Court Opinion

ID: 9710645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:13:59.633813+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:58.734115
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE GOLDENHERSH, dissenting: I dissent. The majority concludes that “When Officer Hobbs approached the defendants there • were sufficient circumstances within his knowledge to support the arrests. The location was a high-crime area of Chicago. He saw the defendants walking through the gangway carrying a television set, a laundry bag filled with materials, and a shotgun partially concealed by a trench coat. The men stopped at the mouth of the gangway and peered up and down the street before proceeding to cross the street and when they did they did so at a ‘very fast, brisk gait’ and in the direction of an alley on the other side. Considering all the circumstances, including the defendants’ ‘deliberately furtive actions’ — the looking up and down as if making sure no police or police cars were in sight and then the hurried crossing — there was probable cause. See Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 66-67, 20 L. Ed. 2d 917, 937, 88 S. Ct. 1889, 1904.” (62 Ill.2d at 277.) In Sibron, the search of Peters was approved while that of Sibron was disapproved, and it may therefore be assumed that the majority finds some similarity in the circumstances surrounding the arrest of Peters and those reflected by this record at the time of defendants’ arrest. Peters was first observed on the sixth floor of an apartment building “tiptoeing” out of an alcove toward a stairway. The arresting officer, an off-duty New York policeman who had resided in the building for 12 years, did not recognize either him or his companion as tenants. When the officer slammed a door, Peters and his companion ran. When the police officer seized him, Peters said he was in the building to visit a “girl friend” whose name he refused to reveal because she was married. In contrast, defendants were arrested while walking in a public alley in broad daylight carrying an unconcealed shotgun, a bag, and a television set. The People have taken several positions as to when the arrest occurred, but it is simple “hornbook” law that when Hobbs approached the defendants with gun in one hand and badge in the other, he was making not an “investigatory stop” but an arrest, and its validity must be judged by the probable cause extant at that time. At that time Officer Hobbs did not know there had been a burglary. What the majority characterizes as “deliberately furtive actions,” looking up and down the street and then crossing at a brisk pace, could as well have been the exercise of the degree of due care and caution required to avoid being struck by an automobile while crossing Monroe Street in Chicago. Nor does the description of the neighborhood as a “high-crime” area warrant the conclusion reached by the majority. It is true that in a better neighborhood the shotgun might have been enclosed in a leather case and the other items carried in a container more elegant than a laundry bag. I submit, however, that the absence of these niceties did not serve to elevate Officer Hobbs’ suspicions to the level of probable cause. The evidence was ordered suppressed on the basis of findings made by an able circuit judge with many years of experience in the. trial of criminal cases. The appellate court correctly affirmed his order, and its judgment should be affirmed.