Court Opinion

ID: 9706012
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:29:44.217776+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:18.432659
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE HOLDRIDGE, specially concurring: I agree with the majority’s statement of law that a defendant may not argue on appeal that a motion to suppress should have been granted for reasons not specified in the motion and not argued in the trial court. People v. Johnson, 250 Ill. App. 3d 887, 893 (1993). I also agree with the majority’s recognition of the well-settled legal proposition that to preserve an issue for review on appeal, a defendant must object to the alleged error at trial and in a posttrial motion. People v. Enoch, 122 Ill. 2d 176, 186 (1988). I also agree with the majority’s observation that the defendant did not argue that the computer check itself was constitutionally improper. Likewise, I am in lockstep with the majority’s inescapable conclusion that the defendant did not properly preserve this issue for appeal and it is thus waived. I am, therefore, somewhat at a loss to understand the need to address this issue. I see no reason to discuss the issue further, and I refrain from comment on the majority’s analysis of that issue. On the two issues that were properly before this court, I concur in the majority’s decision to affirm the trial court. Since the propriety of the officer checking the license plate number is not at issue in the instant matter, the question remains whether the officer could stop the defendant based upon the information contained in the v-note. This is simply a question of whether the officer had a reasonable articulable suspicion that the defendant was committing, had committed or was about to commit a crime. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889, 88 S. Ct. 1868 (1968). An objective standard applies to a review of a Terry stop. A police officer need only point to specific and articulable facts that, taken together with any rational inferences from those facts, justify the stop. People v. Culbertson, 305 Ill. App. 3d 1015 (1999). Reasonable suspicion is a less stringent standard than probable cause. People v. Lampitok, 207 Ill. 2d 231 (2003). Here, the arresting officer had information that a specific green Ford Escort, with a specific license plate number, driven by a man fitting the general physical description of the defendant, was being operated by a driver with a suspended driver’s license. The defendant maintains that the officer could not be sure that he was the same person who had previously operated the vehicle on a suspended license. Alternatively, if he was the same driver, the officer could not have known that his driver’s license was still suspended. If probable cause were required to justify stopping the defendant, I would agree. However, the officer only needed a reasonable suspicion that the driver was operating the car on a suspended license in order to stop and briefly detain the defendant for further investigation. Under the facts of this case, it was reasonable to infer that the defendant was the same driver who had been stopped for driving this vehicle a month before and that his license was still suspended. A brief stop to ascertain whether these assumptions were valid was appropriate. Finally, I agree the majority’s conclusion that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the probative value of the defendant’s prior conviction outweighed the danger of undue prejudice, in light of the limiting instruction.