whether he’s fit to be sentenced to prison for his crime.

Christopher List, 34, came to court Monday in a wheelchair from the Tazewell County Justice Center, where about three weeks ago he climbed over a second-floor railing in his cellblock and fell 12 feet to its floor.

List was to be sentenced that day to as long as 15 years for battering his 3-month-old daughter, who lost sight in one eye after List shook her and threw her hard enough to bounce off a bed.

Whether his jail fall was an attempt at suicide — “the defendant’s personal spin” on the act, a prosecutor said — or a means to delay his prison sentence likely will arise in the psychiatric evaluation List now will undergo before he next appears in court.

Circuit Judge Michael Brandt granted defense attorney Charles Schierer’s request for the evaluation to determine whether List, of Washington, is mentally fit to participate in his sentencing hearing.

Assistant State’s Attorney Larry Evans opposed the request, noting that List underwent six months of therapy and testing after his arrest and was deemed mentally fit to aid in his defense. The tests determined List suffered from depression and was “alcoholically dependent,” Evans said.

“My fear is it’s possible he’s had a relapse of some sort” in his depressive condition, Schierer said. “He has a right to be fit to be sentenced” and to an evaluation paid for by the county.

List was arrested shortly after injuring his baby in his home in August 2012. Last February, after he was determined mentally capable to proceed with the prosecution, he pleaded guilty to aggravated battery to a child in a plea agreement that limited his sentence to 15 years, half the maximum term available for the Class X felony.

Brandt ordered List’s latest evaluation “to determine all the issues involved” and scheduled List’s next court appearance for May 1.

List, who was hospitalized for several days with injuries from his fall, remains in custody in the jail’s medical unit.