2018 IL 122484 

IN THE
 

SUPREME COURT
 

OF
 

THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
 

(Docket No. 122484) 

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Appellant, v. 

DERRICK BONILLA, Appellee. 

Opinion filed October 18, 2018. 

JUSTICE KILBRIDE delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion. 

Justices Garman, Burke, Theis, and Neville concurred in the judgment and 

opinion. 

Chief Justice Karmeier dissented, with opinion. 

Justice Thomas dissented, with opinion, joined by Chief Justice Karmeier. 

OPINION 

¶ 1 This appeal presents a search and seizure issue involving application of this 

court’s recent opinion in People v. Burns, 2016 IL 118973. Burns, relying on 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1 (2013), held that the warrantless use of a 

drug-detection dog at a defendant’s apartment door, located within a locked 

apartment building, violated a defendant’s rights under the fourth amendment to 

the United States Constitution. U.S. Const., amend. IV. In this case, the circuit 

court of Rock Island County determined that police violated defendant’s fourth 

amendment rights by conducting a dog sniff of the threshold of defendant’s 

apartment, located on the third floor of an unlocked apartment building. The 

appellate court affirmed. 2017 IL App (3d) 160457. We now affirm. 

¶ 2 BACKGROUND 

¶ 3 The facts of this case were stipulated to by the parties.1 Defendant, Derrick 

Bonilla, lived in an apartment at Pheasant Ridge Apartment Complex in Moline, 

Illinois. The East Moline Police Department received a tip that defendant was 

selling drugs from his apartment. Acting on that tip, on March 19, 2015, officers 

brought a trained drug-detection dog to defendant’s apartment building. The 

exterior doors to the apartment building were not locked. The three-floor apartment 

building contained four apartments on each floor. Once inside the building, Moline 

canine officer Genisio2 walked his drug-detection dog through the second-floor 

common area. The dog showed no interest in the second-floor common area and 

did not alert on any of the apartment thresholds. Officer Genisio then walked his 

dog through the third-floor common area. The dog showed no interest in units 301, 

302, or 303. As the dog came to defendant’s apartment, unit 304, however, it 

moved back and forth in the doorway, sniffed at the bottom of the door, and 

signaled a positive alert for the presence of narcotics. Officers obtained a search 

warrant for defendant’s apartment based on the drug-detection dog’s alert. Officers 

searched defendant’s apartment and found cannabis. Defendant was later arrested 

1

We note that the supplemental certification of record contains an “Agreed Statement of Facts” 

indicating “[t]he search warrant and affidavit filed in [this] case *** is the same search warrant and 

affidavit that was the subject of the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence. It was the same search 

warrant and affidavit that was viewed by the trial judge in reaching his conclusion with respect to 

the motion to suppress.” Unfortunately, neither the common-law record nor the supplemental record 

contains a copy of the search warrant and affidavit. Because the trial court’s factual findings are not 

contested by the parties, we have relied on the report of proceedings, the defendant’s motion to 

quash warrant and suppress evidence, and the parties’ briefs in setting forth the relevant facts of this 

case. 2

The record on appeal does not indicate Officer Genisio’s first name. 

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and charged with unlawful possession of cannabis with intent to deliver (720 ILCS 

550/5(c) (West 2014)). 

¶ 4 In June 2015, defendant filed a motion to suppress. A hearing was held on that 

motion in August 2016. The parties stipulated to the facts, and no additional 

testimony or evidence was presented. At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial 

court granted defendant’s motion to suppress, stating: 

“But I think whether you are doing it as a privacy interest under [Kyllo v. 

United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001),] or a curtilage property interest under 

[Jardines, 569 U.S. 1], I think it would just be unfair to say you can’t come up 

on a person who lives in a single family residence and sniff his door but you can 

go into someone’s hallway and sniff their door if they happen to live in an 

apartment. That’s a distinction with an unfair difference. So I’m granting the 

motion.” 

¶ 5 After the State’s oral motion to reconsider was denied, the State appealed. The 

State did not file a separate certificate of impairment but did set forth in its notice of 

appeal that the granting of defendant’s motion to suppress had the substantive 

effect of dismissing the charges. 

¶ 6 The appellate court affirmed, holding that the common area just outside the 

door of an apartment constituted curtilage under Jardines and Burns. 2017 IL App 

(3d) 160457, ¶ 18. The appellate court determined that the State acquired the 

evidence of drugs by intruding into a constitutionally protected area. 2017 IL App 

(3d) 160457, ¶ 21. The appellate court also rejected the State’s argument that the 

good faith exception applies to prevent the evidence from being suppressed. 2017 

IL App (3d) 160457, ¶ 24. Justice Wright dissented, arguing that this court had 

emphasized that police entered a locked apartment complex in Burns and that she 

would hold the hallway in this unsecured apartment building was not curtilage. 

2017 IL App (3d) 160457, ¶¶ 28-40 (Wright, J., dissenting). We allowed the State’s 

petition for leave to appeal. Ill. S. Ct. R. 315 (eff. Jan. 1, 2015). 

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¶ 7 ANALYSIS 

¶ 8 The State appeals from the judgment of the appellate court affirming the trial 

court’s order granting defendant’s motion to suppress. On appeal, we give great 

deference to a trial court’s findings of fact when ruling on a motion to suppress. 

People v. Cregan, 2014 IL 113600, ¶ 22. We will reverse the trial court’s findings 

of fact only if they are against the manifest weight of the evidence. Cregan, 2014 IL 

113600, ¶ 22. The trial court’s legal ruling on whether the evidence should be 

suppressed is reviewed de novo. People v. Bridgewater, 235 Ill. 2d 85, 92-93 

(2009). 

¶ 9 Here, the parties stipulated to the facts. The record on appeal does not contain 

the search warrant and affidavit relied on by the trial court in ruling on defendant’s 

motion to suppress. The State, as the appellant, has the burden of presenting a 

record sufficient to support its claim of error, and any insufficiencies must be 

resolved against it. People v. Hunt, 234 Ill. 2d 49, 58 (2009). Obviously, our legal 

analysis on a motion to suppress is heavily dependent on the specific facts of each 

case, and we admonish the State for not providing this court with a complete record 

in this appeal. Here, there was no testimony at the hearing on defendant’s motion to 

suppress. The only evidence to support issuance of the search warrant was the 

search warrant itself and the affidavit. It is inconceivable that the State would 

expect this court to review the propriety of the trial court’s ruling on defendant’s 

motion to suppress evidence without providing a copy of the documents that were 

considered by the trial court in making its ruling. Accordingly, any doubts that may 

arise from the incompleteness of the record will be resolved against the State, as the 

appellant. Fouch v. O’Bryant, 99 Ill. 2d 389, 391-92 (1984). 

