People v. Al Burei
Journey for Kentucky Cigarettes Beginning in 2003, Makes Second Stop at Illinois Appellate Court in 2010, After Brief Overnight Stay in Illinois Supreme Court in 2008, with its Final Destination Likely to Again be the Illinois Supreme Court, Possibly by the year 2012, Although Others Have their Doubts as to When the Case Will Finally Reach Conclusion, IF EVER.
Why is the trip of our main character, Omar Al Burei, to illegally smuggle one of Kentucky’s cash crops back to Illinois to avoid tax on his cigarettes important enough for me to write about you might ask? Well, because it has to do with 4th Amendment Rights and the expectation of privacy one has as a traveler (in this instance a passenger) in a motor vehicle. No, it’s not a new debate, but lines are continually being drawn and redistricted, and it’s important for both sides to know what the boundaries actually are at any given time.
While the Fist District’s September 30, 2010, opinion does not disclose where Mr. Al Burei’s journey began or what exactly his route was, the van he was in was stopped by Officer Glen Tienstra of the Hickory Hills, Illinois Police Department for an illegal U-turn and a cracked windshield. It is emphasized more than once in the opinion that the traffic stop was effectuated directly across from the police department. This is likely to discredit the State’s argument that officers needed to remove both passengers of the vehicle for officer safety concerns, as this is what the officer claimed was the reason for him removing both occupants. The time between the stop and the defendant exiting the vehicle was approximately five minutes at the most. After both occupants had exited the vehicle, the testimony of law enforcement and Al Burei differ as to whether or not Officer Tienstra was given permission by Al Burei to search the vehicle. The circuit court found that Officer Tienstra asked for and received consent to search the vehicle, but further found that the officer’s questioning of the defendant “was completely unrelated to the initial purpose of the stop”, and suppressed the cigarettes seized as fruits of the poisonous tree. At issue was the reasonableness of the detention of Al Burei and whether or not it violated fundamental principles of the fourth amendment.
As stated in the first district’s opinion, in order for the detention to conform to fourth amendment principles, (1) the officer’s actions must have been justified at its inception, and (2) the detention must be “reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.”) With both parties conceding the legality of the initial stop, the court was required only to focus on the second part of the inquiry, which is whether or not the continued detention and questioning by Officer Tienstra exceeded the scope of the initial inquiry and whether his continued inquiries “impermissibly prolonged the detention or changed the fundamental nature of the stop.”
While the first district analyzed the facts of this case in light of prior precedence wherein defendants had unsuccessfully argued to the Illinois Supreme Court that the return of their paperwork followed by subsequent requests by officers to search constituted a second seizure violative of fourth amendment principles, the first district distinguished those cases factually from this case in that the initial seizure of the defendant had not been concluded at the time the officer requested to search the vehicle. Al Burei at p. 13. Therefore, the court concluded that there was never a second detention, and that the officers’ actions violated the duration prong by prolonging the traffic stop beyond its lawful purpose. Id. The court opined that once Mr. Ghaban had given a plausible explanation about his nervousness, the conversation should have ended, and the officer should have then proceeded to issue the appropriate traffic citations. Id. The continued detentions of Ghaban and Al Burei, therefore, transformed an otherwise lawful stop to an unlawful one because the officers unnecessarily prolonged it beyond the time reasonably required to complete its purpose, and furthermore, changed its fundamental nature, “because it infringed upon the defendant’s legitimate interest in privacy”. Id. at p. 15, 18.
The issue of prolonged stops is litigated with surprising regularity in the trial courts of Illinois and likely the other 49 states of this country. The fourth amendment issues raised in Al Burei were especially interesting to this author, because just recently such issues were preserved for a client of the Dodds Law Office who is anxiously waiting for his case to be heard by the justices of the fourth district. Preservation is key, and that is why it is so incredibly important to hire an experienced Illinois Criminal Defense Attorney who can identify such issues, argue them in a motion to suppress, and make certain that they are preserved for appellate review. Will the rationale of the first district carry the day for this client? Will Al Burei be upheld if it again reaches the Supreme Court of Illinois or the United States Supreme Court? Your guess is as good as mine, but I think it is fair to say that travelers of our highways and byways shouldn’t be subjected to lengthy interrogations about where they’re going and what they’re doing for simple traffic violations, whether or not the detainee has contraband or is otherwise up to no good. Why you ask? Simply because we would be subjecting the greater majority to invasions of privacy intended to ensnare the indiscretions of a select few; well, that’s the way I see it anyway.
