Court Opinion

ID: 9737325
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:21:59.367812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:58.098853
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE SIMON, specially concurring: While I agree with the court’s decision, the majority reaches too far by unnecessarily distinguishing People v. Garcia (1982), 109 Ill. App. 3d 142, from the instant case. The court in Garcia addressed two issues: (1) whether the defendant in that case made the requisite “substantial preliminary showing” (preliminary showing) under Franks v. Delaware (1978), 438 U.S. 154, 57 L. Ed. 2d 667, 98 S. Ct. 2674, to trigger an evidentiary hearing, and (2) whether Illinois should extend Franks by requiring an evidentiary hearing when the defendant’s preliminary showing fails to eliminate the grounds for probable cause. Regarding the first issue, both the majority here and the court in Garcia reached similar conclusions. In both cases the defendant was challenging a police officer’s affidavit containing allegations based on hearsay from an anonymous source. Both this court and the court in Garcia determined that a rigid interpretation of Franks under these circumstances would place an insurmountable burden on the defendant, and would enable police to insulate perjury from discovery. (116 Ill. 2d at 150; People v. Garcia (1982), 109 Ill. App. 3d 142, 146-47.) Both courts resolved the issue in favor of the defendants, holding that a preliminary showing required something less than proof by a preponderance of the evidence but something more than a mere unsubstantiated challenge of the police officer’s veracity. 116 Ill. 2d at 151; 109 Ill. App. 3d 142, 145. The circumstances in the present case and in Garcia, however, are different. In Garcia, after the court determined that the defendant had made a prehminary showing under Franks, it had to address the State’s next argument, that even if the defendant could successfully prove his allegations, probable cause for issuing the warrant still remained because the defendant’s only specific challenge was to the presence of his automobile at the scene of the drug transaction; thus, the State argued that under Franks an evidentiary hearing was not required. (109 Ill. App. 3d 142, 147.) By contrast, the State here has never contended that the defendant’s alibi — that he and his family were elsewhere at the time he allegedly sold the drugs — would, if proved, fail to negate a finding of probable cause. Under the facts of this case such an argument would be absurd, given that the hearsay allegation — that the defendant sold drugs at a specified time and place — which was challenged by the evidence the defendant produced, was the sole ground for a finding of probable cause. It is curious, therefore, that the majority, as “a preliminary matter” (116 Ill. 2d at 145), addresses this issue and attempts to distinguish Garcia on a point raised by neither party and on an issue totally irrelevant to this case. Such overreaching negates our long-established maxim that “[¡judicial decisions are to be *** limited to the points of law raised on the record necessary to the determination of the case.” Palmer House Co. v. Industrial Com. (1944), 388 Ill. 542, 547. Not only does the majority unnecessarily reject the Garcia holding, but also the majority’s limited discussion of this issue serves only to further confuse the nature of a hearing under Franks. My colleagues refer to the defense counsel’s request for a Garcia and not a Franks hearing. What the defendant was referring to was the degree of proof necessary to trigger an evidentiary hear.ing and not a different type of hearing than the majority opinion agrees he was entitled to receive. This court’s insistence upon distinguishing Garcia not only confuses the directive of Franks, but also, in reaching an issue neither raised nor relevant to the case itself, is an example of misguided judicial activism.