Court Opinion

ID: 9706318
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:39:56.158122+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:21.503634
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE HOMER, specially concurring: I agree with the majority that the trial court properly suppressed the evidence found by the officers upon removing the steering wheel of defendant’s car. The search that occurred was not contemporaneous to the arrest and was thus not justified under the Belton exception. However, to the extent that the majority’s opinion may be read as holding that the instant search would have been a lawful Belton search if it had simply occurred immediately following defendant’s arrest, I must disagree. The law is clear that, although an officer may search the passenger compartment of a vehicle and any containers therein without a warrant during an automobile search incident to an arrest, “ ‘the exemption does not extend to dismantling portions of the vehicle.’ ” People v. Gonzalez, 316 Ill. App. 3d 354, 362-63, 736 N.E.2d 157, 164 (2000), quoting United States v. Patterson, 65 F.3d 68, 71 (7th Cir. 1995). In order to remove the steering wheel in this case, it was necessary for the officers to have had probable cause that there were drugs in the steering column. See Gonzalez, 316 Ill. App. 3d at 363, 736 N.E.2d at 164; Patterson, 65 F.3d at 71. Such probable cause arose from the canine alerting at the steering column. However, by that point, the search was no longer justified under the Belton exception.