Court Opinion

ID: 9862430
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 01:10:11.232506+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:25:31.416157
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE RATHJE, specially concurring: I agree with the majority that defendant’s convictions and death sentence should be affirmed. I write separately, however, because I disagree with the majority’s analysis of defendant’s probable cause argument. In deciding whether the trial court properly denied defendant’s motion to suppress statements, the majority comprehensively examines the question of whether probable cause existed for defendant’s warrantless arrest. The majority’s analysis includes a review of the testimony from the motion hearing, a survey of probable cause jurisprudence, and even a brief tutorial in “basis of knowledge” principles. None of this is necessary, however, as defendant did not even attempt to meet his burden of proving that his arrest was unlawful. In Illinois, a defendant who seeks to suppress evidence based upon an unlawful search or seizure bears the initial burden of proving that the arrest in fact was unlawful. 725 ILCS 5/114 — 12(b) (West 1998); People v. Buss, 187 Ill. 2d 144, 204 (1999); People v. Kidd, 175 Ill. 2d 1, 22 (1996). In other words, the defendant must make a prima facie showing both that the police acted without a warrant and that the police lacked probable cause, lacked reasonable grounds to arrest the defendant, or had no reasonable or articulable suspicion of criminal activity that would warrant an investigative stop. People v. Culbertson, 305 Ill. App. 3d 1015, 1023 (1999); People v. Era, 292 Ill. App. 3d 863, 868 (1997). In this case, defendant did not present any evidence at the motion to suppress hearing to establish that his arrest was unlawful. In fact, defendant did not present any evidence whatsoever. On the contrary, the State called two police officers to testify briefly as to their arrest of defendant and at length as to their interrogation of defendant. Defendant confined his cross-examination to the interrogation, and he rested without presenting any of his own witnesses or introducing any of his own evidence. Whether the defendant was arrested without a warrant never came up, and defendant did not even attempt to establish that the police lacked probable cause, lacked reasonable grounds to arrest the defendant, or had no reasonable or articulable suspicion of criminal activity that would warrant an investigative stop. Consequently, the majority need not decide whether the State met its burden of proving probable cause, as defendant failed to make the requisite prima facie case. Defendant’s complete failure to meet his burden of proof on the probable cause question is easily understood when one realizes that defendant was not moving to suppress his confession as the fruit of an unlawful arrest. Rather, an examination of the motion, the motion hearing, and the trial court’s ruling on the motion demonstrates that defendant was moving to suppress his confession as involuntarily made. To be sure, defendant’s motion briefly asserts that “The defendant was arrested without a warrant and without probable cause.” The remaining seven paragraphs of the motion, however, argue that defendant’s confession was involuntarily made. Likewise, although the State briefly asked the police officers about defendant’s arrest, virtually all of the direct examination and literally all of the cross-examination dealt with the interrogation that led to defendant’s confession. In fact, of the 64 pages of transcript from the hearing on defendant’s motion to suppress, 58 relate to the interrogation and 6 relate to the arrest. Finally, the trial court’s written order denying defendant’s motion to suppress makes numerous factual findings relating to the voluntariness of defendant’s confession, no findings on the question of probable cause, and concludes that “the totality of the circumstances support a finding that the defendant’s statement was voluntary and made with Miranda.” Neither defendant nor the State requested a ruling on the existence of probable cause. More importantly, the manner in which the parties proceeded at the motion hearing demonstrates that both defendant and the State were litigating a motion to suppress statements as involuntarily made, not a motion to suppress statements as the fruit of an unlawful arrest. Again, a defendant moving to suppress statements based upon an unlawful arrest clearly bears the initial burden of proving that the arrest was unlawful. 725 ILCS 5/114 — 12(b) (West 1998); Buss, 187 Ill. 2d at 204. Despite bearing this burden, defendant presented no evidence whatsoever. However, when a defendant moves to suppress statements as involuntarily made, the State bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the confession was voluntary. 725 ILCS 5/114 — 11(d) (West 1998); People v. Woods, 184 Ill. 2d 130, 146 (1998). In this case, the State alone presented evidence at the motion to suppress hearing, virtually all of which related to the voluntariness of defendant’s confession. Moreover, defendant’s cross-examination related solely to the voluntariness of his confession, and defendant rested without putting on a case. The only way this makes sense is if the parties were litigating a motion to suppress statements as involuntarily made, not a motion to suppress statements as the fruit of an involuntary search. Although the majority’s decision to address the probable cause question is troubling in and of itself, even more troubling is the majority’s conclusion that the State met its burden. The State never tried to prove probable cause. The majority goes to great and tenuous lengths to demonstrate that defendant’s presence in the area several hours after the crime, combined with Kathy Kunkle’s baseless identification, amounts to probable cause. Clearly it does not. This does not necessarily mean, however, that the police lacked probable cause when they arrested defendant. It simply means that the question of probable cause was never litigated. In sum, defendant argues that the trial court should have suppressed his confession as the fruit of an unlawful arrest. Defendant failed to meet his burden on this issue, as he never litigated it. The only issue that defendant litigated is whether his confession was voluntary, and he chose not to raise that issue on appeal. The trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion to suppress should be affirmed.