Filed under: Criminal by Terry Dodds
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People of the State of Illinois v. McPeak (DUI_Drugs)
In March 2005, Samuel McPeak was stopped by a Police Officer in Lee County who noticed him not wearing his seat belt. When McPeak exited the vehicle at the Officer’s request so that he could give Mr. McPeak his ticket for the seat belt violation, the Officer noticed an odor of cannabis, which the officer testified he noticed coming from McPeak’s person.
During his encounter with McPeak, the Officer asked McPeak if he had been smoking cannabis, which McPeak replied he had, and that he had taken one or two hits from a “hit pipe” within the last hour or two. Based on McPeak’s response, and the Officer’s observations, the Officer arrested McPeak for “Driving Under the Influence” (DUI) of drugs for having cannabis in his breath, blood, or urine.
Prior to a stipulated bench trial on the evidence, McPeak’s counsel filed a motion to quash the arrest and to suppress the evidence, arguing that there was insufficient evidence to arrest McPeak for DUI, “because there was no evidence of the presence of cannabis in his breath, blood, or urine as required by section 11-501(a)(6).” After a conviction at a stipulated bench trial , McPeak appealed. The facts stipulated to at trial were that: 1) the officer smelled burnt cannabis about Mr. McPeak’s person 2) that McPeak admitted to taking two hits out of a hitter box about an hour before being stopped, and 3) that after he was arrested, the officer located a smoking pipe in McPeak’s vehicle that contained a burnt substance that smelled like cannabis, and which later field-tested positive for cannabis.
On appeal, the State argued that there was sufficient circumstantial evidence to support McPeak’s conviction, in that there was sufficient circumstantial evidence that Mr. McPeak had cannabis in his breath, blood, or urine at the time he was driving as prohibited by Illinois law. McPeak argued that his Motion to Suppress should have been granted, and that there was insufficient evidence to uphold the conviction. The Illinois Appellate Court, Second District reversed noting that while “McPeak admitted to smoking ‘two hits’ of cannabis ‘about an hour ago’ [t]here was no evidence whether consuming that amount of cannabis would result in any cannabis being left in his breath, blood, or urine an hour later.” Furthermore, the court held that there “was no evidence that McPeak was impaired and no evidence of any odor of cannabis on McPeak’s breath, as opposed to his ‘person’.” In other words, what the court was really saying was that while there may have been circumstantial evidence that McPeak smoked cannabis, and that it likely remained in his system, the State had failed to show beyond a reasonable doubt by way of scientific evidence, or by way of other evidence, that the cannabis remained in his system.
Relying on a holding from the Third District, People v. Allen , the court noted that while “the odor of cannabis on the breath of a defendant could provide circumstantial evidence that the defendant has cannabis in his breath”, there was no such evidence in this case because the Officer had testified that he had smelled burnt cannabis about Mr. McPeak’s person, “something that does not address whether McPeak had cannabis in his breath, blood, or urine at that time.” (emphasis added). In its opinion, the court also noted that there was also a lack of additional evidence to show that Mr. McPeak was impaired; evidence such as dilated pupils, that his motor skills were impaired, that he had trouble performing standard field sobriety tests, problems communicating or speaking, etc.
While additional evidence likely would have resulted in Mr. McPeak’s conviction, the court ruled that, “the State provided no evidence that cannabis remained in McPeak’s breath, blood, or urine while he was driving.” (emphasis added).
My interpretation of the court’s ruling is simply that the State failed to connect the dots. They didn’t have urine or blood showing the presence of cannabis. This is akin to a lack of corpus delecti, a Latin term requiring proof that a crime has been committed.
The case may have been proven through scientific evidence, by way of expert testimony, that cannabis tends to remain in one’s system for a period of time after ingestion. Another possibility is that they may have simply stipulated their way out of the case, meaning that they agreed to some facts, but failed to insist on the presence of additional facts that might have existed which would have helped to prove the case circumstantially.
While it may seem that Mr. McPeak may have dodged a bullet in this case, I have no doubt that the bullet was actually diverted by the help of his lawyer. That is why it is so important to hire a qualified Illinois Criminal Defense Attorney. Sometimes convictions are avoided through an intelligent, cunning lawyer, who knows the law, or who can use it to their advantage.
