Court Opinion

ID: 9743250
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:29:11.127756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:40.058837
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE SIMON, also dissenting: I concur in Justice Clark’s dissent, and I write separately to explain why I believe that this search cannot be upheld as an inventory search under Illinois v. Lafayette (1983), 462 U.S. 640, 77 L. Ed. 2d 65, 103 S. Ct. 2605. The principal governmental interests supporting such searches are to prevent weapons, drugs or other contraband from entering the general prison population and to catalogue the property lawfully seized from the defendant for this purpose prior to his incarceration. Thus, “[a]t the station house, it is entirely proper for police to remove and list or inventory property found on the person or in the possession of an arrested person who is to be jailed.” (Emphasis added.) 462 U.S. 640, 646, 77 L. Ed. 2d 65, 71, 103 S. Ct. 2605, 2609. In this case the trial court found that “[tjhere is no evidence in the record from either side that this defendant was going to be detained in custody. There is no evidence in the record *** that the defendant was going to be placed in a holding cell.” In fact, the evidence shows that the defendant was initially stopped for a routine vehicle-equipment violation and that, while he was briefly taken into custody on an allegedly outstanding warrant in a bond-forfeiture proceeding, there was no suggestion by anyone that he would be incarcerated or would not be allowed to make bond promptly. Under these circumstances, there was no basis for an inventory search, for the police had not determined that the defendant would be placed with the general jail population. The circuit court’s factual determinations on this issue should be upheld and the search of the defendant’s wallet should be regarded as an unreasonable and unnecessary inventory search.