Title: People v. DeMorrow

State: illinois

Issuer: Illinois Supreme Court

Document:

59 Ill. 2d 352 (1974)
320 N.E.2d 1
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Appellee,
v.
GERALD DeMORROW, Appellant.
No. 46665.

Supreme Court of Illinois.
Opinion filed November 27, 1974.
Robert E. Davison, Office of State Appellate Defender, of Springfield, for appellant.
William J. Scott, Attorney General, of Springfield (James B. Zagel and John Patrick Healy, Assistant Attorneys General, both of Chicago, of counsel), for the People.
Judgment affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE DAVIS delivered the opinion of the court:
This case arises from the trial in the circuit court of Vermilion County of the defendant and James Brandys, who is not a party to this appeal, on charges of aggravated kidnapping, unlawful restraint, rape, and indecent liberties with a child. The court directed verdicts in favor of the defendants on the charges of rape and indecent liberties at *353 the end of the prosecution's case. The jury found the defendants to be guilty of aggravated kidnapping and unlawful restraint. Judgment was entered on the verdict, and the appellant was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in the penitentiary on the aggravated-kidnapping conviction. The appellate court affirmed (17 Ill. App.3d 901), and we granted leave to appeal.
The appellant raises only three issues in this court: that the courts below erred in concluding that evidence discovered in the defendant's home in the State of Michigan was the result of a valid consent search; that he was not proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; and that the sentence was excessive. The appellate court was of the opinion that the Supreme Court of Michigan would require that a person be given a Miranda type of warning before consent to a search without a warrant could be valid. The appellate court relied on the case of People v. Zeigler (1960), 358 Mich. 355, 100 N.W.2d 456, and ended its discussion with the following statement at 17 Ill. App.3d 901, 908:
The Supreme Court of Michigan, in People v. Zeigler, 358 Mich. 355, 100 N.W.2d 456, after first discussing the interplay of the fourth and fifth amendments, stated:
In Zeigler, the Michigan court was deciding what safeguards were required by the fourth and fifth amendments to the United States Constitution, and not the safeguards required by the Constitution of the State of Michigan. The Supreme Court of Michigan has also stated that:
Therefore, whether or not any given search and seizure is unconstitutional, as violative of the fourth and fifth amendments, as a matter of substantive law, is to be decided by the pronouncements of the United States Supreme Court. If a search and seizure is valid according to the opinions of the United States Supreme Court, the decision of a State court cannot make it invalid as a matter of Federal constitutional law. The decision of what State courts deem to be admissible in their systems according to their laws of evidence is an entirely separate question.
The United States Supreme Court considered this question of the characterization of exclusionary rules in the State courts in the case of Salsburg v. Maryland (1954), 346 U.S. 545, 98 L. Ed. 281, 74 S. Ct. 280, and the court stated:
Inasmuch as the question raised by the defendant is one of evidence, the law of Illinois, the forum State, is applicable. People v. Saiken (1971), 49 Ill. 2d 504, 509; People v. Kirkpatrick (1953), 413 Ill. 595, 597.
We look then to the question of whether the search and seizure in this case meets constitutional standards as set forth by the United States Supreme Court. The witnesses do not agree on the events which led to the search. At the hearing on the defendant's motion to suppress, contradictory testimony was given. Thomas Mannin, a Sergeant on the Hoopeston, Illinois, police force, who was present when the defendant was arrested in his home in Michigan, testified in pertinent part as follows:
The following testimony was from the cross-examination of Thomas F. Mannin:
Trooper Robert Den Houten of the Michigan State Police gave the following account of the search at the hearing on the defendant's motion to suppress:
*358 However, the defendant gave the following testimony at the same hearing on his motion to suppress:
In People v. Peterson (1959), 17 Ill. 2d 513, at pages 514 and 515, the court stated: "Whether consent has been given in the particular case is a factual matter to be determined in the first instance by the trial court, and where the evidence on the issue is in conflict this court will accept the finding below unless it is clearly unreasonable. (People v. Mathews, 406 Ill. 35; People v. McDonald, 365 Ill. 233; People v. Reid, 336 Ill. 421.) Because a court of review is not in a position to observe the witness as he testifies, questions of credibility and the weight to be given his testimony must be left largely in the discretion of the trial court."