¶ 10 The question of law at issue in this appeal is whether the warrantless use of a 

drug-detection dog at the threshold of an apartment door, located on the third floor 

of an unlocked apartment building containing four apartments on each floor, 

violated defendant’s fourth amendment rights. We review this question of law 

de novo. People v. Caballes, 221 Ill. 2d 282, 289 (2006). 

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¶ 11 I. Whether Defendant’s Fourth Amendment Rights Were Violated 

¶ 12 The State argues that use of the drug-detection dog did not violate defendant’s 

fourth amendment rights because the common-area hallway in front of defendant’s 

apartment door did not constitute curtilage. Defendant counters that use of the 

drug-detection dog at the threshold of his apartment door violated the fourth 

amendment to the United States Constitution (U.S. Const., amend. IV). According 

to defendant, “a citizen’s home is first among equals in Fourth Amendment 

jurisprudence, and the threshold is part of the home as a matter of law.” 

¶ 13 The fourth amendment to the United States Constitution provides: 

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and 

effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and 

no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or 

affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the 

persons or things to be seized.” U.S. Const., amend. IV. 

¶ 14 The parties disagree whether this court’s recent decision in Burns and the 

United States Supreme Court’s decision in Jardines control. We begin by 

reviewing the Supreme Court’s decision in Jardines. In Jardines, police received 

an “unverified tip” that marijuana was being grown in the defendant’s home. 

Jardines, 569 U.S. at 3. Police subsequently went to defendant’s home with a 

drug-detection dog and approached the front porch. After sniffing the base of the 

front door, the dog gave a positive alert for narcotics. Police applied for and 

received a warrant to search defendant’s residence based on the dog sniff. A search 

of the residence resulted in the discovery of marijuana plants. Jardines, 569 U.S. at 

3-4. 

¶ 15 The Supreme Court limited its review “to the question of whether the officers’ 

behavior was a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” Jardines, 

569 U.S. at 5. The Supreme Court held that a warrantless “dog sniff” of an 

individual’s front porch was a search for purposes of the fourth amendment and 

suppressed the recovered evidence. The Supreme Court stated that the fourth 

amendment establishes 

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“a simple baseline, one that for much of our history formed the exclusive basis 

for its protections: When ‘the Government obtains information by physically 

intruding’ on persons, houses, papers, or effects, ‘a “search” within the original 

meaning of the Fourth Amendment’ has ‘undoubtedly occurred.’ ” Jardines, 

569 U.S. at 5 (quoting United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 406 n.3 (2012)). 

¶ 16 The Court in Jardines recognized that its decision in Katz v. United States, 389 

U.S. 347 (1967), holding that property rights are not the sole measure of the fourth 

amendment’s protections, may add to this baseline but does not subtract anything 

from the fourth amendment’s protections “ ‘when the Government does engage in 

[a] physical intrusion of a constitutionally protected area.’ ” (Emphasis in original.) 

Jardines, 569 U.S. at 5 (quoting United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276, 286 (1983) 

(Brennan, J., concurring in the judgment, joined by Marshall, J.)). The Supreme 

Court emphasized that the principle in such a case is straightforward: 

“The officers were gathering information in an area belonging to Jardines and 

immediately surrounding his house—in the curtilage of the house, which we 

have held enjoys protection as part of the home itself. And they gathered that 

information by physically entering and occupying the area to engage in conduct 

not explicitly or implicitly permitted by the homeowner.” Jardines, 569 U.S. at 

5-6. 

¶ 17 The Supreme Court first considered whether police intruded upon a 

constitutionally protected area. “The Fourth Amendment does not *** prevent all 

investigations conducted on private property ***.” Jardines, 569 U.S. at 6. 

However, the Court expressly stated: 

“But when it comes to the Fourth Amendment, the home is first among equals. 

At the Amendment’s ‘very core’ stands ‘the right of a man to retreat into his 

own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.’ ” 

Jardines, 569 U.S. at 6 (quoting Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511 

(1961)). 

¶ 18 The Court specifically regarded “the area ‘immediately surrounding and 

associated with the home’—what our cases call the curtilage” as “ ‘part of the home 

itself for Fourth Amendment purposes.’ ” Jardines, 569 U.S. at 6 (quoting Oliver v. 

United States, 466 U.S. 170, 180 (1984)). The Court reasoned that “[t]his area 

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around the home is ‘intimately linked to the home, both physically and 

psychologically,’ and is where ‘privacy expectations are most heightened.’ ” 

Jardines, 569 U.S. at 7 (quoting California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 213 (1986)). 

The Court found “no doubt” that the police officers entered the curtilage of 

Jardines’s home as “[t]he front porch is the classic exemplar of an area adjacent to 

the home and ‘to which the activity of home life extends.’ ” Jardines, 569 U.S. at 7 

(quoting Oliver, 466 U.S. at 182 n.12). 

¶ 19 After determining that police officers intruded upon a constitutionally protected 

area, the Supreme Court then considered whether the police conduct in entering this 

constitutionally protected area with a drug-detection dog was “accomplished 

through an unlicensed physical intrusion.” Jardines, 569 U.S. at 7. The Court 

recognized that law enforcement officers need not “ ‘shield their eyes’ when 

passing by the home ‘on public thoroughfares,’ ” but an officer’s ability to gather 

information is “sharply circumscribed” after stepping off the public thoroughfare. 

Jardines, 569 U.S. at 7 (quoting Ciraolo, 476 U.S. at 213). The Court also 

recognized an implicit license for individuals, including police, “to approach the 

home by the front path, knock promptly, wait briefly to be received, and then 

(absent invitation to linger longer) leave.” Jardines, 569 U.S. at 8. 

