Court Opinion

ID: 9782470
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 18:50:32.080409+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:02.864517
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE THOMAS, dissenting: The majority states that it has no quarrel with the proposition that a defendant who places physical evidence out of the sight of an officer during an arrest or pursuit is guilty of violating the obstruction of justice statute. But the majority then tacks on an additional requirement not found in the plain language of the statute, by requiring that a defendant must ultimately succeed in “materially imped[ing] the police officers’ investigation.” 241 Ill. 2d at 149. Because the plain and unambiguous language of the statute does not brook the addition of this extra element, I respectfully dissent. The facts of this case are not in dispute. On the night of March 24, 2006, Decatur police officer Chad Larner responded to a report of a theft at a local gas station. Larner left the scene at the gas station to look for the suspect who was described as a thin, clean-shaven black male wearing nice slacks and dressy-casual clothing. A block away from the gas station, Officer Larner spotted defendant, who matched the description of the suspect. Larner stopped defendant in a nearby parking lot and asked for identification. Defendant identified himself, and Decatur police officer Kathleen Romer soon arrived at the scene as backup. Defendant and the officers continued talking, but defendant began acting strangely. Defendant jumped around, fidgeted nervously, and threatened to urinate on the squad car. The officers communicated defendant’s name via radio to their dispatcher. After a few moments, the dispatcher radioed back. At that point, defendant fled into the night through a parking lot and down an alley. The officers gave chase down the alley, whereupon they observed defendant, while running, reach into his pocket, take out a thin, rod-like object, and throw it over a six-foot high wooden privacy fence. The tallest of the two officers was only 5 foot 11 inches. And once the item was thrown, neither officer had sight of it until it was later recovered. The pursuit of defendant continued a short distance longer. Officer Romer then drew her Taser and ordered defendant to stop. Defendant finally complied by turning around and lying on the ground. The officers then handcuffed and arrested him. Officer Larner went around to the other side of the fence to search for the object defendant had thrown. There, Larner saw a few feet of landscaping next to the fence, with the rest of the area comprised of an empty asphalt or concrete parking lot. The parking lot near the street where the officers first encountered defendant was well lit, but it was darker further down the alley where defendant ran. Officer Larner, however, was quickly able to find a thin, silver rod with a rubber tip on one end and severe burn marks on the other, as well as a second smaller rod. Based on their training and experience, both Officers Larner and Romer recognized the objects recovered as a crack pipe and push rod. A push rod is a tool used to pack drugs into a crack pipe. The officers then continued searching the parking lot for any other items that might have been discarded by defendant, but they found nothing else. After hearing the foregoing evidence, the jury convicted defendant of one count of obstructing justice. Defendant filed a posttrial motion, arguing that based on In re M.F., 315 Ill. App. 3d 641 (2000), he merely abandoned the evidence and did not “conceal” it, as required under section 31 — 4(a) of the Criminal Code of 1961, the obstructing justice statute. The circuit court rejected this argument and denied defendant’s posttrial motion. A majority of the appellate court affirmed, rejecting defendant’s claim that throwing drug paraphernalia over a six-foot wooden privacy fence did not conceal evidence. 395 Ill. App. 3d 560, 563-64. This case presents a question of statutory interpretation, which this court reviews de novo. People v. Brooks, 221 Ill. 2d 381, 388 (2006). This court’s primary objective when undertaking to interpret a statute is to give effect to the intent of the legislature. People v. Phelps, 211 Ill. 2d 1, 15 (2004). The best indicator of that intent is the language of the statute itself — if the statute’s language is unambiguous, then it is applied as written without using aids of statutory construction. People v. Grever, 222 Ill. 2d 321, 328-29 (2006). Moreover, this court will not depart from the plain meaning of a statute by reading into it exceptions, limitations, or conditions that conflict with the express legislative intent. Hawes v. Luhr Brothers, Inc., 212 Ill. 2d 93, 105 (2004). The statute at issue in this case provides in relevant part that “[a] person obstructs justice when, with intent to prevent the apprehension or obstruct the prosecution or defense of any person, he knowingly *** conceals *** physical evidence ***.” (Emphasis added.) 