good morning welcome to everyone our first call first case on the call the data today tuesday november thirteenth two thousand and twelve as agenda number one case number one one two three seven three four people versus fund standing at a location known to them as the weak spot because of its high volume narcotics sale yelling the words drug slang for a certain type of cannabis to a passing car the defined that court found that there was no probable cause to arrest the issue before this court is therefore whether the defendant was based arrested based on probable cause of course probable cause exists when the facts are known to the officer at the time of the  call but the importance of this case is the officers testified testimony the officer testified that he had made hundreds of narcotics or ras not only in that area but the same location he testified that it was known as the weight spot he testified that he was familiar with terms about narcotics and he testified that in his three years as a police officer he had one that the term draw was referring to a specific testimony at trial was on we bought it there was no contrary evidence introduced at trial there was nothing to contradict him and therefore at the end of the no evidence that was used by prison there was evidence presented by the state that drove drawl was a term that the officer knew the term as because it was told to him from prior arrestees as having that meaning that was the only evidence in the record about the term drug trial at the conclusion of the pretrial hearing the trial judge actually reviewed the testimony he reviewed the officers experience and he concluded that the officer was credible now despite the credible evidence in the record establishing probable c appellate court reversed and the appellate court reversed based on a sufficiency of the charging document analysis which even my opponent suggests cannot hold water in this case you need to roll down to just say excuse me i not at all they saw him committing an offense solicitation of unlawful business is an offense and when they saw him yelling the road structure all the statute clearly tells us that you alter all of that excuse me the statute can be accomplished by mere words there  absolutely no need to wait further and as a matter of fact perhaps the defendant would not have been found with drugs on him that would have not lessened the probable cause analysis in this case in any way police still would have had probable cause to stand ot all the question is what is the offense for which probable cause is required in this case we're not talking about probable cause for possession for delivery for possession with intent to live or we're talking about pro and the officers saw their crime being committed therefore it does not affect in any way shape or form those are different questions for different cases in this case we are simply talking about probable cause in this support and it's based on the record there is simply no way a single passing car in a high crime area allowed the officers to execute a full blown arrest and search in this case the answer here is no there may have been reasonable suspicion but there was not probable cause if the two words were marijuana for sale or three just screams out marijuana marijuana maybe the officers are entitled to be suspicious and they're entitled to pay some attention to what that guy is doing but i don't think that that's that that's the end of the story right there i don't think that establishes this  totality of the circumstances you have in saying zero dro he's in a high crime area and you have the officer testimony regarding throw however that's not the end of the story for probable cause is a totality of the circumstances inquiry and that means the officers have to consider everything that's going on in this case and that means quite significantly he only says dro drove to a single passing car here now the officer testified there were other cars in the area they were pedestrians in the area mr grant doesn't say anything to any of these people now if you have a repetition of it then you getting closer to the neal case the state relies on then it's much less likely that you have an ambiguous or innocent explanation for what mr grant is doing but that's not what we have here would be circumstances and i think i think the fact that there's only one shouting and drove drove makes it ambiguous and if he's shouting throw dro to multiple cars or multiple people that's what happened in the neil case i believe this blows a nail then i think there's much less question of whether he's actually soliciting as opposed to you know as justice freeman said calling out someone's nickname or that there's an innocent explanation for what he's doing so whether or not there's a solicitation really could amount to how much traffic was  one cars passing every twenty minutes and then one car comes on and he says drove a drone it's not a solicitation because there were fifteen cars behind that thing that's a different case your honor i think that if you have a situation where there's only one conceivable solicit tea in the area and the defendant is you know saying the slang for cannabis to that person i think that that's i think that's different we have people other people going by in this case other cars  streams in the area there are other people that mr grant isn't interacting with in any way at all i have a problem with something that justice mcbride room for special k currents and maybe you can help me all of that after conceding the dro is street slang for can and the defendant had shouted it at a passing vehicle just as mcbride wrote here's the quote although the particular ordinance under which the officers were acting does not require that an unlawful transaction take place noticeably absent in this case or any facts to suggest that an unlawful transaction had taken place or was about to take place so i see an acknowledgment that there's no requirement and drove her oh he has solicited that's the end of the story i think the officers have to look at everything that went on in this case and that's why it is significant here that you don't have any of