¶ 20 “Thus, a police officer not armed with a warrant may approach a home and 

knock, precisely because that is ‘no more than any private citizen might do.’ ” 

Jardines, 569 U.S. at 8 (quoting Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452, 469 (2011). There 

is no customary invitation, however, for police to introduce “a trained police dog to 

explore the area around the home in hopes of discovering incriminating evidence.” 

Jardines, 569 U.S. at 9. 

¶ 21 The Court noted that it was unnecessary to decide whether the officers’ 

investigation violated Jardines’s reasonable expectation of privacy under Katz. The 

Court explained: 

“The Katz reasonable-expectations test ‘has been added to, not substituted for,’ 

the traditional property-based understanding of the Fourth Amendment, and so 

is unnecessary to consider when the government gains evidence by physically 

intruding on constitutionally protected areas.” (Emphases in original.) 

Jardines, 569 U.S. at 11 (quoting Jones, 565 U.S. at 409). 

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Nor did the Court find it necessary to consider whether Kyllo, 533 U.S. 27, applied 

because “when the government uses a physical intrusion to explore details of the 

home (including its curtilage), the antiquity of the tools that they bring along is 

irrelevant.” Jardines, 569 U.S. at 11. The Supreme Court concluded that “[t]he 

government’s use of trained police dogs to investigate the home and its immediate 

surroundings is a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” 

Jardines, 569 U.S. at 11-12. 

¶ 22 This court later applied the holding of Jardines in the context of an apartment 

building in Burns, 2016 IL 118973. In Burns, we held that the warrantless use of a 

drug-detection dog at a defendant’s apartment door, located within a locked 

apartment building in the middle of the night, violated a defendant’s rights under 

the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution. Burns, 2016 IL 118973, 

¶ 81. In reaching that conclusion, we emphasized that the apartment building where 

the defendant lived was locked and the common areas of the building were not open 

to the general public. Burns, 2016 IL 118973, ¶ 41. 

¶ 23 The State argues that this case is distinguishable from Burns because, here, the 

officers conducted a dog sniff in the unlocked common-area hallway outside of 

defendant’s apartment door and the landing was not part of the defendant’s 

curtilage under the “property-based” analysis announced in Jardines. According to 

the State, under Burns, an unlocked apartment common area is not curtilage. 

Defendant counters that under Burns and Jardines, the threshold of defendant’s 

apartment is constitutionally protected curtilage. 

¶ 24 Here, if the area at the threshold to the door of defendant’s apartment falls 

within the curtilage of the home, then the officer’s act of approaching defendant’s 

apartment door to have the narcotics-detection dog sniff the threshold of the 

apartment would constitute an unlicensed physical intrusion on a constitutionally 

protected area. Accordingly, this court must determine whether the threshold of the 

door to defendant’s apartment falls within the curtilage of the home. 

¶ 25 The facts of this case are nearly identical to those in Burns, other than the 

unlocked status of the apartment building. Nevertheless, we conclude that this 

distinction does not create a difference. The common-area hallway immediately 

outside of defendant’s apartment door is curtilage. See Burns, 2016 IL 118973, 

¶ 97 (Garman, J., specially concurring) (“The fact that defendant lived within a 

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locked apartment building is helpful to her argument that her front door and landing 

were curtilage, but not dispositive.”). Moreover, the dog sniff of the threshold of 

defendant’s apartment is similar to the dog sniff of the door on the front porch in 

Jardines. See Burns, 2016 IL 118973, ¶¶ 96-97 (Garman, J., specially concurring) 

(“In every relevant sense, defendant’s front door and landing appear indistinct from 

Jardines’s front door and porch.”). 

¶ 26 As the appellate court acknowledged in this case, “the fourth amendment does 

not differentiate as to type of home involved.” 2017 IL App (3d) 160457, ¶ 18. We 

agree with the trial court that “it would just be unfair to say you can’t come up on a 

person who lives in a single family residence and sniff his door but you can go into 

someone’s hallway and sniff their door if they happen to live in an apartment. 

That’s a distinction with an unfair difference.” See also Bonilla, 2017 IL App (3d) 

160457, ¶ 18 (“As the trial court noted, to reach the opposite conclusion would be 

to draw a distinction with an unfair difference.”); and United States v. Whitaker, 

820 F.3d 849, 854 (7th Cir. 2016) (recognizing that to distinguish Jardines based 

upon the differences between the front porch of a single family home and the closed 

hallway of an apartment building would be to draw an arbitrary line that would 

apportion fourth amendment protections on vagaries of the circumstances that 

decide home ownership or rental property), 

¶ 27 We conclude that the threshold of the door to defendant’s apartment falls within 

the curtilage of the home. “Were this court to hold that an apartment uniformly 

lacks fourth amendment curtilage, we would additionally hold that those who live 

in apartments have less property-based fourth amendment protection within their 

homes than those who live in detached housing.” (Emphasis in original.) Burns, 

2016 IL 118973, ¶ 96 (Garman, J., specially concurring). Further, the officer’s 

conduct of using a trained narcotics-detection dog at the threshold of defendant’s 

apartment for the purpose of detecting contraband inside defendant’s home is the 

precise activity the Supreme Court condemned in Jardines. See Jardines, 569 U.S. 

at 11-12 (“The government’s use of trained police dogs to investigate the home and 

its immediate surroundings is a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth 

Amendment.”). 

¶ 28 A recent United States Supreme Court decision supports our decision in this 

case. The Supreme Court recently reiterated its strong tradition of protection from 

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warrantless searches upon a person’s home or its curtilage in Collins v. Virginia, 

584 U.S. ___, 138 S. Ct. 1663 (2018): 

“[T]he Fourth Amendment’s protection of curtilage has long been black letter 

law. ‘[W]hen it comes to the Fourth amendment, the home is first among 

equals.’ Florida v. Jardines, 569 U. S. 1, 6 (2013). ‘At the amendment’s “very 

core” stands “the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free 

from unreasonable governmental intrusion.” ’ Ibid. (quoting Silverman v. 

United States, 365 U. S. 505, 511 (1961)). To give full practical effect to that 

right, the Court considers curtilage—‘the area “immediately surrounding and 

associated with the home” ’—to be ‘ “part of the home itself for Fourth 

Amendment purposes.” ’ Jardines, 569 U. S., at 6 (quoting Oliver v. United 

States, 466 U. S. 170, 180 (1984)). ‘The protection afforded the curtilage is 

essentially a protection of families and personal privacy in an area intimately 

linked to the home, both physically and psychologically, where privacy 

expectations are most heightened.’ California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 

212-213 (1986). 