Filed under: Criminal by Terry Dodds
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As many of you may already be aware (hopefully not because you have already been ticketed for violating this new statute), the Illinois Legislature passed a new law that took effect on January 1, 2010, limiting the usage of cellular phones in school and construction zones. The law was introduced in the House as HB 0072, by Representative John D’Amico (D) of the 15th Dist. (Chicago). It was later sponsored in the Senate by Pamela J. Althoff (R) of the 32nd Dist. (Crystal Lake), and later passed both houses of the Illinois General Assembly as Public Act 96-0131.
Many Illinois attorneys, prosecutors and Illinois criminal defense attorneys alike, have interpreted the new law to mean that individuals cannot be utilizing their cell phones at any time while in these protected zones. The rationale behind this belief is found in the statute itself, 625 ILCS 5/12-610.1, which reads in section (e) that “A person, regardless of age, may not use a wireless telephone at any time while operating a motor vehicle on a roadway in a school speed zone established under Section 11 605, or on a highway in a construction or maintenance speed zone established under Section 11 605.1.” When the Peoria Journal Star printed an article regarding new laws to take effect January 1 of this year on December 30, 2009, the author, Doug Finke, wrote that “[H]ouse Bill 72, makes it illegal for drivers to use cell phones in school or construction zones, unless they are the hands-free variety.” To be honest, my interpretation of the new law was consistent with those who had interpreted the statute to mean no cell phones at any time; that was until I reread the statute after another attorney and I were discussing the matter since our office was then representing someone charged with having violated this particular statute. Attorneys should invariably always read the statute itself before moving forward in a criminal matter; that is what we are taught, and this is particularly true with new statutes. Of course, I had done this, but discussion led to further analyzation of the statute and conducting some legislative research to determine whether or not the new statute was to truly be interpreted as to not allow cellular usage at any time in these protected zones.
Notice the reference to 625 ILCS 5/11-605 at the end of the sentence quoted above? That particular statute is what establishes “School Speed Zones”; requiring you to reduce your speed to 20 mph at certain times. In that statute “School Speed Zones” are only in effect “[o]n a school day when school children are present and so close thereto that a potential hazard exists because of the close proximity of the motorized traffic, no person shall drive a motor vehicle at a speed in excess of 20 miles per hour while passing a school zone or while traveling on a roadway on public school property or upon any public thoroughfare where children pass going to and from school.” (emphasis added).
625 ILCS 5/11-605 goes on to say that “School Speed Zones” are only in effect from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
When controversy exists over the interpretation of a law, which may have been poorly drafted, which was passed by the legislative branch of any governmental body, one has to turn to the “legislative history” of the statute, if any exists, to try and determine the legislative intent of the legislative body. That’s exactly what I set out to do, although no definitive answer could be ascertained from reviewing the legislative history available at the Illinois General Assembly’s website with respect to this particular piece of legislation; no debates as to the intent or meaning of the statute could be located.
Finding no help from the house and senate debates regarding this statute, I called Senator Althoff’s office for assistance, since she was the sponsor in the Senate, which was the last house of the Illinois General Assembly to pass the bill. Senator Althoff’s office directed my inquiry to someone with the Illinois State Police. He directed my inquiry to the legal counsel of the Illinois State Police.
Further efforts included contacting the Illinois Legislative Information Bureau, which suggested that I contact the Index Department of the Illinois Secretary of State and the House Committee Clerk. The individual I spoke with at the Index Department told me that he would gladly send me the audio recordings of the transportation committee meetings, where HB0072 was assigned, to further my efforts in ascertaining the correct reading of this statute. During this time, an additional telephone call was received from a Republic Legislative Analyst who advised me of his interpretation of the statute.
As a result of my efforts, I must say that I learned a lot about the Illinois legislative process, discovered the existence of new governmental entities that I previously did not know existed, and got to speak to a lot of wonderful people employed by the Illinois Government, all of whom, with the exception of one, were extremely helpful and seemed to be interested in what I was trying to accomplish.