The validity of the search in this case is dependent upon which testimony concerning events leading up to the *359 search is to be believed. This court, in People v. Haskell (1968), 41 Ill. 2d 25, 30-31 (overruled in part on other grounds in People v. Nunn (1973), 55 Ill. 2d 344), faced a similar problem concerning the consent of a third party, and in Haskell, at pages 30 and 31, the court stated: "The trial judge here made no express findings as to which testimony he believed or disbelieved, but his denial of the motion to suppress implies that he must have discredited the testimony of the defense witnesses since that testimony demands a contrary ruling on the motion. (See Commonwealth v. Wright, 411 Pa. 81, 190 A.2d 709.) It follows that we are bound to accept the testimony given by the police detectives as true because it cannot be said that it is clearly unreasonable. We are not similarly bound, however, to accept the trial court's ruling on the motion if, as a matter of law based on the facts as established by that testimony, it cannot be said that a legally sufficient consent was given. In other words, the relative credibility of the witnesses is not the issue before this court. The real issue is whether the testimony of officers Lee and O'Neil, taken at full value, meets the required standards for consent."
We turn then to the question of whether the search was conducted with the defendant's consent under the meaning of the United States Constitution.
There has been no definitive decision of the United States Supreme Court on the question of whether one who is already in custody need be informed of his fourth amendment rights before an effective waiver of those rights can be effectuated. That court has, however, recently considered the case of effective waiver of fourth amendment rights when the subject of the search is not in custody. In Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 36 L. Ed. 2d 854, 93 S. Ct. 2041, the specific holding of the court was quite narrow, and not directly applicable to the case at bar. The court stated:
The court specifically found the standard of Johnson v. Zerbst (1938), 304 U.S. 458, 82 L. Ed. 1461, 58 S. Ct. 1019, to be inapplicable to consent searches. The court traced the reason for the enunciation of that standard, i.e., "an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege," from the context of the safeguards of a fair criminal trial, both in its inception and its extension. Generally, the law of searches and seizures, as revealed by the court's decisions, is the product of interplay of the fourth amendment's guaranty against unreasonable searches and seizures, and the fifth amendment's guaranty that no person shall be compelled in a criminal case to be a witness against himself, the dual purpose being to protect the privacy of the individual and to protect him against compulsory production of evidence to be used against him. (Boyd v. United States (1886), 116 U.S. 616, 29 L. Ed. 746, 6 S. Ct. 524; Weeks v. United States (1914), 232 U.S. 383, 58 L. Ed. 652, 34 S. Ct. 341.) The test given for consent searches is whether the consent was given voluntarily.
In Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 36 L. Ed. 2d 854, 93 S. Ct. 2041, the test of voluntariness used by the court was discussed in the following terms:
In the present case both peace officers testified that the defendant was informed of his Miranda rights before the search. Although there is some discrepancy in their testimony as to the manner in which the search was accomplished, these discrepancies are not of sufficient scope to establish that the testimony is unreasonable. It is *362 sufficient under the tests set forth above for voluntariness that the defendant consented to the search. Also under the testimony of Detective Mannin, Alice Koch consented to the search, and her consent may well be sufficient independent justification. United States v. Matlock (1974), 415 U.S. 164, 39 L. Ed. 2d 242, 94 S. Ct. 988.
In view of our ruling that the consent to the search was voluntarily given, we find no merit in the contention that the defendant was not proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and under the flagrant circumstances of this case, we do not find the sentence to be excessive.
Therefore, we find that the circuit court of Vermilion County did not err in denying the defendant's motion to suppress, and the judgment of the appellate court is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.