Court Opinion

ID: 9743907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:49:34.252945+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:45.283647
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION UPON DENIAL OF PETITION FOR REHEARING PER CURIAM: On petition for rehearing, the State contends that the conviction of defendants was improperly reversed. The State argues that the police had probable cause to conduct the warrantless search based on the informant’s tip. We held that it did not.  In Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 114, the Supreme Court held that hearsay may justify the issuance of a search warrant if the affidavit sets forth some underlying circumstances tending to substantiate the informant’s conclusions, and some underlying circumstances from which it could be believed that the informant’s information was credible or reliable. A showing of underlying circumstances to support both the informant’s conclusions and his reliability is even more necessary in order to show probable cause for a warrantless search (People v. Saiken (1971), 49 Ill.2d 504, 511, 275 N.E.2d 381), though the underlying circumstances to show prior reliability need not be as strong when the informer is a citizen informer rather than a professional informer (Draper v. U.S. (1959), 358 U.S. 307, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327). Moreover, the principles just stated as to the reasonableness of a warrantless search presuppose a reasonable showing of exigency. Our holding was essentially targeted on the matter of the showing of underlying circumstances to support the informant’s conclusions, rather than on the matter of exigency or prior reliability. To illustrate our view of the basic flaw in the instant case, we contrast the instant case with the case of People v. Herbert (1971), 131 Ill.App.2d 518, 268 N.E.2d 205, in which this court reversed and remanded with directions to the trial court to deny defendant’s motion to suppress evidence. In Herbert, a police officer testified that he had received a call from an informant whom he had known for nine months. He knew this person through “prior meetings, prior conversations, prior acquaintances”. These prior occasions had resulted in approximately ten arrests, but no convictions as of the time of the incident. The informant told the officer that, at approximately 3:30 P.M.,in the vicinity of 2621 W. Greenleaf Avenue, an individual was going to deliver narcotics to the Lincoln Park area in a 1963 gold-colored Cadillac. The informant did not describe the individual, but told the officer that he had seen the individual put the “contraband” in the trunk of the car. The officer began a surveillance of 2621 W. Greenleaf, and, at approximately 3:30 P.M., they saw defendant and another person enter a gold-colored Cadillac. Our court in Herbert held that the officer’s testimony was credible and that the officers had probable cause to search the Cadillac. In that case, all the requirements for Aguilar were met: the reliability of the informant was established because, even though prior arrests based on the informant’s tips had not led to convictions, the informant had told the officer that he knew that narcotics were in the trunk of the Cadillac because he had seen “the contraband” placed there; and the officers, by observation at the scene, had personally corroborated the descriptive details which had been given by the informant. In the instant case, the informant had been known to the officers for two years, and information which he had furnished had led to arrests but not to convictions or recovery of contraband. The latter fact (as partially explained by the further fact that the Gang Intelligence Unit frequently deals with juveniles), plus the fact that the informant here was a citizen informant, may well meet the requirement of underlying circumstances to support the informant’s prior reliability. And the time available plus the movability of the car may well provide a reasonable showing of exigency. But there was no testimony by the officer as to how the informant knew that weapons would be in the car or that there was to be a sale of weapons. Therefore, no underlying circumstances were presented tending to substantiate the informant’s conclusions. The corroboration by police by personal observation at the scene substantiated some of the facts of the tip, but none of the substantiated facts, as adduced at the hearing on the motion to suppress, were in themselves incriminating up to the time the police acted. Under Aguilar this is not sufficient. Petition for rehearing denied. DOWNING, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.