Court Opinion

ID: 9884579
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 03:02:26.054979+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:39.620241
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Schaefer, dissenting: The majority sustains the right of the officers to break in forcefully, arrest the defendant, and seach the apartment on the basis of the officer’s testimony as to what he saw from the second floor landing on the outside rear stairway. But the officer had no right to be on that stairway. The fact that the landing on the stairway was not, as the majority says, subject to the exclusive “dominion and control of defendant” does not mean that it was public property. The stairway was private property and it was not open to everyone for any purpose. This case differs sharply from People v. Wright (1968), 41 Ill.2d 170, cert. den. (1969), 395 U.S. 933, 23 L. Ed. 2d 448, 89 S. Ct. 1993, in which the officer stood on public property and looked into the window. In this case the officer had no official authority to be where he was, and he was not there in response to any private invitation, business or social, express or implied, from the owner of the building or any of the tenants. (Cf. People v. Weaver (1968), 41 Ill.2d 434, cert. den. (1969), 395 U.S. 959, 23 L. Ed. 2d 746, 89 S. Ct. 2100.) In my opinion the defendant’s motion to supress should have been sustained.