¶ 29 When a law enforcement officer physically intrudes on the curtilage to gather 

evidence, a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment has occurred. 

Jardines, 569 U. S., at 11. Such conduct thus is presumptively unreasonable absent 

a warrant.” Collins, 584 U.S. at ___, 138 S. Ct. at 1670. 

¶ 30 In Collins, an officer walked up a driveway from the road, past the front lawn 

and the front perimeter of a house, and into a partially enclosed portion of the 

driveway abutting the house to get to the covered motorcycle he wanted to search. 

In deciding whether the part of the driveway where the defendant’s motorcycle was 

parked and subsequently searched is curtilage, the Supreme Court indicated that the 

concept defining curtilage is “ ‘ “easily understood from our daily experience.” ’ ” 

Collins, 584 U.S. at ___, 138 S. Ct. at 1671 (quoting Jardines, 569 U.S. at 7, 

quoting Oliver, 466 U.S. at 182 n.12). The Supreme Court determined that the area 

was curtilage, reasoning: 

“Just like the front porch, side garden, or area ‘outside the front window,’ 

Jardines, 569 U. S., at 6, the driveway enclosure where [the officer] searched 

the motorcycle constitutes ‘an area adjacent to the home and “to which the 

activity of the home life extends,” ’ and so is properly considered curtilage. Id., 

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at 7 (quoting Oliver, 466 U. S., at 182, n. 12.)” Collins, 584 U.S. at ___, 138 S. 

Ct. at 1671. 

Accordingly, the Supreme Court concluded that by physically intruding on the 

curtilage of the defendant’s home to search the motorcycle, the police invaded the 

defendant’s fourth amendment interest in the item searched and also invaded his 

fourth amendment interest in the curtilage of his home. Collins, 584 U.S. at ___, 

138 S. Ct. at 1671. 

¶ 31 The Supreme Court then declined to extend the automobile exception to permit 

a warrantless intrusion on a home or its curtilage. Collins, 584 U.S. at ___, 138 S. 

Ct. at 1675. In doing so, the Supreme Court specifically refused to create any 

exception to the general rule that curtilage receives fourth amendment protection. 

Collins, 584 U.S. at ___, 138 S. Ct. at 1675. The Court recognized that exceptions 

to the general rule that result in certain types of curtilage receiving fourth 

amendment protection for some purposes but not for others would likely create 

confusion. Collins, 584 U.S. at ___, 138 S. Ct. at 1675. The Court thus rejected the 

State’s suggestion that it adopt a more limited rule and hold that the automobile 

exception does not permit warrantless entry into “ ‘the physical threshold of a 

house or a similar fixed, enclosed structure inside the curtilage like a garage.’ ” 

Collins, 584 U.S. at ___, 138 S. Ct. at 1674. The Court explained that such a rule 

“automatically would grant constitutional rights to those persons with the financial 

means to afford residences with garages in which to store their vehicles, but deprive 

those persons without such resources of any individualized consideration as to 

whether the areas in which they store their vehicles qualify as curtilage.” Collins, 

584 U.S. at ___, 138 S. Ct. at 1675. 

¶ 32 Applying the relevant legal principles articulated by the Supreme Court in 

Jardines and Collins to this case yields the same result. “Just like the front porch, 

side garden, or area ‘outside the front window,’ ” the threshold of defendant’s 

apartment door constitutes “ ‘an area adjacent to the home and “to which the 

activity of home life extends” ’ and so is properly considered curtilage.” Collins, 

584 U.S. at ___, 138 S. Ct. at 1671 (quoting Jardines, 569 U.S. at 6-7, quoting 

Oliver, 466 U.S. at 182 n.12). Accordingly, we hold that in physically intruding on 

the curtilage of defendant’s apartment to conduct a dog sniff of the threshold, 

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officers violated defendant’s fourth amendment rights. 

¶ 33 II. Whether the Good-Faith Exception to the Exclusionary Rule Applies 

¶ 34 Alternatively, the State asserts that, even if the police violated the fourth 

amendment in this case, the evidence should not be suppressed because the officers 

acted in good-faith reliance on established precedent. The State acknowledges that 

this court rejected a similar argument in Burns. 

¶ 35 “Generally, courts will not admit evidence obtained in violation of the fourth 

amendment.” Burns, 2016 IL 118973, ¶ 47 (citing People v. Sutherland, 223 Ill. 2d 

187, 227 (2006)). As this Court recognized in Burns: 

“The fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine is an outgrowth of the exclusionary 

rule providing that ‘the fourth amendment violation is deemed the “poisonous 

tree,” and any evidence obtained by exploiting that violation is subject to 

suppression as the “fruit” of that poisonous tree.’ ” Burns, 2016 IL 118973, ¶ 47 

(quoting People v. Henderson, 2013 IL 114040, ¶ 33). 

“[T]he ‘prime purpose’ of the exclusionary rule ‘is to deter future unlawful police 

conduct and thereby effectuate the guarantee of the Fourth Amendment against 

unreasonable searches and seizures.’ ” Illinois v. Krull, 480 U.S. 340, 347 (1987) 

(quoting United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 347 (1974)). The good-faith 

exception to the exclusionary rule is a judicially created rule providing that 

evidence obtained in violation of a defendant’s fourth amendment rights will not be 

suppressed when “police acted with an ‘ “objectively ‘reasonable good-faith belief’ 

that their conduct [was] lawful,” ’ or when their conduct involved only simple, 

isolated negligence.” People v. LeFlore, 2015 IL 116799, ¶ 24 (quoting United 

States v. Katzin, 769 F.3d 163, 171 (2014), quoting Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 

229, 238 (2011), quoting United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 909 (1984)). 

¶ 36 This “good-faith exception” to the exclusionary rule has been codified in 

section 114-12(b)(1), (b)(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963: 

“(1) If a defendant seeks to suppress evidence because of the conduct of a 

peace officer in obtaining the evidence, the State may urge that the peace 

officer’s conduct was taken in a reasonable and objective good faith belief that 

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the conduct was proper and that the evidence discovered should not be 

suppressed if otherwise admissible. The court shall not suppress evidence 

which is otherwise admissible in a criminal proceeding if the court determines 

that the evidence was seized by a peace officer who acted in good faith. 