Bottom line, I think there may be a continued debate as to whether or not Illinois drivers can use their cell phones at any time in a “school zone”. That being said, it is my belief, and the belief of some other Illinois criminal defense attorneys that you are safe to use your cell phone in a “school zone” provided there are “no school children present and so close thereto that a potential hazard exists because of the close proximity of the motorized traffic.” Why else would 625 ILCS 5/12-610.1 reference “school speed zones,” instead of “school zones”, and 625 ILCS 5/11-605. If it were not so, would it mean that I couldn’t use my cell phone in a school zone at 9:00 p.m. throughout the week or on the weekend? If that’s the case, the statute is rather ridiculous. That being said, I think until the statute is redrafted or one of our appellate courts is asked to interpret it that Illinois drivers run the risk of being ticketed and having to hire an Illinois attorney who practices in criminal law to advocate on their behalf as to why it was okay for them to be using their cell phone in a school zone (not very cost effective I don’t think).
Why run the risk? In all fairness, and for the safety of our children, why not hang up the cell phone while in a school zone between the hours of 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.? Why not reduce your speed to 20 mph whether or not you see children in the area. Personally, I try to never drive above 20 mph in a school zone during those hours, no matter how bad it upsets the other drivers behind me or whether or not school children are present. Why? For one, I don’t want to be ticketed by an officer that wants to have a philosophical debate with me about whether or not there were school children present. For another, I don’t want to run the risk of some child darting out in front of my car and wind up on the front page of the newspaper for being the one who struck him. How bad would I feel? How bad would you feel?
The statute allows for the use of wireless devices, so you are alright in that regard; buy a Bluetooth if you always want to be able to speak to whoever you are talking to or need to speak with.
While not a proponent of the passage of some of the overwhelming number of laws that now fill up eight very large volumes of what is the Illinois Compiled Statutes, I would not be opposed to both statutes reading that you are in violation of them if you are doing either between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. while school is in session. That being said, I still believe that the current and correct interpretation is that those laws are only applicable when there are “school children present and so close thereto that a potential hazard exists because of the close proximity of the motorized traffic.”
Construction zones are a different beast altogether. No speeding or cell phone usage at any time. This is true whether or not workers are present, which used to be the way the law read.
Fines are steep indeed for violating any of the statutes discussed herein, so just be prepared if you are in a hurry or just have to take that call; prosecutors are also very unforgiving when you’re caught, so there’s the warning you absolutely will not get from the officer who pulls you over.
Filed under: Criminal by Terry Dodds
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Joe Mahr, wrote in an interesting article today in the Chicago Tribune (i) that some Cook, Dupage, and Lake County judges are under close scrutiny following an investigation by the newspaper for handing out what it believes are excessive amounts of supervision for Illinois drivers caught speeding in excess of 40 MPH over the speed limit.
I can assure you that this is not a likely outcome here in Bloomington, McLean County, Illinois. However, according to the article, it’s soon not likely to be an outcome available to any Illinois drivers if new legislation that has passed both houses of the Illinois General Assembly is signed by Governor Quinn.
SB3796 (ii) would eliminate Supervision as a possible sentence for Illinois motorists driving in excess of 40 MPH over the posted speed limit. The same legislation would also make speeding 30-40 MPH over the posted speed limit a Class B Misdemeanor.
(i) http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/ct-met-100-mph-judges-main-20100502,0,7866510.story
(ii) http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=3796&GAID=10&DocTypeID=SB&LegID=51998&SessionID=76&GA=96&SpecSess=0
Filed under: Criminal by Terry Dodds
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The Illinois Legislature is considering making “SEXTING” a crime. What is it “SEXTING” you ask?
“Sexting” as the act has been termed is teens sending other teens pornographic or lewd pictures of themselves to one another.
According to another blog written by Kevin McDermott I found on stltoday.com[i] after having done a Google search, the law “would outlaw the practice [of “sexting”] (it isn’t clearly illegal right now, if there aren’t any adults involved). It would effectively declare the kid who does this to be both the perpetrator and the victim.
Under the bill, a minor caught using a computer or cell phone “to transmit an indecent visual depiction of himself or herself to another person . . . shall be adjudicated a delinquent minor” — the same thing that happens to teens who steal or vandalize.”
