Court Opinion

ID: 9726320
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:43:50.904931+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:26.027184
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE THOMAS, dissenting: I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the officer’s questioning of defendant, after defendant exited the vehicle, violated defendant’s fourth amendment rights. In reaching its conclusion, the majority contradicts a wealth of well-settled fourth amendment law and unduly extends People v. Gonzalez, 204 Ill. 2d 220 (2003), and People v. Brownlee, 186 Ill. 2d 501 (1999), to apply to the present case, which is factually inapposite. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent. The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that “mere police questioning does not constitute a seizure” for purposes of determining whether a fourth amendment violation has occurred. Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 434, 115 L. Ed. 2d 389, 398, Ill S. Ct. 2382, 2386 (1991). Thus, “[pjolice may approach persons and ask questions or seek their permission to search, provided that the officers do not imply that answers or consent are obligatory.” United States v. Childs, 277 F.3d 947, 950 (7th Cir. 2002), citing Florida v. Rodriguez, 469 U.S. 1, 5-6, 83 L. Ed. 2d 165, 170-71, 105 S. Ct. 308, 311 (1984); Immigration & Naturalization Service v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 216, 80 L. Ed. 2d 247, 255, 104 S. Ct. 1758, 1762 (1984); Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 501, 75 L. Ed. 2d 229, 238-39, 103 S. Ct. 1319, 1326 (1983) (plurality op.); United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 552-58, 64 L. Ed. 2d 497, 508-12, 100 S. Ct. 1870, 1876-79 (1980). Instead, a seizure occurs “[o]nly when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19 n.16, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889, 905 n.16, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1879 n.16 (1968). The usual test for determining whether a fourth amendment violation has occurred is whether “ ‘if, in view of all of the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed he was not free to leave.’ ” Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U.S. 567, 573, 100 L. Ed. 2d 565, 572, 108 S. Ct. 1975, 1979 (1988), quoting Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554, 64 L. Ed. 2d at 509, 100 S. Ct. at 1877. This test applies where police encounter a person walking down a street or through an airport (Bostick, 501 U.S. at 435, 115 L. Ed. 2d at 399, 111 S. Ct. at 2387), and obviously applies to a driver at a traffic stop, who is not free to leave until police have finished processing the stop (Gonzalez, 204 Ill. 2d at 238 (Thomas, J., specially concurring)). Examples of circumstances that might indicate a seizure under the “free to leave” test include the threatening presence of several officers, the display of a weapon by an officer, some physical touching of the person of the citizen, or the use of language or tone of voice indicating that compliance with the officer’s request might be compelled. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554, 64 L. Ed. 2d at 509, 100 S. Ct. at 1877. A different test applies, however, when the person’s freedom of movement is restricted by circumstances independent of police conduct, such as when a person is on a bus or at work, and therefore has no desire to leave. Bostick, 501 U.S. at 435-36, 115 L. Ed. 2d at 399, 111 S. Ct. at 2387 (when a person is seated on a bus and has no desire to leave, the degree to which a reasonable person would feel that he is free to leave is not an accurate measure of the coercive effect of the encounter); Delgado, 466 U.S. at 218, 80 L. Ed. 2d at 256, 104 S. Ct. at 1763 (when people are at work their freedom of movement has been meaningfully restricted by their voluntary obligations to their employers). In such situations, the appropriate test is not whether the person was “free to leave.” Rather, the relevant question is whether a reasonable person would feel free to decline the officers’ requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. Bostick, 501 U.S. at 436, 115 L. Ed. 2d at 400, Ill S. Ct. at 2387. I believe that the approach applied in Bostick is the correct one to be applied here. Defendant’s freedom to leave was hampered not because of police conduct investigating him for a violation of the vehicle code, but because he was a passenger in a car driven by a defendant who was lawfully arrested. I would further find, however, that there was no fourth amendment violation under either analysis. Turning to the Bostick test first, I note that defendant was a passenger in a stopped car and not a suspect. He then exited the vehicle he was sitting in when it became clear that the driver and owner of the vehicle had been arrested and that the vehicle was to be towed and impounded. At that point, defendant was a pedestrian, but without any immediate desire to leave because he was being left stranded along the roadway late at night. At this point, the officer posed the two innocuous questions at issue: “What’s your name? Where you [sic] coming from?” Defendant’s response to these questions shows, without a doubt, that he believed he was free to decline the officer’s request. Defendant answered the first question, but ignored the second. Instead, defendant asked a question of his own, engaging the officer in conversation about why the driver was being arrested. Instead of applying a Bostick analysis, the majority applies the “general framework” of Gonzalez, which adopted