Illinois Official Reports 

Appellate Court

People v. Wuckert, 2015 IL App (2d) 150058

Appellate Court 

Caption

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

KARL WUCKERT, Defendant-Appellee.

District & No. Second District

Docket No. 2-15-0058

Filed December 10, 2015

Decision Under 

Review

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Kane County, No. 13-DT-1045; the 

Hon. Robert J. Morrow, Judge, presiding.

Judgment Reversed and remanded.

Counsel on

Appeal

Joseph A. McMahon, State’s Attorney, of St. Charles (Lawrence M. 

Bauer and Victoria E. Jozef, both of State’s Attorneys Appellate 

Prosecutor’s Office, of counsel), for the People.

Michael J. Pelletier, Thomas A. Lilien, and Fletcher P. Hamill, all of 

State Appellate Defender’s Office, of Elgin, for appellee.

Panel JUSTICE BURKE delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

Justices Hutchinson and Zenoff concurred in the judgment and 

opinion.
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 OPINION 

¶ 1 Defendant, Karl Wuckert, was charged with driving under the influence of intoxicating 

compounds (DUI) (625 ILCS 5/11-501(a)(6) (West 2012)). He moved to suppress evidence 

that was allegedly the product of an illegal arrest. The trial court granted the motion but, on 

reconsideration, allowed the results of a urine test that hospital personnel administered to 

defendant shortly after his arrest. On defendant’s subsequent motion, the court ultimately 

suppressed the test results. The State appeals. We reverse and remand. 

¶ 2 At the hearing on defendant’s motion to suppress, he testified as follows. On the evening 

of October 11, 2013, while driving his Ford Explorer at or near the 35-mile-per-hour speed 

limit on Sleepy Hollow Road, he swerved to avoid hitting a deer, then swerved again to avoid 

another deer. The Explorer hit a pole and spun around. The crash activated the vehicle’s 

airbags and knocked defendant unconscious. When he came to, a Sleepy Hollow police 

officer showed up, followed by a sheriff’s deputy. Defendant exited the vehicle and told them 

that he had swerved to avoid a deer, losing control of the vehicle. He said that he had used no 

alcohol or drugs and that none were in the vehicle. The Explorer’s center console held a 

“one-hitter box,” a device commonly used to smoke cannabis but also to smoke tobacco. The 

officers had defendant perform the walk-and-turn and one-legged-stand tests. They did not 

tell him that he was under arrest. An ambulance arrived; the driver asked to take him to the 

hospital as a precaution. Defendant consented. 

¶ 3 Andrew Schwab, a Kane County sheriff’s deputy, testified as follows. On October 11, 

2013, at about 9:56 p.m., he was dispatched to the accident scene. Two Sleepy Hollow 

officers were there. Defendant’s vehicle was in the roadway, facing east in the southbound 

lane, heavily damaged. Schwab heard the ignition alarm “dinging,” so, for safety, he went to 

remove the key and shut off the ignition. As he approached the door, the window was open, 

and he smelled a faint odor of cannabis. As he shut off the ignition, he saw in plain view on 

the center console a “one-hitter box,” an item commonly used to smoke cannabis. The 

one-hitter box could have been purchased legally at a “head shop.” Schwab did not open it 

but later informed his supervisor, Deputy Justin Douglas, of its presence. Schwab did not 

find cannabis in the vehicle. He backed up slightly; defendant shut the door and told him to 

stay out of the vehicle. Defendant was not bleeding and did not appear seriously injured. His 

breath did not smell of alcohol or cannabis. His speech was clear, and he was cooperative. 

¶ 4 Defendant rested. The State called Douglas, who testified as follows. When he arrived at 

the accident scene, he saw the Ford Explorer facing east in the southbound lane of Sleepy 

Hollow Road. Defendant was standing outside; his eyes were bloodshot and he looked 

slightly disoriented. Defendant said that he had been traveling west when a deer jumped out 

in front of him and he swerved to avoid it. Douglas found this statement odd, since Sleepy 

Hollow Road runs north-south. Defendant said that he had been going 30 miles per hour, 

which seemed inconsistent with the severe damage to the vehicle. 

¶ 5 Douglas testified that defendant failed both the walk-and-turn test and the 

one-legged-stand test. At some point, Schwab told Douglas about the cannabis odor and the 

one-hitter box. Douglas placed defendant under arrest. An ambulance drove defendant to the 

hospital. Douglas drove by himself to the hospital. There, he spoke to a nurse with nobody 

else present. Over defendant’s objection on foundational and relevance grounds, Douglas 
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testified that the nurse told him that defendant’s urine specimen had been taken to the lab. 

