Court Opinion

ID: 9533359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:30:54.25411+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:02.009002
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE SIMON, also dissenting: I join in Justice Clark’s dissenting opinion. I also wish to express my disagreement with the majority’s statement that, in interpreting the proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures contained in article I, section 6, of our State Constitution, we are bound to follow automatically the decisions of the United States Supreme Court interpreting the comparable provision contained in the fourth amendment to the Federal Constitution. (101 Ill. 2d at 218.) When a majority of the United States Supreme Court has adopted an interpretation of the Bill of Rights that we believe is insufficiently ample to effectively implement those guarantees, we are not frozen by it in interpreting the comparable provisions of our State Constitution. (See People v. Rolfingsmeyer (1984), 101 Ill. 2d 137, 143 (Simon, J., specially concurring).) I believe that under our State Constitution warrantless searches and seizures are only “reasonable” when they are based on and carefully limited to some exigency or other compelling State interest such as the security of our jails and prisons. Even if warrantless searches incident to arrest were not limited by the requirements of exigency under the Federal Constitution and under the Illinois Code of Criminal Procedure, such searches would be so constrained under our State Constitution. Accord, People v. Gokey (1983), 60 N.Y.2d 309, 457 N.E.2d 723, 469 N.Y.S.2d 618 (rejecting New York v. Belton (1981), 453 U.S. 454, 69 L. Ed. 2d 768, 101 S. Ct. 2860, and holding that under the New York Constitution “an individual’s right of privacy in his or her effects dictates that a warrantless search incident to arrest be deemed unreasonable unless justified by the presence of exigent circumstances”). In State v. Ringer (1983), 100 Wash. 2d 686, 699, 674 P.2d 1240, 1247, the Washington Supreme Court recently acknowledged that it had, over a period of years, neglected its “own state constitution to focus instead on protections provided by [the Fourth Amendment].” It announced in that case that the time had come “to return to the protections of our own constitution and to interpret them consistent with their common law beginnings.” (100 Wash. 2d 686, 699, 674 P.2d 1240, 1247.) Based on the search and seizure clause of the Washington Constitution, the court said: “[W]hen a lawful arrest is made, the arresting officer may search the person arrested and the area within his immediate control. [Citation.] A warrantless search in this situation is permissible only to remove any weapons the arrestee might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect an escape and to avoid destruction of evidence by the arrestee of the crime for which he or she is arrested. [Citations.] The right to search incident to arrest *** must be ‘jealously and carefully drawn’, and must be strictly confined to the necessities of the situation. [Citation.] In the present cases neither the search of defendant Corcoran’s car nor of defendant Ringer’s van can be justified as a search incident to arrest. [In both cases the suspect] had been handcuffed and placed in a patrol car when police searched his vehicle.” (Emphasis added.) (100 Wash. 2d 686, 699-700, 674 P.2d 1240, 1248.) The time has come for the Illinois Supreme Court to recognize its independent obligation to interpret the bill of rights contained in the Illinois Constitution, and to make its own assessment of the appropriate balance between the privacy rights of our citizens and the legitimate requirements of law enforcement.