the test set forth in a partial concurrence and partial dissent to a Tenth Circuit opinion that involved questioning of a driver. See United States v. Holt, 264 F.3d 1215, 1239-40 (10th Cir. 2001) (Murphy, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). This test looks first to whether the question was related to the initial purpose for the stop or whether there was a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. If the questioning is not related to the initial purpose of the stop and there is no suspicion or criminal activity, the next inquiry is whether the question prolonged the duration of the stop or changed the fundamental nature of the stop. In Gonzalez, the defendant was a passenger in a vehicle stopped by two police officers for not having a front licence plate. One of the officers asked the defendant for his identification during the course of the stop. The officer ran a computer check on the traffic ticket that the defendant handed to the officer, and the ensuing encounter led to a search of the defendant’s person, revealing a packet of cocaine. This court found that the detention did not violate fourth amendment principles. Gonzalez, 204 Ill. 2d at 236. In my special concurrence in Gonzalez, I noted that Bostick provided the proper analysis for determining whether the passenger had been seized for fourth amendment purposes when the officer asked for his identification. This was because the passenger was not suspected of any wrongdoing, and his freedom of movement was not restricted given that police were not investigating him for violating the vehicle code, but rather he was a passenger in a car that had not yet reached its destination. I pointed out that the majority had erroneously assumed that the initial “seizure” by police thereafter subjected both driver and passenger to a fourth amendment seizure for the entire duration of the stop. I further noted that the majority had erroneously held that the questioning of the passenger must be viewed as part of the investigation of the driver. I then noted that, in the end, it appeared that the majority actually applied Bostick rather than the Holt partial dissent and partial concurrence to reach its result. In the present case, the majority goes much further down the wrong road than it did in Gonzalez. Even applying the Gonzalez framework lifted from the partial concurrence and partial dissent of Holt, it is clear that the questioning of defendant did not violate the fourth amendment. The majority begins by finding that the facially innocuous questions in the present case were not related to the purpose of the stop. The majority is mistaken on this point for several reasons. Initially, I note that the majority’s conclusion appears to be the result of its faulty characterization of the purpose of the stop, i.e., to investigate “operating a vehicle without brake lights.” See 207 Ill. 2d at 16. In limiting the purpose of the stop in this way, the majority ignores that, unlike in Gonzalez, the purpose of the stop in the present case changed once the driver failed to produce a license and was arrested. At that point, the purpose of the stop broadened to encompass the encounter with the stranded passenger. The trial court properly concluded that the officer had numerous reasons to have a conversation with defendant, “including explaining to him the reasons for the arrest [and] to determine *** who he is so that perhaps he can be an alternate driver.(Emphasis added.) See Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554 n.6, 64 L. Ed. 2d at 509 n.6, 100 S. Ct. at 1877 n.6 (the subjective intentions of an officer are irrelevant to a fourth amendment analysis, except to the extent that they have been communicated to the defendant); see also Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U.S. 33, 38, 136 L. Ed. 2d 347, 354, 117 S. Ct. 417, 420-21 (1996) (“ 1 “the fact that [an] officer does not have the state of mind which is hypothecated by the reasons which provide the legal justification for the officer’s action does not invalidate the action taken as long as the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify that action” ’ ”), quoting Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813, 135 L. Ed. 2d 89, 98, 116 S. Ct. 1769, 1774 (1996), quoting Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. 128, 138, 56 L. Ed. 2d 168, 178, 98 S. Ct. 1717, 1723 (1978). Despite the trial court’s undeniably objective rationale for the questioning, the majority inexplicably concludes that the questions the officer posed were not related to any of the reasons offered by the trial court. I fail to understand the majority’s belief that the query “What’s your name?” is not related to the reason given for the query by the trial court, namely, to find out the identity of the passenger to decide if he could be an alternate driver. I would find that the officer’s questions about defendant’s identity and where he had come from were clearly related to the trial court’s stated reason of determining “who he is so that perhaps he can be an alternate driver.” Obviously, if someone is to drive a vehicle away from the scene where the owner has been arrested, the officer would be responsible for determining if that person is legally able to drive. The questions were also reasonably related to the purpose of the stop based on an objective concern any officer would have for a passenger who might be left stranded as a result of the driver’s arrest. Additionally, the innocuous questions here could easily be viewed as nothing more than a polite prelude, leading to an explanation for the