Defendant renewed his objection to further testimony about Douglas’s conversation with the 

nurse; this time, the court sustained the objection. 

¶ 6 After hearing arguments, the trial judge granted defendant’s motion, explaining that the 

police had lacked probable cause to arrest defendant for DUI or possessing drug 

paraphernalia. 

¶ 7 The State moved to reconsider. In addition to arguing that the arrest had been valid, the 

State contended that the court should not suppress the results of the urine test. (The State 

proffered that the test disclosed the presence of cannabis in defendant’s system.) The State 

reasoned that there was no causal connection between the arrest and the urine test, because 

defendant had voluntarily gone to the hospital even before he knew that he was under arrest. 

Defendant argued that the urine test had resulted from the illegal arrest; had there been no 

arrest, there would have been no test. The State replied that defendant had agreed to go to the 

hospital as a precaution and would have done so regardless of whether the police ever 

arrested him. Further, the test was taken solely for medical reasons, not because the police 

requested it. 

¶ 8 The trial court denied the motion to reconsider, except that it modified its ruling to allow 

the results of the urine test if the State could supply the proper foundation. The judge 

explained that, if hospital personnel had tested defendant without police prompting or any 

intent to use the results for law enforcement purposes, then the evidence was not the product 

of the illegal arrest. 

¶ 9 Defendant moved to reconsider and clarify the judge’s ruling. His motion alleged: that 

the emergency room nurse had told him that he had to provide a urine sample in order to be 

treated; that she had assured him that the sample would be used solely for medical purposes 

and that the results would not be provided to the police; and that, relying on these 

representations, he had provided a urine sample that was later tested at the hospital lab. 

¶ 10 Defendant’s motion argued that, because the test was not conducted properly and there 

was no proper chain of custody, the results should not be admitted. Further, he argued, 

because he was assured that the test was strictly for medical purposes, the results should be 

barred at trial. Defendant contended that independent testing was the only way to protect his 

due process rights. 

¶ 11 Defendant’s motion attached a copy of a hospital record summarizing the test results. It 

states: “Specimen analysis was performed without chain of custody handling. These results 

should be used for medical purposes only and not for any legal purposes.” Defendant 

requested that the trial court reconsider its ruling conditionally allowing the introduction of 

the test results. 

¶ 12 The court held a hearing on defendant’s motion.1 The prosecutor argued that the 

foundational requirements for admitting the results were governed by section 11-501.4 of the 

Illinois Vehicle Code (625 ILCS 5/11-501.4 (West 2012)) and that the cautionary language in 

the hospital document went to the weight to be given the results, not their admissibility. 

Further, the prosecutor noted, defendant had voluntarily gone to the hospital, when he did not 

 

1The record contains a notice of defendant’s motion to reconsider and clarify the judge’s ruling, but 

the record does not include the motion. The order setting the hearing indicated that the case was 

continued for the motion to reconsider and clarify. 
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believe that he was under arrest, and Douglas had testified that he had no role in procuring 

the test. Defendant responded that, although the hospital personnel had not acted as agents of 

the police, the police had obtained the results by “dishonest” means, as the hospital had 

assured him that the test was solely for medical purposes. Also, he contended, the 

deficiencies in the chain of custody and the cautionary language in the summary went to the 

results’ admissibility, not merely their weight. 

¶ 13 The trial judge noted that the summary stated that the results should not be used for law 

enforcement purposes. The prosecutor responded that section 11-501.4 trumped the hospital 

policy by specifically allowing the admission of the results of chemical tests of blood or 

urine if the tests were performed in the regular course of providing emergency medical 

treatment and the other foundational requirements are met (see 625 ILCS 5/11-501.4(a) 

(West 2012)). 

¶ 14 Defendant argued that the statute allowed the admission only of prearrest test results and 

that the results here were obtained after defendant was arrested. He argued second that the 

use of postarrest test results would violate medical privacy laws, and third that the results 

were inadmissible because there was no chain of custody. The prosecutor responded that (1) 

the statute does not distinguish between prearrest and postarrest testing; (2) it specifically 

states that “[t]he confidentiality provisions of law pertaining to medical records and medical 

treatment shall not be applicable with regard to chemical tests performed upon an 

individual’s blood or urine under the provisions of this Section” (625 ILCS 5/11-501.4(b) 

(West 2012)); and (3) any problems with the chain of custody went to the evidence’s weight, 

not its admissibility. 

¶ 15 The judge stated as follows. The nurse who performed the test was not a state actor. 

