Court Opinion

ID: 9543682
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:48:01.019628+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:53.755927
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE TRAPP, dissenting in part: I dissent from that portion of the opinion which permits the arresting officer to foreclose the taking of the test within 90 minutes after the giving of the statutory admonition. Section 11 — 501.1 of the Illinois Vehicle Code (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 95½, par. 11 — 501.1) states and reiterates the legislative pattern that a person arrested shall have 90 minutes in which he may decide to take the “test.” Section (a) (2) states the required admonition: “(2) that he may refuse to submit to either such analysis and that his refusal to submit to either analysis within 90 minutes after receiving the notice may result * * *.” A further admonition provides: “(3) that he may consult with an attorney or other person by phone or in person within that 90 minutes.” Finally, the statute states its purport: “After being so advised the arrested person may study the written notice and may consult with an attorney or other person by phone or in person but refusal to submit to the test within 90 minutes after being given the written notice shall constitute a refusal to take the test.” (Emphasis added.) The last quoted portion of the statute defines “a refusal to take the test” as the “refusal to submit to the test within 90 minutes.” (Emphasis added.) The admonitions establish, in plain language, that there is a period of 90 minutes in which the person arrested has to inquire, consult and determine whether or not to submit. The principal opinion is grounded upon the several events in a time sequence working back from the refusal endorsed “12:30 a.m.” The “stop” is said to have been near midnight. There were the events of identification and field tests at the scene with the incidental conversations and the time required to transport the defendant to the police station, together with the completion of the forms and the reading of them. Defendant was permitted to make a telephone call, but the officer required that he answer the demand that he take the test before defendant had an opportunity to confer with his attorney or other person whom he called. So far as it appears, the officer did not ascertain whether or not defendant expected to confer with an attorney. Thus, when defendant had had an opportunity to consult, he was thwarted by the trick of time devised by the officer and the rule followed here. So far as it appears, defendant agreed to the test within minutes of his consultation, and within minutes of “receiving the notice.” The carefully stated legislative scheme may thus be thwarted and avoided and made meaningless by an official technique of making an immediate demand as to whether or not the person will take the test. Only an extraordinarily sophisticated person might devise a precisely worded response that he had 90 minutes in which to decide to take the test. If such response is not ruled a refusal, virtually any other immediate answer would be so ruled. The mild reproof in the principal opinion is not sufficient to inhibit the method used to destroy the effect of the statute and bar effective consultation with an attorney. The text of the opinion in Shorkey does not state such details as would permit a determination of whether the court considered the factors presented. If the operation of the statute, as written, creates an onerous burden for the police services, the remedy is to be determined by the legislature rather than through a distortion of the plain language of the statute.