720 ILCS 5/31 — 4(a) (West 2008). Thus, the crime of obstructing justice has two elements: (1) intent to prevent or obstruct apprehension or prosecution; and (2) concealment. Because defendant did both, I would affirm his conviction. The statute does not require, as the majority finds, that a defendant actually “interfere!] ] with the administration of justice, i.e., materially impede [] the police officers’ investigation.” See 241 Ill. 2d at 150. Defendant does not dispute that when he ran from police and threw his crack pipe and push rod over the privacy fence, he intended to obstruct his own apprehension and prosecution. See, e.g., State v. Lasu, 768 N.W2d 447, 451 (Neb. 2009) (“It is reasonable to infer that [the defendant] threw away his marijuana because he was afraid of being arrested and searched — in fact, it is hard to imagine another reasonable explanation for his actions.”). Thus, the only question in this case is whether defendant “concealed” evidence as required by section 31 — 4(a). Neither the word “conceal” nor “concealment” is defined in the Criminal Code of 1961. See 720 ILCS 5/1 — 1 et seq. (West 2008). It is well established that if a term is not specifically defined in a statute indicating a contrary legislative intent, the term must be given its ordinary and popularly understood meaning. See, e.g., People v. Bailey, 167 Ill. 2d 210, 229 (1995); People v. Christopher son, 377 Ill. App. 3d 752, 753-54 (2007). The primary and popularly understood dictionary definition of “conceal” is “to hide; withdraw or remove from observation; cover or keep from sight: He concealed the gun under his coat.” The Random House Dictionary of the English Language 303 (Unabridged ed. 1983). Similarly, the dictionary definition of “concealment” is “an act by which one prevents or hinders the discovery of something *** the act of removing from sight or notice; hiding.” Black’s Law Dictionary 306 (8th ed. 2004). Applying the above-noted definitions to the facts of this case shows that the element of concealment was clearly established. Defendant, who was being questioned by police officers, suddenly sprinted away from them, at night, and threw drug paraphernalia over a six-foot, wooden fence. In other words, defendant “withdr[e]w or remove[d] from observation” and “[kept] from sight” the evidence in question. Or applying the Black’s Law Dictionary definition, defendant “hinder[ed] the discovery of something,” “removed” the evidence “from sight or notice,” and “hid[ ]” it from view. In short, defendant deliberately removed evidence from the officers’ sight in a way that made it less likely to be found. Thus, because defendant “concealed” evidence in the ordinary sense of the word, he obstructed justice. The majority’s conclusion that a defendant must ultimately succeed in either destroying the evidence or “materially impeding the police officers’ investigation” is not supported by the text of the statute and rests on a small amount of poorly reasoned authority. There is nothing in the common definition of “conceal” that requires that an item be permanently removed from sight or hidden. It is enough that the evidence is removed from sight or hidden, even if only for a short time before it is found or located. Looking at whether the evidence was actually recovered — or at how easily it was recovered — improperly shifts the statutory inquiry away from its rightful focus on defendant’s actions at the time of the crime onto how quickly and competently police reacted to defendant’s actions after the concealment had been completed. See, e.g., Brogan v. United States, 522 U.S. 398 (1998); People v. Manning, 334 Ill. App. 3d 882 (2002). The United States Supreme Court’s decision in Brogan is instructive. There, the defendant argued that he could not be convicted of making a false statement to federal investigators because the investigators knew his statements were false when made. Thus, the defendant reasoned, because the officers were not actually deceived by the false statements, he did not commit a crime. Defendant also argued that the statute should be interpreted more narrowly than its plain language because the evil to be prevented was the “perversion of governmental functions.” Brogan, 522 U.S. at 401-02. The Supreme Court soundly rejected both contentions: “It could be argued, perhaps, that a disbelieved falsehood does not pervert an investigation. But making the existence of this crime turn upon the credulousness of the federal investigator (or the persuasiveness of the liar) would be exceedingly strange; such a defense to the analogous crime of perjury is certainly unheard of.” (Emphasis in original.) Brogan, 522 U.S. at 402. The Court continued by stating that “it is not, and cannot be, our practice to restrict the unqualified language of a statute to the particular evil that Congress was trying to remedy — even assuming that it is possible to identify that evil from something other than the text of the statute itself.” Brogan, 522 U.S. at 403. The decision of our appellate court in Manning is similarly instructive. The defendant in that case argued that he had not “concealed” his daughter from his spouse for 15 days — as required by the child abduction statute (720 ILCS 5/10 — 5(b)(6) (West 2000)) — because his wife was able to discover the daughter’s location from other sources. Manning, 334 Ill. App. 3d at 887, 889. The court rejected that argument, stating that “[i]n determining whether a defendant committed a criminal act, the focus must be on the defendant’s state of mind.” (Emphasis added.) Manning, 334 Ill. App. 3d at 887. The court then employed the common dictionary definition of “conceal” and determined that the jury reasonably concluded that the defendant concealed his daughter from his wife for 15 days, even though the defendant’s wife may have had actual knowledge of her daughter’s whereabouts during several of those days. Manning, 334 Ill. App. 3d at 889. Here, just as the defendants did in Brogan and Manning, defendant seeks to make his conviction turn on the cognizance of others. But this is