However, because she assured defendant that the test was solely for medical purposes, he had 

provided the sample “without a fair statement of what the effect of giving it [was].” When 

the sample was taken, defendant had been “technically in the custody of the police,” so the 

testing violated his “rights.” The court granted defendant’s motion and barred the State from 

using the test results at trial. The State appealed (see Ill. S. Ct. R. 604(a)(1) (eff. Dec. 11, 

2014)). 

¶ 16 On appeal, the State contends that the trial court erred in suppressing the results of the 

urine test. The State argues that section 11-501.4 makes no distinction between prearrest and 

postarrest testing but allows the admission of the results of any test if the foundational 

requirements are met. The State requests that we reverse the trial court’s suppression of the 

test results and remand the cause so that the State can establish the proper foundation. 

¶ 17 In response, defendant concedes that section 11-501.4 does not distinguish between 

prearrest testing and postarrest testing and that the order cannot be affirmed on statutory 

grounds. Defendant, however, contends that the suppression of the urine test results was 

proper on fourth amendment grounds, because the test was the product of the illegal arrest. In 

reply, the State argues that it proved that the test was not the product of the arrest or any 

other State action: the trial judge found that the hospital personnel who tested defendant did 

not act as agents of the police, and defendant admitted that he went to the hospital voluntarily 

as a precaution. 

¶ 18 At the outset of our analysis, we note that the trial court’s reasoning is not altogether 

clear. We cannot say whether, in suppressing the results of the urine test, the court relied 

solely on the statute, solely on fourth amendment considerations, or on both. However, this 
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deficiency is not crucial: we review the court’s judgment, not its reasoning, and we may 

affirm on any basis called for by the record. See People v. Cleveland, 342 Ill. App. 3d 912, 

915 (2003); People v. Mauricio, 249 Ill. App. 3d 904, 910 (1993). Thus, we examine both the 

statutory and constitutional bases for the order. We conclude that neither is sufficient. 

¶ 19 First, we agree with the parties that section 11-501.4 does not support the suppression of 

the test results. Section 11-501.4 reads (as pertinent here): 

“(a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the results of blood or urine tests 

performed for the purpose of determining the content of alcohol, other drug or drugs, 

or intoxicating compound or compounds, or any combination thereof, of an 

individual’s blood or urine conducted upon persons receiving medical treatment in a 

hospital emergency room are admissible in evidence as a business record exception to 

the hearsay rule only in prosecutions for any violation of Section 11-501 of this Code 

or a similar provision of a local ordinance ***.” 625 ILCS 5/11-501.4(a) (West 

2012).

¶ 20 This language makes no distinction between prearrest testing and postarrest testing. 

Instead, it makes test results such as those at issue here admissible, with a proper foundation, 

regardless of the timing of the test. When a statute is unambiguous, we must apply it as 

written and may not read in exceptions, conditions, or limitations that the legislature did not 

express. People v. Woodard, 175 Ill. 2d 435, 443 (1997). Therefore, that defendant was tested 

after he was arrested2

 has no bearing on whether section 11-501.4 barred the test results. It 

did not. 

¶ 21 We turn to the constitutional issue. The State contends that, although defendant was 

arrested illegally, the test results were not tainted by the arrest, as they were the product of 

actions by hospital employees not acting at the instigation or prompting of the police. 

Defendant responds that, because the test resulted from the arrest, the results must be 

suppressed as the fruit of the illegality. For the following reasons, we agree with the State. 

¶ 22 Because the pertinent facts are essentially undisputed, the constitutional issue is a 

question of law, and our review is de novo. See People v. Close, 238 Ill. 2d 497, 504 (2010). 

The facts are as follows. After Douglas placed him under arrest, defendant voluntarily agreed 

to ride the ambulance to the hospital for testing. Douglas followed in his squad car. At the 

hospital, hospital personnel tested defendant’s urine. The hospital issued a document 

informing defendant that the test was performed for strictly medical purposes and should not 

be used for law enforcement. However, section 11-501.4-1 required the hospital to disclose 

the results to law enforcement personnel upon request. 625 ILCS 5/11-501.4-1 (West 2012). 

Douglas spoke to the nurse who performed the test and received notice of the test results, but 

there was no evidence that he suggested the test. 

¶ 23 The trial court found that the nurse who decided upon and performed the urine test was 

not acting as an agent of the police. This conclusion was correct; indeed, defendant does not 

contend otherwise on appeal. Defendant went to the hospital voluntarily and, even if he 

consented to the urine test under the misimpression that the results could not be used against 

him in court, his mistaken understanding of the law was not the product of police deception 

or subterfuge. The court was perturbed that defendant consented to the test under a 

 

2The trial judge found that Douglas arrested defendant at the accident scene, before defendant went 

to the hospital. A contrary finding would not have changed our analysis. 
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misimpression created by the hospital personnel. But that circumstance, however 

unfortunate, was not a legally sound basis to suppress the test results. 

