Court Opinion

ID: 9742216
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:08:33.857357+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:29.605931
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE JOHNSON, dissenting: I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion and would reverse under Payton v. New York (1980), 445 U.S. 573, 63 L. Ed. 2d 639, 100 S. Ct. 1371. According to the evidence at trial, Officer Fleming met with an informer on October 4, 1976, who described defendant and others as participants in a series of armed robberies. The informer described the weapon involved as a chrome or silver revolver and said that it was in defendant Henderson’s apartment. Subsequently, on October 6, 1976, Henderson was arrested in his home without a warrant. Warrantless entries into the home, absent exigent circumstances, are per se unconstitutional. (Payton v. New York (1980), 445 U.S. 573, 63 L. Ed. 2d 639, 100 S. Ct. 1371.) The basis of this principle is deeply rooted in the fourth amendment which is applicable to the States through the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. “The Fourth Amendment protects the individual’s privacy in a variety of settings. In none is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than when bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual’s home — a zone that finds its roots in clear and specific constitutional terms: ‘The right of the people to be secure in their . . . houses . . . shall not be violated.’ That language unequivocally established the proposition that ‘[a]t the very core [of the Fourth Amendment] stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.’ [Citation.] In terms that apply equally to seizures of property and to seizures of persons, the Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house. Absent exigent circumstances, that threshold may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant.” Payton, 445 U.S. 573, 589-90, 63 L. Ed. 639, 653, 100 S. Ct. 1371, 1381-82. It has oftentimes been said that a fundamental purpose of the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures is to shield a person from unwarranted governmental intrusions into his reasonable expectations of privacy. (Katz v. United States (1967), 389 U.S. 347, 19 L. Ed. 2d 576, 88 S. Ct. 507.) Nowhere is there a greater expectation of privacy than in the confines of a person’s home. The majority cites People v. Davis (1981), 93 Ill. App. 3d 217, as authority for warrantless searches. However, Davis involved the search of an automobile. The “automobile exception” allows warrantless searches because the expectation of privacy in an automobile is much less than the expectation of privacy in a home. Automobiles, unlike homes, are subjected to pervasive and continuing governmental regulation and control. Further, the inherent mobility of an automobile creates circumstances of such exigency that, as a practical necessity, rigorous enforcement of the warrant requirement is impossible. South Dakota v. Opperman (1976), 428 U.S. 364, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1000, 96 S. Ct. 3092. In the instant case, exigent circumstances were not such as to require defendant’s arrest at night in his home. There was a sufficient amount of time for the police to obtain a warrant. Moreover, I cannot justify defendant’s arrest in his home based on developments that occurred after the arrival of the police. The majority seems to believe that once defendant opened his door, an immediate arrest was justified due to the gun being seen by the police. I would hold that circumstances must exist in order to justify going into the home without a warrant. I would reverse.