Court Opinion

ID: 9530999
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:06:13.107407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:18.884229
License: Public Domain

Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE JONES, dissenting: The very first sentence of the majority opinion in Arkansas v. Sanders reads: “This case presents the question whether, in the absence of exigent circumstances, police are required to obtain a warrant before searching luggage taken from an automobile properly stopped and searched for contraband.” (Emphasis added.) (- U.S__,_, 61 L. Ed. 2d 235, 238, 99 S. Ct. 2586, 2588.) The 'circumstances from which this case arose show the presence of exigent circumstances. Consequently, by following Arkansas v. Sanders the majority has reached what I believe to be an erroneous result. Likewise, there is nothing in the Illinois case of People v. Hamilton that compels the majority conclusion. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent. When police officers arrived on the scene of the accident, the roadside of a public highway, they found one person dead and another, the defendant, injured and about to be removed to the hospital. How serious defendant’s injuries were the officers could not know. The automobile involved was a wreck and debris was scattered about. At this stage the officers were duty bound to investigate, render whatever assistance might be required and stabilize the situation as quickly as possible. What measures for protection of property were necessary? They did not know. Defendant told Garlock there was something valuable in the suitcase, yet the unmentioned shaving kit contained $1255 in a roll of bills. The defendant’s statement regarding the valuable contents, otherwise unspecified, presumably was passed to the sheriff by bystanders Garlock and Williams since Deputy Alsip testified the sheriff told him of defendant’s concern for the contents of the suitcase before he opened it but after finding the roll of bills. In my opinion these circumstances present a great exigency indeed, and not only was the officers’ search of the suitcase proper, they would have been derelict in their duty had they failed to make it. Seizure alone without opening for examination would not suffice. While the presence of probable cause to open the suitcase is seriously questionable, it cannot be questioned that opening was required to determine the nature of the “valuable” contents to see precisely what must be done to preserve and secure them. If *1255 in bills in the shaving kit was not worth mentioning then the suitcase surely contained something extraordinary. Defendant’s expectation of privacy of his suitcase was foreclosed, and the constitutional prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures was not violated. In People v. Hamilton (1979), 74 Ill. 2d 457, 469, 386 N.E.2d 53, 58, the Illinois Supreme Court presaged both the result and the reasoning of the Supreme Court’s decision in Arkansas v. Sanders. And in Hamilton the court noted that an exception could be recognized by the presence of exigent circumstances: “Considering the validity of the alleged inventory of the defendant’s briefcase, we note, as did the court of appeals in Chadwick, that we intimate no judgment as to the propriety of inventorying personal luggage given sufficient reasons, such as suspicion that there might be explosives inside.” (Emphasis added.) I would affirm the decision of the trial court.