Court Opinion

ID: 9711286
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:28:20.374479+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:03.377108
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HARRISON, dissenting: The authorities cited by the majority involved situations in which the evidence in question was lawfully in police custody at the time of the challenged search. Such was not the case here. Although, as the majority correctly observes, defendant now appears to have been lawfully arrested and was lawfully in custody when his shoes were originally seized, the assistant State’s Attorney decided, at the time, that there was no probable cause to hold him. He was therefore released. Once this happened, the police no longer had any lawful authority to continue to hold his shoes for inventory purposes, for scientific examination, or for any other reason. No claim has been made that defendant voluntarily agreed to allow the police to retain the shoes, and, by State law, the police were required to return them to him upon his release. Section 108 — 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1983, ch. 38, par. 108 — 2) expressly provides: “If the person arrested is released without a charge being preferred against him all instruments, articles or things seized, other than contraband, shall be returned to him upon release.” Because the police ceased to have a lawful claim on defendant’s shoes following his release, they were prohibited by the fourth amendment to the Federal Constitution from subjecting the shoes to scientific examination, or even just continuing to hold them, without first obtaining a warrant. No warrant was secured here. Accordingly, I must conclude that the circuit court acted properly in granting defendant’s motion to suppress. The majority attempts to justify a contrary position by citing People v. Pruitt (1974), 16 Ill. App. 3d 930, 307 N.E.2d 142, cert, denied (1974), 419 U.S. 968, 42 L. Ed. 2d 184, 95 S. Ct. 232, but its reliance on that case is misplaced. In Pruitt, the constitutionality of the seizure of the evidence was not contested. Whatever remarks the court may have made on the subject were therefore nothing more than dicta. As an alternative rationale for its decision, the majority argues that retention of the shoes following defendant’s release was justified by exigent circumstances. In particular, the majority suggests that retention of the shoes was proper because “[t]he defendant could have thrown away the tennis shoes, hidden them or even destroyed them.” (179 Ill. App. 3d at 158.) I find this contention singularly unpersuasive. No serious claim could be made the tennis shoes have the “highly evanescent” quality of the scrapings taken from the defendant’s fingernails in Cupp v. Murphy (1973), 412 U.S. 291, 36 L. Ed. 2d 900, 93 S. Ct. 2000. While I do not dispute that tennis shoes are susceptible of being concealed or destroyed, the same can be said for almost all evidence. In making its exigent circumstances argument, the majority overlooks a fundamental rule, namely, that the potential destruction of evidence, standing alone, does not excuse obtaining a warrant. (People v. Cohen (1986), 146 Ill. App. 3d 618, 625, 496 N.E.2d 1231, 1236.) For the exigent circumstances exception to the fourth amendment prohibition against warrantless and nonconsensual searches to apply, the police must fear imminent destruction of evidence. United States v. Rivera (7th Cir. 1987), 825 F.2d 152, 156, cert, denied sub nom. Robles v. United States (1987), 484 U.S. 979, 98 L. Ed. 2d 492, 108 S. Ct. 494. In this case, the police could claim no such fear. Unlike the situation in Cupp v. Murphy (1973), 412 U.S. 291, 36 L. Ed. 2d 900, 93 S. Ct. 2000, the evidence here, the pair of tennis shoes defendant had been wearing, was safely stored in the police department’s prisoner property room at the time the police decided to retain it for further examination. There is no indication that defendant ever attempted to hide, deface, or destroy the shoes when they were initially taken from him, nor is there any indication that defendant might have attempted to hide, deface, or destroy the shoes had they been returned to him pending issuance of the warrant. Defendant was not, after all, given any reason to believe that his shoes might be used as evidence against him. As the majority points out, the shoes were initially seized as part of the routine inventory procedure followed by the police when booking a suspect, not as part of any specific investigation into their evidentiary value. Under the circumstances, any exigency was purely hypothetical. For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the order of the circuit court of Madison County granting defendant’s motion to suppress. I therefore dissent.