these classic indicia of drug behavior now in drug cases whether you're dealing with solicitation  completed possession or completed sale situation there are well known in dishes of criminal behavior that officers trained officers know and expect to look for and when we don't have any of that here we don't have mr grant you know completing an exchange of some sort with anyone that i'm trying to focus on the ordinance and if the ordinance violation is complete which he says in the perth first part of her quote when the solicitor solicitation takes place then why is probable cause lacking because of a lack of things happening that are not elements of the offense knows this record is the solicitation right that's true but you have to have an actual solicitation here the lack of these other indicia of drug activity calls into question whether the original statement was an actual solicitation and so would you agree going back to just commerce question that if we if we discerned that drove drove is basically the same as say marijuana for sale and the story and there's a violation of  necessarily wrong or because again you have to take into account the totality the circumstances here because you have no transactions taking place no no visible dro don't really perfectly well you know need a transaction according to the order that's correct but the lack of these classic condition of drug activity that you see in drug cases suggests that whatever mr grant was doing in this situation he wasn't necessarily really soliciting the sale of cannabis when you have these things present just as if you have a repetition of the phrase over to additional potential customers that substantially decreases the likelihood that you're dealing with anybody go after this one but it seems you're saying that you need a transaction to prove that a solicitation took place no your honor i'm not saying it's not a per se rule that you absolutely need these things to occur but what i'm saying is when you don't have them it lessens the likelihood that you're dealing with criminal behavior because he's just yelling these two words with you know without any supporting criminal in disha like the one identified it calls into question whether he's engaged in actual criminal behavior and that means the police what they should do is they should investigate further to see whether they're really dealing with actual criminal behavior as opposed to just ambiguous conduct and that's where the leak case  coarsely case is very interesting because that's not that's not a completed sale or possession case either that's a violation of a drug ordinance issue and yet this court stressed the lack of addition of drug activity and finding that despite the officer subjective belief like we have in this case that a crime had been committed or was about to be committed there was no probable cause for probable cause you look at everything that's happening and when you don't have industry of drug activity that you would expect to find in an actual drug criminal situation evidence we disagree with that there was only one finding in this case and that was that the officer testified credibly that's not tantamount to finding that mr grant was actually soliciting senate candidates here had that been the case of the court could easily have said i find that that's what happened it means only that the officer believed that mr grant was soliciting cannabis now it may seem petty but it's an important distinction because probable cause is an objective inquiry not a subjective one and if all you needed was an officer subjective belief that a crime had been committed you have probable cause in every case because the arrest otherwise wouldn't have occurred in the first place and with regard to solicitation it's also notable to the state's position could potentially dramatically expand  of police and citizen encounters if all you need is the wrong words in the wrong area and that's probable cause you're going to increase the number of arrests as the needle descends said you're going to significantly lower the threshold of probable cause language th justice burke was mentioning a minute ago and it's potentially ripe for abuse if an officer has to say to any suppression hearing as i heard him say dro i thought i heard him say dro that would be the end of the story and without regard to context with or without regard to the lack of indicia of criminal behavior if that's enough for probable cause it's going to be a major increase in arrests and accordingly the state's position should be rejected the officer should have conducted further investigation here and there were no thank you very briefly but neal case to which my opponent refers is not at all actually similar to the case before this court in the in lee the behavior was a ordinance violation regarding  and what the police ever observed was in big u s behavior and that's the case in many of the cases the defendant cites in here the behavior which defendant exhibited was not in big you was he he shouted words that w slang for marijuana to a passing vehicle that is overt obvious behavior that it's not at all ambiguous with regards to the nail case and repetition being needed i believe the console is performing an overly simplistic analysis of their case the importance knowing what the apollo court found was not how many times the defendant said the word low blows what the a poll court found is that they also testified credibly that he believed blocked roads meant a type of marijuana and that appellate court found no reason not to follow the ruling of the trial court and the cold court should have done the same thing in this case the fourth amendment except the fact that there can be possibly innocent explanations for behavior is not the question before this court the question before this court is is the probable cause based on the chicago municipal organise an unfair there arise with regard to the standard of review the officers testimony and the trial judge's decision was not manifestly are wrong is in this case the people were there for us that the trial court's ruling be reinstated and the defendant's conviction be affirmed thank you thank you