(2) ‘Good faith’ means whenever a peace officer obtains evidence: 

(i) pursuant to a search or an arrest warrant obtained from a neutral and 

detached judge, which warrant is free from obvious defects other than 

non-deliberate errors in preparation and contains no material 

misrepresentation by any agent of the State, and the officer reasonably 

believed the warrant to be valid; or 

(ii) pursuant to a warrantless search incident to an arrest for violation of 

a statute or local ordinance which is later declared unconstitutional or 

otherwise invalidated.” 725 ILCS 5/114-12(b)(1), (2) (West 2012). 

¶ 37 The good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule includes good-faith reliance 

upon binding appellate precedent that specifically authorized a particular practice 

but was subsequently overruled. Davis, 564 U.S. at 241; People v. LeFlore, 2015 IL 

116799, ¶¶ 29-31. 

¶ 38 The State argues that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule should 

apply in this case for the same reasons argued by the State in Burns: (1) the officers 

relied on binding United States Supreme Court precedent holding that dog sniffs 

are not fourth amendment searches; (2) the officers relied on Illinois precedent 

holding that residents have no reasonable expectation of privacy in apartment 

building common areas; and (3) the officers relied on federal precedent holding 

there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in apartment building common 

areas. According to the State, it was objectively reasonable for the officers to rely in 

good faith on “binding appellate precedent that the precise location of the K9 sniff 

was not constitutionally protected.” According to the State, “that the exterior door 

here was unlocked makes all the difference.” We disagree. As we have already 

stated, whether the entrance to the common area of the defendant’s apartment was 

unlocked, as opposed to being locked, is a distinction without a difference. Supra 

¶ 25. 

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¶ 39 First, in support of its contrary conclusion, the State cites United States v. 

Place, 462 U.S. 696 (1983), City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32 (2000), 

and Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405 (2005), in arguing that “for thirty years, and 

on three separate occasions, the United States Supreme Court has held that a K9 

sniff was neither a Fourth Amendment search nor constitutionally relevant.” In 

Place, the Supreme Court held that use of a drug-detection dog to sniff luggage at 

an airport “did not constitute a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth 

Amendment.” Place, 462 U.S. at 707. In Edmond, the Supreme Court held that 

there was no fourth amendment search when officers conducted a dog sniff of an 

automobile at a highway checkpoint. Edmond, 531 U.S. at 40. In Caballes, the 

Supreme Court held that “the use of a well-trained narcotics-detection dog—one 

that ‘does not expose noncontraband items that otherwise would remain hidden 

from public view’ [citation]—during a lawful traffic stop generally does not 

implicate legitimate privacy interests.” Caballes, 543 U.S. at 409 (quoting Place, 

462 U.S. at 707). 

¶ 40 As this court explained in Burns, “contrary to the State’s argument, United 

States Supreme Court precedent has long provided that the home has heightened 

expectations of privacy and that at the core of the fourth amendment is ‘the right of 

a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable 

governmental intrusion.’ ” Burns, 2016 IL 118973, ¶ 56 (quoting Silverman, 365 

U.S. at 511). None of these Supreme Court cases cited by the State implicate this 

core fourth amendment right involving the home and its curtilage. Rather, Place, 

City of Indianapolis, and Caballes involved use of dog sniffs in public places. 

Here, the police conduct involved the warrantless use of a drug-detection dog at the 

threshold of defendant’s home. That conduct is simply not supported by an 

objectively reasonable good-faith belief that it was specifically authorized under 

any United States Supreme Court precedent. 

¶ 41 The State next argues that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule 

should apply because the officers relied on People v. Smith, 152 Ill. 2d 229 (1992), 

holding that residents had no reasonable expectations of privacy in apartment 

building common areas. We have already reviewed and discussed Smith in detail 

and rejected the State’s argument in Burns. Burns, 2016 IL 118973, ¶ 58. 

Nevertheless, the State argues that officers could rely in good faith on Smith, 

regarding the lack of privacy interests in unlocked common areas. The State 

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contends that the fact that the common area in this case was unlocked meant that it 

was a place officers had a legal right to be. 

¶ 42 Contrary to the State’s assertion, Smith did not hold that tenants have no 

expectation of privacy in common areas of either locked or unlocked apartment 

buildings. Rather, as we noted in Burns, “Smith concerned an individual’s 

reasonable expectation of privacy in things overheard by the police while standing 

in a common area of an unlocked apartment building.” Burns, 2016 IL 118973, 

¶ 58. Here, in contrast, conducting a search with a drug-detection dog is much 

different from overhearing a private conversation. Consequently, Smith does not 

support the State’s position any more in this case than it did in Burns. 

¶ 43 The State also argues that officers could rely in good faith on People v. 

Carodine, 374 Ill. App. 3d 16 (2007), to believe that the unlocked common area 

was not constitutionally protected. We now examine Carodine. 

¶ 44 In Carodine, a surveillance officer observed a defendant remove a bag from a 

dryer vent protruding from the outside wall of an apartment building, remove an 

item from the bag, and hand the item to a person who gave money to the defendant. 

Carodine, 374 Ill. App. 3d at 18-19. A few minutes later, the officer recovered a 

bag from the vent that contained cocaine and heroin. Carodine, 374 Ill. App. 3d at 

19. On appeal, the defendant argued that the trial court erred by denying his motion 

to suppress the narcotics retrieved by police from the dryer vent that led from the 

inside of his apartment to the exterior wall of the building. Carodine, 374 Ill. App. 

3d at 21. The appellate court held that no search occurred because the defendant did 

not have an objective expectation of privacy in the vent that led from inside his 

apartment to the common-area exterior wall of the apartment building. Carodine, 

374 Ill. App. 3d at 24. The court reasoned that “the dryer vent was located in a 

common area where other tenants of the building, the landlord, delivery persons, 

door-to-door salesmen and other members of the public had access.” Carodine, 374 

Ill. App. 3d at 24. We agree with defendant that the facts and holding in Carodine 

are insufficiently analogous to offer any value to the analysis of the case at hand. 