not the proper inquiry. As noted above, defendant “concealed” evidence within the plain and ordinary meaning of that term and was ultimately caught doing it. The fact that he did not conceal the evidence permanently or very well — and that police acted quickly to uncover his concealment — should have no bearing on whether defendant committed the crime in the first instance. The majority’s claim that the actus reus of the crime was never accomplished in this case rests on a faulty construction of what it means to “conceal” evidence within the meaning of the statute. As I have already explained, defendant committed the completed act of concealment when he in fact concealed the evidence by tossing it out of sight over a privacy fence as he fled from police. Just as the crime of perjury does not require as part of the actus reus that others actually be deceived, the present crime did not require that the offender ultimately be successful in materially impeding the officers’ investigation, as the majority believes. Moreover, the majority’s standard appears to be unworkable because it does not explain at what point an investigation would be impeded. According to the majority, the amount of time that the evidence in this case was concealed from officers is too short to support a conviction. But the majority never explains what, if any, amount of time from the act of placing evidence out of sight until its discovery would support a conviction. Would the majority consider a two-minute search for evidence too short to support a finding that an investigation was “materially impeded,” but affirm a conviction if the evidence were only finally discovered after four days? The answers are unclear under the standard proposed by the majority. But such difficult line drawing would be entirely unnecessary under a plain-text reading of the statute, as any affirmative act of concealment combined with the requisite intent would support a conviction. The majority opines that under the State’s plain-text reading of the statute, “essentially every possessory offense where the contraband is not in plain view would also constitute the felony offense of obstructing justice.” 241 Ill. 2d at 148. The majority is apparently concerned that persons who carry illegal items in their pockets, purses or briefcases would be guilty of obstructing justice under a plain reading of the statute. But I believe that the majority’s fears are unfounded, as it is unlikely that the intent element of the offense could be satisfied by these routine methods of carrying items. I also believe that what happened in the present case can be easily distinguished from the situation involving a mere possessory offense. It could be said that carrying an illegal item on one’s person is not an affirmative act that constitutes concealment, and given that carrying something in one’s pocket or handbag is a convenient way to carry any item, there is no evidence of the “intent to prevent the apprehension or obstruct the prosecution” that the statute requires. See 720 ILCS 5/31 — 4(a) (West 2008). The majority’s concerns are also irrelevant to this case. Defendant was not convicted of obstruction of justice because he put a crack pipe in his pocket or briefcase before going out into the world. Nor did he simply panic and run at the first sight of police. Rather, after talking with police officers for several minutes while they conducted their investigation, defendant deliberately sprinted away from them, at night, and disposed of his crack pipe by pitching it over a wooden, privacy fence. This was not an act of continuing possession; it was a separate, intentional act that had no purpose other than to thwart a specific, ongoing investigation. Furthermore, even accepting as proper a rule that a defendant who abandons contraband immediately upon seeing a police officer does not conceal it, such a rule would not be availing to defendant in this case. Whatever else the obstruction of justice statute proscribes, it must at least prohibit a defendant from taking the sort of affirmative, evasive steps that defendant took here to conceal evidence of his crimes once a police investigation was in process. For that reason, the special concurrence is mistaken in its conclusion that the principle of legislative acquiescence has an “important role” in resolving the issue of statutory construction involved in this particular case. See 241 Ill. 2d at 154 (Freeman, J., specially concurring). The special concurrence claims that the fact that the legislature has not amended the statute after the appellate court’s opinions in M.F. and People v. Brake, 336 Ill. App. 3d 464 (2003), precludes defendant’s conviction in the present case. But I do not believe that the appellate court’s holdings in those cases preclude defendant’s conviction here, and there was thus no need for a legislative change to render culpable the sort of conduct that occurred in this case. In M.F., police spotted the defendant on the roof over an entrance to a building where they were executing a search warrant. An officer told the defendant not to move while shining a flashlight on the defendant. The defendant remained in the same spot, but twice reached into his pocket and threw baggies of cocaine toward the officer within 10 feet of him. It is not entirely clear whether the officer ever lost sight of the items tossed in his direction. At any rate, he recovered them within seconds. After discussing decisions from other jurisdictions, the appellate court in M.F. concluded that where a defendant abandons