Court Opinion

ID: 9521255
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:01:24.124751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:45:46.478666
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE LEAVITT, specially concurring: I concur in the decision reached by my colleagues in this case, inasmuch as the decision accurately states the current state of the law in Illinois regarding application (or nonapplication) of the exclusionary rule in settings such as this. However, I believe that the law, as it now stands, fails to recognize one of the two historical justifications of the exclusionary rule; namely, the "imperative of judicial integrity.” See Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 222, 4 L. Ed. 2d 1669, 1680, 80 S. Ct. 1437, 1447 (1960). I would adopt the reasoning of Justice Goldenhersh in People v. Dowery, 62 Ill. 2d 200, 209-10, 340 N.E.2d 529 (1975) (Goldenhersh, J., dissenting) that evidence seized in violation of the fourth amendment to the federal constitution and section 6 of article I of our state constitution should not be used against an individual in any proceeding: " 'Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commends to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperilled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means — to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal — would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this Court should resolutely set its face.’ ” Dowery, 62 Ill. 2d at 209-10, quoting Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485, 48 S. Ct. 564, 575, 72 L. Ed. 944, 959-60 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). For these reasons, I specially concur.