Most notably, Carodine involved the exterior wall of an apartment building; it did 

not involve a drug-dog sniff at the threshold to the door of an apartment. 

¶ 45 We also agree with defendant that the Illinois case most on point at the time of 

the warrantless search in this case was the Fourth District Appellate Court opinion 

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in People v. Burns, 2015 IL App (4th) 140006. The appellate court’s holding in 

Burns, later affirmed by this court, was that the warrantless dog sniff of the 

common-area landing outside of an apartment door was an illegal search under the 

fourth amendment. The only difference between the facts in Burns and the facts 

here is that the exterior door to the apartment building in Burns was locked. The 

State does not cite any binding appellate decision, state or federal, that was 

available at the time of the search, specifically authorizing the warrantless use of a 

drug-detection dog at the threshold of an apartment door or any other home. 

¶ 46 The State also cites a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals case as binding 

precedent in Illinois absent contrary state authority. See United States v. Brock, 417 

F.3d 692 (7th Cir. 2005), abrogation recognized by United States v. Gutierrez, 760 

F.3d 750 (7th Cir. 2014). In Brock, officers performed a dog sniff outside the 

locked door of the defendant’s bedroom. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals 

affirmed the denial of the defendant’s motion to suppress. Brock, 417 F.3d at 697. 

The court relied on Supreme Court decisions holding that a drug-dog sniff does not 

constitute a search for fourth amendment purposes because it reveals only the 

presence or absence of narcotics and therefore implicates no legitimate privacy 

interest. Brock, 417 F.3d at 695. 

¶ 47 There are two problems with the State’s reliance on Brock. First, critical to 

Brock’s holding was that the dog sniff in the case was not a fourth amendment 

search because police were lawfully present inside the common areas of the 

residence with the consent of the defendant’s roommate. Brock, 417 F.3d at 697. 

Second, Brock is no longer good law, and its abrogation has been recognized after 

the 2013 decision in Jardines. See Gutierrez, 760 F.3d at 755-56 (“Brock is no 

longer good law; Jardines expressly held that a drug-dog’s sniff on the curtilage is 

a Fourth Amendment search for which a warrant is typically required.”). Jardines 

was decided two years before the dog sniff in this case, and Brock had already been 

recognized as abrogated. Accordingly, the State’s reliance on Brock is misplaced. 

¶ 48 The State also cites federal cases holding that there was no reasonable 

expectation of privacy in apartment building common areas. United States v 

Correa, 653 F.3d 187 (3d Cir. 2011); United States v. Scott, 610 F.3d 1009 (8th Cir. 

2010); United States v. Dillard, 438 F.3d 675 (6th Cir. 2006); United States v. 

Miravalles, 280 F.3d 1328 (11th Cir. 2002); United States v. Taylor, 248 F.3d 506 

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(6th Cir. 2001); United States v. Nohara, 3 F.3d 1239 (9th Cir. 1993); United States 

v. Concepcion, 942 F.2d 1170 (7th Cir. 1991); United States v. Barrios-Moriera, 

872 F.2d 12 (2d Cir. 1989), abrogated on other grounds by Horton v. California, 

496 U.S. 128, 130 (1990); United States v. Eisler, 567 F.2d 814 (8th Cir. 1977). 

The State argues that, given this legal landscape, the officers here would have had 

no reason to suspect that their conduct was wrongful under the circumstances. This 

court has already rejected the State’s “legal landscape” argument in Burns. Burns, 

2016 IL 118973, ¶ 67. Significantly, all of these cases were pre-Jardines, and many 

of these cases had already been called into doubt as no longer good law after 

Jardines. Indeed, Jardines was decided two years before the dog sniff of 

defendant’s threshold in this case. 

¶ 49 For these reasons, we hold that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule 

is not applicable. 

¶ 50 CONCLUSION 

¶ 51 We hold that the warrantless use of a drug-detection dog at the threshold of 

defendant’s apartment door violated his rights under the fourth amendment to the 

United States Constitution. U.S. Const., amend. IV. We also conclude that the 

good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply. We affirm the 

judgment of the appellate court and affirm the trial court’s judgment granting 

defendant’s motion to suppress. 

¶ 52 Affirmed. 

¶ 53 CHIEF JUSTICE KARMEIER, dissenting: 

¶ 54 I join in Justice Thomas’s dissent—as I did in People v. Burns, 2016 IL 

118973—and I write separately only to add a few observations of my own and 

reiterate some points he made in Burns. 

3 Early on, the majority recognizes that “our 

legal analysis on a motion to suppress is heavily dependent on the specific facts of 

3 See Burns, 2016 IL 118973, ¶¶ 103, 113, 121, 125 (Thomas, J., dissenting, joined by 

Karmeier, J.) 

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each case” (supra ¶ 9); however, the majority then readily takes statements the 

Supreme Court made in the context of true “curtilage” cases and plugs them into an 

analysis of a much different property interest, purporting to distinguish this court’s 

opinion in People v. Smith, 152 Ill. 2d 229 (1992). In that regard, the majority 

employs a suspiciously evolving distinction of Smith, which addressed reasonable 

expectations of privacy in similar circumstances but reached a different result. 

However, even if we were to assume that Smith is no longer good law after 

Jardines—as the majority suggests—it is to me inconceivable that the majority can 

say Smith is irrelevant—along with all the other cases cited by Justice Thomas in 

Burns—for purposes of applying the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule. 