¶ 24 In People v. Poncar, 323 Ill. App. 3d 702 (2001), the police stopped the defendant for a 

traffic offense and then arrested him for DUI and transported him to the police station. There, 

the defendant was injured while struggling with officers, and he was taken, without his 

consent, to the hospital. In the emergency room, hospital personnel tested his blood for 

evidence of possible intoxication, then treated his injuries. Id. at 704. Later, the State charged 

the defendant with aggravated DUI, and he moved to suppress the results of the blood test. 

The trial court granted the motion. Id. at 705. 

¶ 25 This court reversed. We held first that the test results were admissible under section 

11-501.4 as long as the State could lay the proper foundation. Id. at 706. We then held that 

the fourth amendment did not bar the admission of the test results. Although the trial court 

had reasoned that excluding test results in a situation such as the one in Poncar could 

discourage police misconduct that causes injury to people in custody (id.), we explained that, 

under People v. Yant, 210 Ill. App. 3d 961, 965 (1991), the test results would be admissible 

unless the test was the result of “police subterfuge.” Poncar, 323 Ill. App. 3d at 707. 

¶ 26 In Yant, the defendant was in an automobile accident and was taken, in restraints, to the 

hospital. Without his consent, the physician on duty ordered a blood test on the defendant, 

who was uncooperative and still in restraints. After the defendant was charged with DUI, he 

moved to suppress the test results. The trial court granted the motion. Yant, 210 Ill. App. 3d 

at 962-63. 

¶ 27 This court reversed. After disposing of any statutory grounds for the suppression order, 

we explained that in general, under Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757 (1966), the taking 

of a blood sample under reasonable medical circumstances does not violate the fourth 

amendment. Yant, 210 Ill. App. 3d at 965 (citing U.S. Const., amend. IV). In Yant, the 

defendant’s injuries justified taking him to the hospital, and the continuing physical restraint 

was appropriate. Further, we noted, there was “no indication in the record that either the 

emergency restraints or the physician’s blood test order here was a subterfuge procured by 

the police or any form of State action.” Id.

¶ 28 Poncar and Yant implicitly rely on a principle that case law elsewhere has made explicit: 

that the fourth amendment is not triggered by the actions of private parties unless they act as 

agents of the State. Therefore, because the test results here were procured by a nurse who 

was not acting as a State agent (as defendant conceded in the trial court), neither the test nor 

the hospital’s disclosure of the results to the police, as the statute required, violated 

defendant’s rights. 

¶ 29 The fourth amendment does not apply to a search or seizure, however unreasonable, 

effected by a private individual not acting as an agent of the government or with the 

participation or knowledge of any governmental official. United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 

109, 113 (1984). As defendant has conceded that the nurse did not act as an agent of the 

government when she performed the urine test, his argument that the test was the product of 

the illegal arrest is legally irrelevant: the State did not need to prove that the test results were 

not the fruit of the illegal arrest. The State has this burden “only *** where the evidence 

sought to be suppressed was actually obtained as a result of some illegal government 

activity.” People v. Lovejoy, 235 Ill. 2d 97, 130 (2009). Here, the condition was not met: the 

evidence that defendant sought to suppress was the result of private agents’ acts. 
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¶ 30 Although the foregoing principles dispose of this case, we also note that foreign authority 

overwhelmingly holds that the fourth amendment is not implicated when medical personnel 

perform chemical tests on alleged DUI offenders and, per statutory requirements, divulge the 

results to the police or prosecutors. E.g., People v. Perlos, 462 N.W.2d 310, 316-18 (Mich. 

1990) (testing did not implicate fourth amendment; disclosure of results to police did not 

implicate fourth amendment, as statutory requirement dispelled any reasonable expectation 

of privacy in results); see also State v. Hardy, 963 S.W.2d 516, 525-27 (Tex. Crim. App. 

1997) (accord); State v. Jenkins, 259 N.W.2d 109, 111-13 (Wis. 1977) (accord). 

¶ 31 We hold that the trial court erred in suppressing the results of the urine test that hospital 

personnel performed on defendant. Therefore, we reverse the trial court’s suppression of this 

evidence, and we remand the cause so that the court may decide whether the State can satisfy 

the statutory requirements for the admission of the test results. 

¶ 32 The order of the circuit court of Kane County is reversed, and the cause is remanded. 

¶ 33 Reversed and remanded.