Court Opinion

ID: 9743594
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:37:45.894049+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:25.842353
License: Public Domain

CHIEF JUSTICE MILLER, dissenting: I do not agree with either of the majority’s holdings in this case: that the trial court erred in denying the defendant’s suppression motion, and that the evidence will not sustain the defendant’s conviction for armed violence. Accordingly, I dissent. With regard to the suppression issue, the majority concludes that the circumstances in this case did not excuse the failure of the law enforcement officers here to comply with the knock-and-announce rule. The court thus holds that the officers executing the search warrant should have announced their authority and purpose before they entered the subject premises. On this basis, then, the majority concludes that the trial judge erred in denying the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence. The knock-and-announce rule is intended to promote privacy and to safeguard both residents and officers during the execution of arrest and search warrants. (People v. Ouellette (1979), 78 Ill. 2d 511, 518; People v. Wolgemuth (1977), 69 Ill. 2d 154, 166.) Compliance with the knock-and-announce rule is an important consideration in determining the reasonableness of police entry into a private dwelling to make an arrest or to conduct a search. (People v. Saechao (1989), 129 Ill. 2d 522, 531; Wolgemuth, 69 Ill. 2d at 166.) In appropriate circumstances, however, compliance with the rule may be excused. (Ouellette, 78 Ill. 2d at 516; People v. Conner (1979), 78 Ill. 2d 525, 531.) Relevant to this determination are, among other things, the danger posed to the officers executing the warrant, the relative usefulness or uselessness of an announcement, and the ease with which the sought-after evidence might be destroyed. Ouellette, 78 Ill. 2d at 518. As a preliminary matter, I question the majority’s refusal to examine the circumstances as a whole in assessing the propriety of the officers’ actions. The touchstone of the inquiry is the reasonableness of the challenged conduct, and that assessment cannot be reliably made if each fact or circumstance is viewed in isolation. It is not necessary that any one circumstance alone supply the necessary exigency that will excuse an official failure to comply with the knock-and-announce rule; rather, the determination should be based on a consideration of all the circumstances bearing on the reasonableness of the police entry. See Conner, 78 Ill. 2d at 533 (“Based on a consideration of all of these facts,” the court found exigent circumstances sufficient to excuse compliance with knock-and-announce rule); People v. Fonville (1987), 158 Ill. App. 3d 676, 684. In the present case, the officers executing the search warrant were aware of a number of special circumstances that justified their decision to enter the premises without first announcing their authority and purpose to the persons inside. Here, the officers knew that closed-circuit television cameras were trained on the front and rear entrances of the structure, that a police scanner kept the occupants informed of police radio transmissions in the vicinity, and that numerous weapons were located inside the structure. The police also knew that the building was owned by the defendant’s brother, who was facing felony charges involving the possession of a loaded handgun and the possession of cocaine. In view of these circumstances, I would conclude that the officers acted reasonably in entering the building to execute the search warrant without complying with the knock-and-announce rule. The occupants’ use of the surveillance cameras and police scanner certainly reduced, if it did not eliminate, the utility of an announcement of the officers’ presence. The elaborate and unusual security measures would have provided the building occupants with the opportunity to destroy the contraband and to attempt to resist the police entry. The officers were also aware that a number of guns were kept on the premises, and that those weapons were used to protect the drugs and money involved in the illegal operations. The reasonableness of the officers’ conduct must be assessed in the light of what the officers knew at the time of the entry, and therefore it is no answer here to assert, as the majority does, that the surveillance cameras were not functioning during the evening of the search and, moreover, that the officers should have realized that (148 Ill. 2d at 106). On the present record, I would conclude that exigent circumstances excused the officers’ failure to comply with the knock-and-announce rule. I also disagree with the majority’s holding that the evidence will not sustain the defendant’s conviction for armed violence. As the record reveals, more than a dozen firearms were found on the premises. In my view, the presence of these weapons, in various places throughout the structure, satisfied the statutory requirement that the accused be armed. (111. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 38, par. 33A — 2.) Applying the majority’s own construction of the statutory language, I would conclude that the defendant, on either instance charged, had “immediate access to” or “timely control over” at least one of the many weapons located throughout the premises. For the reasons I have stated, I dissent. I would remand the cause to the appellate court for consideration of other issues previously raised but not decided in that court.