¶ 55 First, I do not believe that the majority’s analytical overlay of the Supreme 

Court’s decision in Collins v. Virginia, 584 U.S. ___, 138 S. Ct. 1663 (2018), adds 

anything to the majority’s recycled analysis from Burns. Collins does not advance 

the majority’s cause. Though I understand the majority’s desire to impose some 

form of residential egalitarianism in this context, precedent simply does not support 

it—at least not the Supreme Court’s property-based dispositions in Jardines and 

Collins. There are very real differences in the facts, the reasonable expectations of 

privacy, and the property interests involved. Collins is still a traditional curtilage 

case, like Jardines. In Collins, the police deviated from the public thoroughfare and 

went through the close of defendant’s private property and onto his driveway, to 

search a motorcycle located in what was characterized as a “driveway enclosure,” 

an area that the Supreme Court described as adjacent to the home, “ ‘ “to which the 

activity of the home life extends.” ’ ” Collins, 584 U.S. at ___, 138 S. Ct. at 1671 

(quoting People v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 7 (2013), quoting Oliver v. United States, 

466 U.S. 170, 182 n.12 (1984)). 

¶ 56 In reaching its result in this case, the majority alternately claims that “[t]he 

common-area hallway immediately outside of defendant’s apartment door is 

curtilage” and “the threshold of defendant’s apartment door constitutes ‘ “an area 

adjacent to the home and ‘to which the activity of home life extends’ ” and so is 

properly considered curtilage.’ ” (Emphasis added.) Supra ¶¶ 25, 32 (quoting 

Collins, 584 U.S. at ___, 138 S. Ct. at 1671, quoting Jardines, 569 U.S. at 6-7, 

quoting Oliver, 466 U.S. at 182 n.12). The absurdity of the majority’s claim is 

highlighted by the dissenting appellate justice in this case: 

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“No portion of the third-floor hallway is enclosed. Defendant was not using the 

area outside his doorway for any private purpose such as for a sitting or 

reception area for himself or his guests. Nothing other than the thickness of 

defendant’s locked apartment door separated defendant’s private area from the 

publicly-accessible hallway. Defendant did not position any item to cause the 

general public to detour around the threshold of his locked door. Lastly, and 

importantly, defendant took no steps to protect the exterior of his apartment 

door from the view or observations of people lawfully travelling back and forth 

throughout the unlocked apartment building.” 2017 IL App (3d) 160457, ¶ 36 

(Wright, J., dissenting). 

¶ 57 The majority likens the common hallway of this unlocked apartment building to 

the private porch of Jardines and the private driveway of Collins, both of which 

were within the perimeter, or close, of the residential property those defendants 

actually occupied. 

4 This defendant had no such interest in the common hallway of 

the multistory apartment building in which he was one of many tenants. It was not 

his property. He did not own the hallway, or have an exclusive right of control, nor 

any semblance of habitation there. Certainly, his family life did not extend there.5 

Would we envision family dinners in the hallway? Gardening? Recreation? 

Perhaps drinks with friends? Of course not. What aspects of family life are we 

talking about? Clearly, the hallway is not “an area adjacent to the home *** to 

which the activity of home life extends.” When we employ the property-based 

approach of Jardines and Collins—as opposed to a privacy-based analysis—we 

have to live with the strictures of the former, we have to accept the limitations of 

the property right at issue. 

¶ 58 The hallway is simply a publicly accessible means of ingress or egress for 

defendant, all the other residents, and anyone else who cares to come or go through 

4

The Supreme Court, in Jardines, made clear that it was intrusion onto Jardines’s property that 

formed the basis for the Court’s decision: “[W]e need not decide whether the officers’ investigation 

of Jardines’ home violated his expectation of privacy under Katz. One virtue of the Fourth 

Amendment’s property-rights baseline is that it keeps easy cases easy. That the officers learned 

what they learned only by physically intruding on Jardines’ property to gather evidence is enough to 

establish that a search occurred.” Jardines, 569 U.S. at 11. 

5

In short, there was no “ ‘physical intrusion of a constitutionally protected area’ ” as required by 

the Supreme Court in Jardines. See Jardines, 569 U.S. at 5 (quoting United States v. Knotts, 460 

U.S. 276, 286 (1983) (Brennan, J., concurring in the judgment, joined by Marshall, J.)). 

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the building’s unlocked doors. The owner of the building evinced no intent to 

prohibit anyone from entering. The exterior doors leading into the apartment 

building’s common-area hallways were not locked, and there was no lock, 

passcard, entry system, or anything whatsoever on the closed exterior doors of the 

apartment building that would prevent any person off the street from entering into 

the common-area hallways of the building. Officer Genisio walked through those 

publicly accessible, common hallways. He was where he had a right to be. He never 

invaded defendant’s living space, nor did he encroach upon property we would 

recognize as defendant’s, owned or leased. In short, he did not violate defendant’s 

“curtilage,” the dimensions of which the majority would be hard-pressed to fully 

define. Is this “threshold-curtilage” a matter of inches in front of defendant’s 

apartment door? Is that “an area adjacent to the home *** to which the activity of 

home life extends?” If more, how far does it extend? Do other residents traverse 

and violate defendant’s curtilage when they pass his apartment door while going 

about their daily activities? Does this “curtilage” include the entirety of the 

third-floor hallway? Perhaps it encompasses all the hallways of the unlocked 

apartment building. Who knows? 

¶ 59 If “[t]he common-area hallway immediately outside of [a] defendant’s 

apartment door is curtilage,” (emphasis added) as the majority at one point states, 

then the officers in Smith were clearly in it when they sought to overhear a 

conversation in that defendant’s apartment. However, in that case, this court held 

“no fourth amendment ‘search’ can be said to have occurred because defendant did 

not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his conversation.”6 Smith, 152 Ill. 

2d at 245. Among the factors this court found pertinent to its pronouncement on 

defendant’s expectations of privacy, the court listed the following: (1) the area 

where the officers overheard defendant’s conversation was a common area—and 

the court cited authority holding that expectations of privacy are diminished in the 

common areas of an apartment building; (2) “the area where the officers were 

standing when they overheard the conversation was unlocked”; (3) defendant’s 

voice was raised; and (4) “the officers used no artificial means to enhance their 

6

The court cited, with implied approval, this court’s decision in People v. Wright, 41 Ill. 2d 170 

(1968), where the court upheld admission of evidence developed by means of an officer’s 

eavesdropping into a private residence through an open window. The officer watched and listened 

through a rear window of an apartment from a CTA right-of-way only one to three feet from the 

building. 

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ability to hear defendant’s conversation, nor did they enter an area where they had 

no legal right to be.” (Emphases added.) Smith, 152 Ill. 2d at 246. 