The synopsis of the originally proposed bill, SB 2513, found on the Illinois Legislature’s website[ii] and sponsored by Senator Ira I. Silverstein[iii] of the 8th Dist in Chicago reads as follows:
Amends the Juvenile Court Act of 1987 and the Criminal Code of 1961. Provides that a minor shall not knowingly and voluntarily and without threat or coercion use a computer or electronic communication device to transmit an indecent visual depiction of himself or herself to another person. Provides that a person shall not possess a visual depiction transmitted to the person in violation of this provision. Provides that it is not a violation if the person who receives the depiction took reasonable steps, whether successful or not, to destroy or eliminate the visual depiction within a reasonable time after discovering the depiction. Provides that a person 18 years of age or older who violates the provision is guilty of a Class B misdemeanor. Provides that a minor who transmits the indecent visual depiction shall be adjudicated a delinquent minor under the Juvenile Court Act of 1987. Provides that a minor who transmits the indecent visual depiction who has previously been adjudicated for such violation may be either adjudicated a delinquent minor under the Juvenile Court Act of 1987 or subject to discretionary transfer for prosecution under the criminal laws of the State in accordance with the Juvenile Court Act of 1987. Provides for the automatic expungement of the juvenile law enforcement and court records of a minor charged with or adjudicated delinquent for the violation.
After some amendments made by the Criminal Law committee, the proposed bill appears to have passed the Senate after its third reading on March 18, 2010, and arrived at the house on the same day. The house sponsor is Representative Darlene J. Senger (R)[iv] of the 96th District in Napperville. The bill as amended appears to now be in the Rules Committee of the House.
According to an article online at the Chicago Sun-Times[v], the bill as amended by the house would not require the minor to register as a sex-offender, which concerned a large portion of the Illinois lawyers following the bill who practice criminal law. According to the article at the Sun-Times’ website Senger was quoted as saying that “The goal of this legislation is creating awareness. . . .parents are very concerned with what’s going on with cell phone cameras. Kids are being bullied. Girls are committing suicide because of what’s going on.”
Is the proposed bill too harsh on our youth? A second time and you could be tried as an adult?
Is it something needed or is just another act made criminal by our government in its position as in loco parentis (Latin for “in the place of a parent” or “instead of a parent,”); or Is it something that should simply be left to the parents of the minors? I am not sure I have a position on whether or not it should be made criminal, but instead will let you be the judge. You’re free to voice your opinion here, but your voice would be better heard by writing your representative – and quickly I suspect. While many of us express our likes and dislikes of our government in different forums (at work, at school, in the coffee house, over breakfast, or in our favorite watering hole), how many of us actually take the time to let our opinions be known to those who actually make the laws affecting us? I know I’m guilty of not expressing my opinions on what really matter. In fact, I have been more inclined to take the time to write a corporation that sparked an emotional response over a far less trivial matter than actually take the time to write my congressman about a tax or other act of Congress that would have far more reaching affects on my life.
I am glad to see though that this will likely not be a registerable offense; at least not for now. On another, yet similar note, I was glad to see the Illinois Legislature make misdemeanors punishable under the Juvenile Court Act for our youth who are 17 years of age.
Anyway, what say you? Say it quickly though, because I am quite confident this will be a law in the Illinois Compiled Statutes soon enough.
[i] http://interact.stltoday.com/blogzone/political-fix/political-fix/2010/02/illinois-legislature-taking-on-teen-sexting-controversy/
[ii] http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=2513&GAID=10&DocTypeID=SB&LegId=49124&SessionID=76&GA=96#actions
[iii] http://www.ilga.gov/senate/senator.asp?GA=96&MemberID=1438
[iv] http://www.ilga.gov/house/rep.asp?GA=96&MemberID=1544
[v] http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/2098412,CST-NWS-sexting12web.article
Filed under: Criminal by Terry Dodds
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In the recent Third District Appellate Court of Illinois decision of People v. Roa, the third district again addressed an issue that seems to surface more regularly than one would think in criminal cases: that issue being how long of a detention is too long by officers when making a routine traffic stop. Obviously, the only reason these cases become controversial and of any constitutional significance is because the search leads to the detection of contraband, ordinarily drugs or weapons. The reason I have chosen this case for the subject of one of my blogs is because of a recent case handled by my office wherein we filed a Motion to Suppress believing that a detention of one of our clients lasting for more than 20 minutes was an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of both the U.S. and Illinois Constitutions.
The facts in Roa do not appear to be as supportive of a motion to suppress as some other cases recently argued before reviewing courts asked to decide such issues, nor the case recently handled by my office, but it does touch upon issues in controversy in such cases.
