Court Opinion

ID: 9709421
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:47:15.412478+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:48.752175
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE WOLFSON, dissenting: Custodial interrogation on less than probable cause violates the fourth amendment, whether or not the technical trappings of a formal arrest exist. People v. R.B. (1992), 232 Ill. App. 3d 583, 589, 597 N.E.2d 879. Given the trial judge’s findings of fact, curious as they may be, I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the defendant was not formally arrested at his home. Still, there are facts surrounding the invitation to be interrogated that must be considered before abandoning this important constitutional question. Two police officers located the defendant at his home. They had been told by the investigating officer to find the defendant and bring him to the station for questioning. They did not question the defendant at his home. When the defendant agreed to go with them, the officers gave him Miranda warnings as they walked down the stairs. Their report stated that the defendant was taken "into custody” at his home at about 5:10 p.m. One officer said his signature to the report was forged. The other said he misspoke when he used the word "custody.” The defendant was taken to the police station in a squad car. Once at the station, the defendant was placed in an interview room. He was turned over to Detective Tuider. At that point, Tuider knew Williams had been in the hallway of the victim’s building in the early morning hours of May 24 and he knew Williams had been drinking that night. Tuider gave the defendant Miranda warnings for a second time. The questioning began sometime between 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. After some initial questioning, Tuider brought the mobile crime lab in to take Williams’ finger and palm prints. The detective asked for and received permission to search the defendant’s apartment. Tuider then left the station for Williams’ home, leaving the defendant alone in the interview room. At that point, Detective Tuider testified, Williams was "not free to leave.” Once Williams arrived at the police station, he never was told he was free to leave. The investigation continued while Williams sat in the interview room. More questions were asked. At some point between midnight and 1 a.m., the defendant made incriminating statements to an assistant State’s Attorney, oral and written. The first statement came, according to best estimates, seven to eight hours after Williams was asked by police officers to go to the station. Until the first incriminating statement, there was no probable cause to arrest the defendant. In my view this was the kind of unlawful custodial interrogation condemned in Dunaway v. New York (1979), 442 U.S. 200, 60 L. Ed. 2d 824, 99 S. Ct. 2248, and People v. Townes (1982), 91 Ill. 2d 32, 435 N.E.2d 103. If Williams voluntarily accompanied the police to the station, his presence there escalated to an involuntary custodial detention at some point before the first incriminating statement was made. See People v. R.B. (1992), 232 Ill. App. 3d 583, 597 N.E.2d 879; People v. Hardway (1987), 163 Ill. App. 3d 596, 516 N.E.2d 830. The controlling question is whether a reasonable person, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, would have believed that he was not free to leave. (Townes, 91 Ill. 2d at 37.) Here, as in Townes and Dunaway, and unlike People v. Collins (1989), 182 Ill. App. 3d 362, 538 N.E.2d 781, the police officers were interrogating Williams in the hope of obtaining enough information to establish probable cause for an arrest. That kind of official misconduct violates the fourth amendment. The majority believes the defendant has waived his claim that a lawful detention turned unlawful at some point in the police station before the first incriminating statement. That is not a fair characterization of what happened in the trial court. In his motion to quash arrest and suppress evidence the defendant repeatedly referred to his "arrest and subsequent detention.” Paragraph 9 of the motion said: "During the arrest and subsequent detention, verbal and written statements were obtained from the defendant, the detention having provided the police with the forum for interrogation.” During argument on the motion, defense counsel cited People v. Gordon (1990), 198 Ill. App. 3d 791, 556 N.E.2d 573, as a case where the "facts fit almost exactly.” Gordon is a case where prolonged custodial questioning without probable cause was held to be a violation of the fourth amendment. After citing Gordon, defense counsel argued: "Without probable cause, without warrant, and his being detained for the number of hours he was in the police station, I suggest there was an arrest. It was an illegal arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment, that the arrest must be quashed and any evidence obtained from it must also be suppressed.” (Emphasis added.) I do not believe the unlawful custodial questioning point was waived. Even if it was, the trial judge necessarily decided the issue. If he was wrong, a case of plain error is created. I would find that the defendant’s fourth amendment rights were violated because the record shows the police conduct contains the "quality of purposefulness” denounced in Dunaway v. New York (1979), 442 U.S. 200, 218, 60 L. Ed. 2d 824, 839, 99 S. Ct. 2248, 2259.