¶ 60 As I read Smith, the fact that the officers were in the common area of an 

“unlocked” apartment building mattered. The Burns majority also appeared to 

think that was a distinction supporting the decision in that case: “Contrary to the 

State’s assertion, Smith did not hold that tenants have no expectation of privacy in 

common areas of locked apartment buildings. Rather, Smith concerned an 

individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy in things overheard by the police 

while standing in a common area of an unlocked apartment building. Consequently, 

Smith does not support the State’s position.” (Emphases added.) Burns, 2016 IL 

118973, ¶ 58. In its analysis, the Burns majority referred to the “locked” door of the 

apartment building multiple times. It was clearly an essential part of the 

disposition. Now, the majority’s distinction of Smith appears to be evolving as the 

need arises, as can be seen in the majority’s statement in this case: “Contrary to the 

State’s assertion, Smith did not hold that tenants have no expectation of privacy in 

common areas of either locked or unlocked apartment buildings.” (Emphasis 

added.) Supra ¶ 41. 

¶ 61 This court’s decision in Smith, considered in conjunction with the principles the 

Supreme Court espoused in Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405 (2005), would appear 

to validate the officer’s activities in this case. In Caballes, the Supreme Court 

stated: 

“Official conduct that does not ‘compromise any legitimate interest in 

privacy’ is not a search subject to the Fourth Amendment. Jacobsen, 466 U. S., 

at 123. We have held that any interest in possessing contraband cannot be 

deemed ‘legitimate,’ and thus, governmental conduct that only reveals the 

possession of contraband ‘compromises no legitimate privacy interest.’ Ibid. 

This is because the expectation ‘that certain facts will not come to the attention 

of the authorities’ is not the same as an interest *** in ‘privacy that society is 

prepared to consider reasonable.’ Id., at 122 (punctuation omitted). In United 

States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696 (1983), we treated a canine sniff by a well-trained 

narcotics-detection dog as ‘sui generis’ because it ‘discloses only the presence 

or absence of narcotics, a contraband item.’ Id., at 707; [citation].” (Emphasis 

in original.) Caballes, 543 U.S. at 408-09. 

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While one might argue those statements were intended to apply only to traffic 

stops, the Court’s need to distinguish its decision in Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 

27 (2001), which addressed, inter alia, the expectations of privacy in a residence, 

suggests otherwise. In Kyllo, the Court had held that the use of a thermal-imaging 

device to detect the growth of marijuana in a home constituted an unlawful search. 

In Caballes, the Court could have distinguished Kyllo, principally upon the 

different privacy interests recognized in automobiles and homes—however, that is 

not the “critical” distinction the Court cited: 

“Critical to that decision was the fact that the device was capable of detecting 

lawful activity—in that case, intimate details in a home, such as ‘at what hour 

each night the lady of the house takes her daily sauna and bath.’ Id., at 38. The 

legitimate expectation that information about perfectly lawful activity will 

remain private is categorically distinguishable from respondent’s hopes or 

expectations concerning the nondetection of contraband in the trunk of his car. 

A dog sniff conducted during a concededly lawful traffic stop that reveals no 

information other than the location of a substance that no individual has any 

right to possess does not violate the Fourth Amendment.” Caballes, 543 U.S. at 

409-10. 

The bottom line is this is not a curtilage case. Smith and Caballes provide the 

controlling authority. 

¶ 62 However, for the sake of argument, let us suppose the officer did unwittingly 

violate this newly devised minicurtilage, wherever it might be. What about the 

good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule? If the officer did not believe the 

common hallway of an unlocked apartment building qualified as the “curtilage” of 

a specific apartment, then he would have no reason to believe that the Supreme 

Court’s property-based decision in Jardines changed the settled authority of Smith 

and a number of federal decisions, which were based upon reasonable expectations 

of privacy and held that there was no such expectation in the common hallway of an 

unlocked apartment building. See Burns, 2016 IL 118973, ¶¶ 103, 113, 121, 125 

(Thomas, J., dissenting, joined by Karmeier, J.) Those authorities, considered in 

conjunction with Caballes, establish that defendant had no reasonable expectation 

of privacy in the common hallway of an unlocked apartment building and he further 

had no expectation of privacy with respect to the contraband in his apartment. 

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¶ 63 The appellate court’s decision in Burns (People v. Burns, 2015 IL App (4th) 

140006) could not trump this court’s decision in Smith and the United States 

Supreme Court’s decision in Caballes. Those cases provided the governing 

principles at the time the officer acted. And we should be fair in our appraisal of the 

officer’s conduct. As this court recognized in People v. LeFlore, 2015 IL 116799, 

¶ 24, “exclusion [of evidence] is invoked only where police conduct is both 

‘sufficiently deliberate’ that deterrence is effective and ‘sufficiently culpable’ that 

deterrence outweighs the cost of suppression.”7 Given the prevailing supreme court 

authority at the time the officer acted, his conduct does not qualify as “culpable.” In 

the end, when the members of this court, and those of the appellate panel, cannot 

agree whether this area qualifies for protection as “curtilage” or warrants an 

expectation of privacy, can we expect police officers to appreciate such nuanced 

distinctions, so that they would recognize that Jardines changed the law in this 

context? We should only expect of them “good faith,” not scholarly discernment. 

¶ 64 For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent. 

¶ 65 JUSTICE THOMAS, dissenting: 

¶ 66 The issue in this case is whether the police conducted an illegal search by using 

a drug-sniffing dog in the unlocked common-area hallway outside of defendant’s 

apartment door. In People v. Burns, 2016 IL 118973, I concluded that the police’s 

use of a drug-sniffing dog in the locked common-area hallway outside of the 

defendant’s door was perfectly legal and did not violate the fourth amendment 

because (1) the concept of curtilage has no application to the common areas of 

multiple-unit structures and (2) there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the 

common areas of an apartment building. Id. ¶ 103 (Thomas, J., dissenting, joined 

by Karmeier, J.). My reasons for reaching this conclusion are set forth fully in my 

Burns dissent, and I need not repeat them here. For present purposes, it is sufficient 

to say that, for the very same reasons I concluded that the use of a drug-sniffing dog 

in a locked common-area hallway raises no fourth amendment concerns, I likewise 

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7

Noticeably absent in the majority’s opinion here is the extended discussion of LeFlore that the 

majority saw fit to include in Burns. See Burns, 2016 IL 118973, ¶¶ 49-52. 
 

conclude that the use of a drug-sniffing dog in an unlocked common-area hallway 

raises no fourth amendment concerns. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent. 

¶ 67 CHIEF JUSTICE KARMEIER joins in this dissent. 

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