evidence by dropping it or throwing it to the ground in the presence and view of police, this conduct does not constitute concealment that will support a conviction under the obstruction statute. M.F., 315 Ill. App. 3d at 650. Notably, M.F. did not hold that materially impeding the police officers’ investigation is a necessary element of the obstruction statute. Additionally, it must be emphasized that M.F. carefully limited its holding to the specific circumstances of that case. See M.F., 315 Ill. App. 3d at 650. The present case is of course distinguishable on the facts from M.F., and the holding in M.F. does not preclude a conviction here. Indeed, the trial judge and two justices of the appellate court found M.F. clearly distinguishable from the present case. In that regard, the appellate court in this case stated as follows: “[I]n the case sub judice, defendant did not merely abandon the evidence by throwing it to the ground in the vicinity and view of the police officer who was shining a flashlight on defendant. Here, defendant took the more affirmative act of throwing the evidence over a privacy fence and out of the view of the police while defendant was fleeing from the police down an alley at night.” 395 Ill. App. 3d at 565. The special concurrence’s rebanee upon Brake for a legislative acquiescence analysis is even more problematic. Brake did not involve a case where the defendant fled from police and threw evidence out of sight of police. Instead, it considered only whether a defendant’s swallowing of evidence in the immediate presence of an arresting officer, and where the evidence was in fact recovered, will support an obstruction of justice charge and conviction. Brake answered the question in the affirmative. Brake, 336 Ill. App. 3d at 468. In so doing, Brake noted and rejected the defendant’s attempt to analogize his case to M.F. Brake explained that M.F. reasoned “that throwing ‘bags of drugs down from the landing and onto the ground in the vicinity of and in view of the police officer who was shining a flashlight on respondent, saw his conduct, and recovered the drugs within seconds of the act’ was not ‘likely to either destroy the evidence or make recovery less likely.’ ” Brake, 336 Ill. App. 3d at 467 (quoting M.F., 315 Ill. App. 3d at 650). Brake continued by noting that M.F. had “distinguished its facts from precisely the situation in this case, where a defendant swallowed the evidence, and noted that such conduct may support evidence tampering sufficient to support a conviction.” Brake, 336 Ill. App. 3d at 467. Nothing in Brake can be interpreted as purporting to fashion a requirement that a defendant materially impede an investigation to support a conviction. The special concurrence mistakenly assumes that the requirement of M.F. — that the conduct of the defendant makes “recovery less likely” — is the equivalent of the majority’s requirement — that the defendant “materially impede an investigation.” In my opinion, if evidence is less likely to be recovered as a result of certain actions of a defendant, it can still be likely to be recovered, albeit less likely than it was before the actions were taken. In the present case, defendant’s flight from police coupled with his tossing of the items in a dark alley over a six-foot privacy fence satisfied the M.F. “less likely” standard. In M.F., by contrast to the present case, the evidence was actually more likely to be recovered because of the defendant’s actions in that case where he tossed the items down in the direction of and in view of police and they were in fact recovered within seconds. It appears that the majority opinion does not simply adopt the “less likely” standard in this case because to do so would lead to a different result than the “materially impedes an investigation” standard that the majority actually adopts. The special concurrence makes two points to support its judicial acquiescence theory, neither of which has much merit. First, the special concurrence argues that because the dissenting justice on the appellate court in this case found M.F. “virtually indistinguishable” from the present case (over the disagreement of the majority), M.F. is in fact “virtually indistinguishable.” See 241 Ill. 2d at 154 (Freeman, J., specially concurring) (citing 395 Ill. App. 3d at 567-68 (Pope, J., dissenting)). As I have already clearly explained above, however, M.F. is distinguishable from the present case and M.F. carefully limited its holding to the specific circumstances presented, and thus nothing more need be said on this point. Second, the special concurrence argues that it is “indeed, [its] point” that Brake is distinguishable from M.F. See id. It is true that Brake is distinguishable from M.F., hut I fail to see how this supports a judicial acquiescence theory. The statement in Brake that “ ‘[s]uch conduct, [i.e., swallowing evidence] “constitutes an attempt to alter, conceal, or destroy the evidence and will support a charge and conviction of obstructing justice” ’ ” (id. at 153-54 (quoting Brake, 336 Ill. App. 3d at 468)) makes perfect sense given the court’s holding affirming defendant’s conviction. The fact that Brake made a distinction between the throwing of evidence away under the facts in M.F. and the swallowing of evidence in the case before it did not and could not purport to set forth the parameters of what might constitute concealment in all the situations where evidence is tossed away from police, especially where, unlike M.F., the evidence is indisputably discarded out of sight. The fact that