Court Opinion

ID: 9745530
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 23:07:37.718583+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:31.039034
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HARRISON dissenting: I respectfully dissent. As the majority acknowledges, a mere hunch or suspicion is not sufficient to justify an investigatory stop of a motor vehicle (People v. Waln (1983), 120 Ill. App. 3d 73, 76, 457 N.E.2d 979, 980), yet that is precisely the basis upon which Deputy Unser decided to stop the automobile in which defendant was a passenger. When Unser set out on his patrol, he knew only that the Fuller Brothers Liquor Store had been robbed by two white males wearing masks and armed with a shotgun who fled by the back door. He was given no description of the suspects’ getaway vehicle, was not advised as to its direction of travel and, indeed, was not even told that the suspects had escaped by car. Upon leaving the crime scene, Unser proceeded south down the Fillmore Blacktop Road. There is no indication that this was the only road running past the liquor store. Unser seems to have chosen it simply because it was directly in front of the point where the suspects were reported to have departed from the store. Why Unser decided to drive south is never articulated. Unser stopped the auto in which defendant was riding approximately two miles from the crime scene. Unser testified that there were no stores, restaurants or bars in the area, precluding the possibility that the occupants had been patronizing such establishments prior to being stopped. Other evidence showed, however, that there was a house behind the liquor store and a tire store across the street. In addition, there were farms in the vicinity from which traffic may have originated. Unser’s assessment of the situation failed to take these factors into account. After Unser had first begun to follow the car, it apparently turned around and headed back the same direction from which it had come, i.e., toward the crime scene. According to the State, Unser believed this maneuver to be “suspicious or evasive” in light of the “attendant circumstances.” To anyone who has been lost on a dark, rural road late at night, this conclusion is somewhat frightening. Under the facts present here, it also strains credulity. The auto was stopped approximately seven minutes after the crime was reported, but only two miles from the scene. This was no hasty escape. Indeed, after turning around, the auto continued to travel at a slow rate of speed. The auto violated no traffic laws, made no attempt to elude Unser’s patrol car, and pulled over immediately when Unser activated his car’s overhead lights. Unser did not report seeing any furtive gestures by any of the car’s occupants and, prior to the stop, did not know their identities or realize their “criminal propensities.” The conduct of the defendant and the other persons in the car, when viewed objectively, was thus entirely consistent with legal, day-to-day activity. See People v. Deppert (1980), 83 Ill. App. 3d 375, 381, 403 N.E.2d 1279, 1283. Unser stated that the auto was the only vehicle he had seen on this road that night. A more accurate characterization might be that it was simply the first automobile Unser happened to encounter during his brief patrol after learning of the robbery. Considering the totality of the circumstances, I do not believe that the actions of the occupants of the car gave Unser any reasonable basis to suspect that they were committing, were about to commit, or had committed any offense. This is confirmed by the following colloquy between counsel and Unser, himself, at a hearing held in this cause on September 13, 1984: “Q. At the time you stopped the defendants’ car, did you have any reason to believe that they had committed the armed robbery in question? A. Not at that time.” Because the stop of the car in which defendant was riding was based not on reasonable suspicion, grounded on specific and articulable facts, but on a mere hunch, that stop was illegal. (People v. Deppert (1980), 83 Ill. App. 3d 375, 403 N.E.2d 1279; People v. Fox (1981), 97 Ill. App. 3d 58, 421 N.E.2d 1082.) The evidence resulting from defendant’s subsequent arrest should therefore have been suppressed, and his motion should have been granted. Accordingly, I would reverse.