arrest of the driver. For these reasons, I would find that the questions were related to the purpose of the stop. The stop was therefore proper under Gonzalez. Next, the majority simply concludes that because the questioning occurred after the purpose of the stop terminated, it must have prolonged defendant’s detention beyond the purpose of the stop. It is at this point that the majority’s analysis seriously falters. The majority’s summary conclusion begs the real issue in this case — whether the initial seizure at the time of the stop had dissipated into a nonseizure, involving a Bostick-like encounter. Because the stop in this particular case ended vis-a-vis defendant by the time defendant stepped out of the vehicle with the driver under arrest, there is no need to continue with a Gonzalez analysis under the circumstances presented here. Instead, the proper test to be applied is Bostick. Defendant was no longer a passenger subject to a traffic stop when he stepped out of the vehicle. That the officer, out of courtesy, may have wanted to explain the reason for the arrest or that he may have been concerned for the passenger as he attempted to arrange his way home does not mean that the encounter continued to be a nonconsensual seizure. Defendant was not asked to exit the vehicle to continue the “purpose” of the stop or, as a matter of course, out of concern for officer safety. Cf. People v. Sorenson, 196 Ill. 2d 425, 433 (2001) (as a matter of course, police may order a passenger out of a vehicle pending completion of a stop, and if police believe he is armed and dangerous, they may conduct a pat-down search of his person too). Rather, defendant was asked out of the car because he would no longer be traveling in it that night, as the driver had been arrested and the vehicle was to be towed and impounded. Perhaps in recognition of the futility of applying the Holt-Gonzalez framework to the facts of the present case, the majority ultimately attempts to dig itself out of its predicament by shoveling forth People v. Brownlee, 186 Ill. 2d 501 (1999). However, Brownlee is completely distinguishable and should have no application here to support the majority’s position. Actually, Brownlee helps illustrate why defendant’s encounter with police, after he exited the vehicle, was consensual. First, Brownlee decided whether a driver was seized, not a passenger. Unlike the present case, the driver in Brownlee produced a valid license, which was returned to him after it was checked. The officers decided not to issue a citation. Thus, the valid portion of the stop in Brownlee ended without arrest, and there was no reason to ask any of the occupants to step out of the vehicle. Nevertheless, two officers continued to flank the vehicle for a couple of minutes, before finally asking the driver for consent to search. In contrast, the driver in the present case was lawfully handcuffed and arrested, and the vehicle was impounded. The lone officer here then lawfully directed the passenger out of the vehicle for the purpose of taking control of it. At that point, defendant was a pedestrian with no immediate desire to leave the scene and, therefore, a Bostick analysis should apply. Second, Brownlee appropriately applied the “free to leave” test to the case before it, citing Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554, 64 L. Ed. 2d at 509, 100 S. Ct. at 1877, because there was no outside force, aside from the police conduct, confining the driver to the location once he was handed back his license. But even applying the Mendenhall free-to-leave test to the facts in the case at bar, I would conclude that there was no fourth amendment violation. Mendenhall’s criteria for examining whether a seizure has occurred overwhelmingly supports the State’s position: defendant was approached by a single officer, not multiple officers flanking the vehicle as in Brownlee-, the officer did not display a weapon; he did not physically touch defendant; and he did not use language or tone of voice to show that compliance with his request might be compelled. Despite a complete absence of these indicators, the majority concludes that the officer’s use of a flashlight indicated a show of authority. However, I do not find the officer’s use of a flashlight late at night to be indicative of a show of authority in the absence of any of the other examples that are normally looked at to make this determination. Moreover, I am not aware of any case law holding that a show of authority results from the mere use of a flashlight by an officer late at night to see the person with whom he is speaking. Furthermore, I note that the trial court correctly concluded that directing defendant to exit toward the rear of the car had no legal significance. An officer may question a person without bringing about a seizure not only when the questioning does not interrupt a person’s movement, but also where the officer overtakes the pedestrian and asks him to halt or where the officer summons him to where the officer is located. 4 W. LaFave, Search & Seizure § 9.3(a), at 98 (3d ed. 1996). In conclusion, I disagree that defendant’s fourth amendment rights were violated. Applying the Bostick test, I would find that the encounter between the officer and defendant outside the vehicle was consensual and that a reasonable person in defendant’s position would have believed he was free to ignore the officer’s questions or otherwise terminate the encounter. The Gonzalez framework is unworkable as applied to this kind of fact pattern, and Brownlee is clearly distinguishable. Accordingly, I dissent from the majority opinion.