Court Opinion

ID: 9860295
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:17:26.68729+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:20:31.523455
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HEIPLE, dissenting: In reinstating the defendant’s convictions for possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, the majority relies upon unreasonable inferences from the evidence. Accordingly, I dissent. The evidence against the instant defendant considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution is easily summarized. The police received anonymous tips that an unidentified person was selling drugs in defendant’s multiunit apartment building. On the night defendant was arrested, the police observed 12 persons enter and exit the multiunit building during a 20-minute period. The police then decided to go door to door in the building seeking information about drug dealing. When the police knocked on defendant’s door, defendant threw a plastic bag from his back window containing 40 small packets, 36 of which contained a total of 2.8 grams of a cocaine-like substance and four of which contained a total of 2.2 grams of PCP-laced, crushed green leaves. In support of its conclusion that this evidence proved intent to deliver beyond a reasonable doubt, the majority compares the instant case to three appellate opinions wherein the circumstantial evidence was deemed sufficient to show intent to deliver. (167 Ill. 2d at 407-08.) All three opinions, however, are readily distinguishable in that there was evidence other than the possession of drugs from which a jury could reasonably infer intent to deliver. People v. Bradford (1993), 239 Ill. App. 3d 796, 800 (defendant exhibited knowledge of the drug trade and possessed both a cellular phone and programmable scanner set to the frequency used by the local police department); People v. Berry (1990), 198 Ill. App. 3d 24, 26 (defendant possessed over $3,100 in cash in different locations on his person); People v. LeCour (1988), 172 Ill. App. 3d 878, 882, 886 (defendant arrested while selling the drugs to undercover police). Unlike Bradford, Berry and LeCour, there was no evidence against the defendant suggesting intent to deliver: no weapons; no scale; no police scanner; no cellular phone; no beeper; no drug paraphernalia; and no unusual amounts of cash. The majority makes much of the anonymous tip regarding an unidentified drug dealer and the unusually high rate of pedestrian traffic in and out of defendant’s multiunit apartment building. Neither the tip nor the traffic, however, was ever connected to the defendant and thus cannot reasonably constitute circumstantial evidence of defendant’s intent to deliver. Similarly, the majority should not have inferred intent to deliver from the manner in which the drugs were packaged. The total quantity of drugs found was consistent with personal consumption and it is thus equally likely that they were packaged that way when defendant obtained them for his personal use. (See People v. McLemore (1990), 203 Ill. App. 3d 1052, 1056 (3.3 grams of cocaine not greater than would be used for personal consumption).) Would a carton of cigarettes or a case of whiskey indicate the owner was a seller of cigarettes or whiskey? Rather than draw unreasonable inferences from the evidence, the majority should have concluded that because the quantity of drugs found here is not inconsistent with personal consumption, the manner of packaging alone, without any other evidence of drug dealing, is insufficient to prove intent to deliver beyond a reasonable doubt. Such a ruling would effectively balance the liberty interests of defendants, who face much stiffer sentences for intent to deliver as contrasted with mere possession convictions, with the State’s goal of curtailing the drug trade. Applying this standard to this case would result in an affirmance only of defendant’s conviction for possession of a controlled substance. The application of the laws should be uniform regardless of the category of the offense. Unfortunately, the current obsession with the drug trade is warping our jurisprudence in the direction of a police state. I dissent. CHIEF JUSTICE BILANDIC joins in this dissent.