In Roa, Andres Roa was stopped by an Illinois State Trooper for speeding 71 miles per hour in a 65 mph speed zone; obviously making it a valid stop. The State Trooper making the stop in this particular case was also a certified drug interdiction instructor and the drug interdiction coordinator for his district.
After the trooper stopped Roa’s vehicle and approached, he advised Roa that he was merely going to issue him a written warning and asked Roa for his license and registration. After advising Roa that he was going to issue the warning, the trooper, Sergeant Floyd Blanks, struck up a conversation with Roa, including asking him where he was traveling from and to. Sergeant Blanks testified that Roa exhibited more physical stress than most people, appeared unusually nervous, and “out of sorts”, avoiding eye contact when being questioned by the trooper.
As is ordinarily the case, at some point, Sergeant Blanks asked for consent to search Roa’s vehicle, which Roa agreed to.
One of the things that raised the level of suspicion of Sergeant Blanks and Trooper Thulen, who later arrived on the scene to assist, was that after Roa had consented to the search, Roa had claimed that he was an antiques dealer and was transporting antiques in the trunk. Despite this, no antiques were discovered by the troopers in the trunk. It also appeared to the officers that the air bag area had been tampered with or modified in some way.
The search by Sergeant Blanks and Trooper Thulen lasted 20 minutes, which included a fiberoptic scope. Surprise, surprise, during the course of their search, they located a total of 24.2 pounds of cocaine, packaged in 11 separate packages.
Roa’s defense counsel filed a motion to suppress the cocaine, alleging that the police had expanded the scope of the traffic stop into a drug investigation without enough probable cause to do so. Obviously the problem with such an argument in this particular case is that Roa appears to have consented to the search ultimately leading to the discovery of the drugs within a relatively short period of time after having been stopped.
Relying on the Supreme Court of the United State’s recent decision of Muehler v. Mena, 544 U.S. 93, 161 L. Ed. 2d 299, which the Illinois Supreme Court held overruled portions of People v. Gonzalez, 204 Ill.2d 220 (2003), and the Illinois Supreme Court case of People v. Cosby, 231 Ill.2d 262 (2008), the third district ruled the alteration of the nature of the stop argument no longer valid when determining whether or not a lawful stop has converted to a constitutionally impermissible one. According to the Roa court, the duration of the stop prong previously employed by the courts in their previous decisions is now the only basis for challenging the constitutionality of such stops. The third district also held that based on its readings of Mendenhall and Cosby that the holding in People v. Brownlee, 186 Ill.2d 501 (1999), that an officer is always free to request permission to search, is still good law.
To determine when someone has been impermissibly detained, the Roa court held that the reviewing court should look to the Mendenhall factors including (1) whether there was a threatening presence by several officers; (2) whether the officer displayed a weapon; (3) whether there was some physical touching by the officer; and (4) whether the language or tone of voice used by the officer indicated that compliance with the officer’s request was compelled. Roa (citing Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 544, 64 L. Ed. 2d at 509.
But hold on just a moment? Surely the third district wasn’t saying that these four factors alone from the Mendenhall decision are the sole exclusive factors the trial courts should look at when determining whether or not the detention of a motorist has become an unreasonable seizure for constitutional purposes. As Justice McDade, dissenting in the case, suggested, Cosby itself states that “It is true that the Mendenhall factors are not exhaustive.” Cosby, 231 Ill.2d at 281, 898 N.E.2d at 615. (emphasis added).
Obviously dissents don’t carry the day, but nevertheless, this is merely one district’s analysis of prolonged detentions, and I believe a poor one at that. Can we really pigeonhole each detention to decide whether a prolonged stop becomes an unlawful detention for constitutional purposes merely by looking at the Mendenhall factors? Is it even possible?
As previously stated, our office filed a Motion to Suppress based on a stop that lasted more than 20 minutes in duration, after the officer advised our client that she was merely giving him a warning. It is a case we likely will appeal, and which I believe, has far better facts than those in Roa. However, with the courts routinely chipping more and more of our constitutional rights away, do we really have a shot at winning? We’ll see.
As an Illinois Criminal Defense Attorney, handling misdemeanors, felonies, DUI’s, and traffic cases in Mclean and surrounding counties, I cannot stress enough the importance of hiring an attorney knowledgeable of such issues if you are looking to hire someone to represent you or a loved one. Obviously, there is so much at stake, including each of our constitutional rights.
Filed under: Criminal by Terry Dodds
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