Brake found “throwing evidence away” distinguishable from swallowing evidence is thus unremarkable under the circumstance of that case where the court was being asked to analogize its case to the specific facts of M.F., a case where the appellate court clearly limited its holding to the specific circumstances before it.2 At any rate, any ruling in Brake that would have claimed to reach facts not actually before it would have been mere dicta, which obviously would not bind the legislature on a judicial acquiescence theory. Given that neither the fact patterns nor the holdings of M.F. and Brake support the majority’s addition of the extra element to the statute of “materially imped [ing] the police officers’ investigation” (see 241 Ill. 2d at 149), the concept of legislative acquiescence relied upon by the special concurrence is not an appropriate aid in resolving the question of statutory construction before us in this case. However, in light of the majority’s holding today, I would urge the legislature to remedy the majority’s incorrect interpretation of the statute so that the statute can again be construed to prohibit the sort of affirmative act of concealment that occurred in the present case, where defendant fled from police officers down a dark alley and placed evidence out of their sight. The foreign-jurisdiction authority cited by the majority is not persuasive for a number of reasons. As stated earlier, I do not believe that the outcome of these cases should turn on whether others were actually fooled by a defendant’s subterfuge. Additionally, many of the cases cited can be distinguished from the present case on their facts. See, e.g., Harris v. State, 991 A.2d 1135, 1138 (Del. 2010) (the defendant was only successful in partially concealing the item of contraband from the officers view and it was “immediately retrievable”); Anderson v. State, 123 E3d 1110, 1118 (Alaska Ct. App. 2005) (it does not appear that the officers ever lost sight of the items the defendant tossed away: “Anderson’s act of tossing the handgun, magazine, and ammunition out of the car in the sight of the police did nothing to disguise the evidentiary value of these items.”); State v. Fuqua, 696 A.2d 44 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1997) (defendant did not commit an affirmative act of concealment; rather, drugs were discovered on the defendant’s person during a police search). Finally, the majority does not discuss the cases that have reached the contrary holding that an affirmative act of tossing evidence away to avoid apprehension or prosecution is sufficient to constitute the offense of tampering with evidence or obstruction of justice. See, e.g., Pennewell v. State, 977 A.2d 800 (Del. 2009) (reaffirmed earlier holding in Hunter, noting that it was “not a close case”; Hunter had affirmed tampering conviction where the defendant had tossed drugs out of car window while being pursued by, and in view of, police); Hunter v. State, 815 A.2d 730, 737 (Del. 2002) (affirmed tampering conviction as “not a close case” where the defendant pitched drugs out car window and they were “recovered almost immediately”); State v. Harley, 982 E2d 1145 (Utah Ct. App. 1999) (affirmed tampering conviction where the defendant tossed weapon out of window while being followed by police with lights and siren activated and police recovered the weapon near where it was tossed); State v. Jennings, 666 So. 2d 131, 133 (Fla. 1995) (tossing evidence away in the presence of police can “amount to tampering or concealing evidence”); Hayes v. State, 634 So. 2d 1153 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1994) (upheld tampering conviction where the defendant while fleeing police dropped baggie of cocaine into a drainage outlet, and the wet baggie was retrieved by police from the drainage system). The decision in Jennings is particularly persuasive. There, the Supreme Court of Florida overruled an earlier appellate court decision “to the extent it [could] be read to mean that tossing evidence away in the presence of a law enforcement officer does not, as a matter of law, constitute a violation of the [tampering with evidence] statute.” The Florida Supreme Court continued by noting: “Depending upon the circumstances, such an act could amount to tampering or concealing evidence. An affirmative act of throwing evidence away constitutes more than mere abandonment.” Jennings, 666 So. 2d at 133. In sum, the cases that have affirmed convictions for tampering or obstruction when a defendant discards items out of sight while being pursued by police are more persuasive than the cases relied upon by the majority. Moreover, the majority’s interpretation of the statute is not consistent with its plain language. For all of the foregoing reasons, I would affirm defendant’s conviction for obstruction of justice. JUSTICES GARMAN and KARMEIER join in this dissent.   M.F. limited its holding as follows: “In the present case, we hold that the evidence of concealment was insufficient to sustain the convictions of obstruction of justice. Respondent threw bags of drugs down from a landing and onto the ground in the vicinity and in the view of the police officer who was shining a flashlight on respondent, saw his conduct, and recovered the drugs within seconds of the act. Under the circumstances, it does not appear that this act was likely to either destroy the evidence or make recovery less likely. Therefore, *** [the defendant’s act of) throwing drugs on the ground was not an act of concealment.” M.F., 315 Ill. App. 3d at 650.