People v. Smith

54 N.E.3d 848

403 Ill.Dec. 707

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.Amber M. SMITH, Defendant–Appellee.

The People of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.Kristopher Youngman, Defendant–Appellee.

No. 3–14–0648

No. 3–14–0649.

Appellate Court of Illinois, Third District.

Rule 23 Filed March 15, 2016.

Motion to Publish Granted March 29, 2016.

Opinion Filed March 29, 2016.

Rehearing Denied July 20, 2016.

John L. McGehee, State's Attorney, of Rock Island (Mark A. Austill, of State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor's Office, of counsel), for the People.

Michael J. Pelletier and Mark D. Fisher, both of State Appellate Defender's Office, of Ottawa, for appellees.

OPINION

Justice SCHMIDT delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion:

¶ 1 Defendants, Amber M. Smith and Kristopher Youngman, were each charged with one count of unlawful possession of a controlled substance (720 ILCS 570/402(c) (West 2014)) and one count of unlawful possession of a hypodermic needle (720 ILCS 635/1 (West 2014) ). The trial court subsequently granted each defendant's motion to suppress evidence, and the State appeals on certificates of impairment. We consolidated the appeals. We reverse and remand for further proceedings.

¶ 2 FACTS

¶ 3 On May 8, 2014, Smith filed a motion to suppress evidence, arguing that officers did not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion to seize her. Youngman followed suit.

¶ 4 At the hearing on Smith's motion to suppress, Officer Jack LaGrange of the Rock Island police department testified that on January 16, 2014, at approximately 4:14 p.m., he was traveling northbound on 8th Street, approaching 14th Avenue. LaGrange observed a vehicle pull immediately to the side of the road upon the driver of the vehicle seeing the officer. LaGrange then passed by the vehicle and observed a white male driver, a white female in the front passenger seat, a black male in the right rear seat, and a white female child in the left rear seat. When LaGrange circled back to the vehicle, the black male passenger was standing at the passenger side of the vehicle and abruptly walked off when he saw LaGrange return. LaGrange, a police officer for eight years, testified that it is common for people to briefly enter vehicles to conduct drug transactions. LaGrange parked his car behind the vehicle and approached the driver's side of the vehicle on foot.

¶ 5 LaGrange knew the area was known for drug activity. He asked the driver, Youngman, why he was in the area. Youngman replied that he was picking up his brother from a methadone clinic and was to meet him on 9th Street. LaGrange advised Youngman that the clinic was in the 4200 block of 14th Avenue while Youngman was in the 700 block of 14th Avenue. Youngman was “quite a ways away” from the clinic and headed in the wrong direction. LaGrange then asked for the identity of the black male he had observed in the car and walking away from the car. Youngman replied that there had been no black male in the car, next to the car, or walking away from the car. LaGrange obtained the identifications of the vehicle's occupants and ran them for warrants and did license checks. Through this process, LaGrange learned that Youngman had a prior drug arrest.

¶ 6 After returning the licenses, LaGrange asked Youngman to step out of the vehicle because he did not want to talk about potential drug activity in front of the child. Youngman willingly exited the vehicle and LaGrange explained his suspicion that Youngman was lying to him. LaGrange testified that he asked Youngman when he last used heroin, and Youngman replied that he did not use heroin. LaGrange then asked Youngman to roll up his sleeves and Youngman did so, revealing track marks on his arms. When LaGrange, again, asked Youngman when he last used heroin, Youngman replied that he had used it the day before.

¶ 7 LaGrange testified, “At that time I asked him if he had anything illegal on him. He said he did not, go ahead and search me.” Upon searching Youngman, LaGrange found a small tin box inside a coat pocket. Youngman immediately claimed the box was not his and that Smith, who was in the front passenger seat, must have put it there. Inside the box, LaGrange found a baggy containing a tan powder he recognized as heroin. LaGrange placed Youngman in handcuffs, sat him in his squad car, and called for another unit.

¶ 8 When Officer Jonathan Cary arrived on the scene, LaGrange spoke to Smith. Smith stated that she did not use drugs and did not know how the box came to be in Youngman's pocket. LaGrange noticed that Smith had a fresh puncture mark on her hand. Smith raised her sleeves at LaGrange's request, revealing track marks on her arms. Smith admitted to LaGrange that she had a drug problem. Because it was cold outside, Cary then had Smith sit in the back of his vehicle so he could conduct a more thorough conversation. Cary testified that he interviewed Smith in the back of his squad car. Smith was not handcuffed, but he did Mirandize her. Smith agreed to talk to Cary. No details of the interview were elicited and defense counsel declined cross-examination.

¶ 9 LaGrange testified that defendants' vehicle was still parked when he pulled behind it and could have left the scene had the driver chosen to do so. LaGrange would not have pursued the vehicle because such pursuits are not allowed in Rock Island. LaGrange testified, however, that Youngman and Smith were not free to leave after LaGrange returned the licenses because he was conducting an investigation at that point. Neither Youngman nor Smith asked to leave the scene, and LaGrange never told them they were not free to leave.

¶ 10 The trial court granted Smith's motion to suppress, reasoning that LaGrange did not “have an articulable suspicion to approach the car.” The court pointed out that the car had pulled over legally, and there was no evidence of traffic or license infractions.

¶ 11 The court also opined that the defendants should have been free to leave after LaGrange had run their licenses and found them to be clear. The court stated, “[Y]ou can't just ask the people to roll their sleeves up because you think they may not be telling you the truth.”

¶ 12 The trial court also found that LaGrange had no reasonable, articulable suspicion to suspect Smith of committing a crime, stating, “he has no articulable suspicion to tell her to raise her shirt up to try to obtain evidence against her.” Further, the court opined:

“[H]e sure doesn't have the right to go having her roll up her sleeves when he has nothing else to base his investigation on other than a co-defendant's statement that she must have stuck something in his pocket. * * * But just because it's in his pocket and he says, Well, she must have put it there, doesn't automatically give him the right to tell her to * * * start rolling her sleeves up.”

The State filed a motion to reconsider the ruling on Smith's motion on August 8, 2014. The trial court denied it on August 14. The State filed its notice of appeal on August 20.

¶ 13 Youngman's motion to suppress went to hearing on August 14, 2014. The prosecutor agreed that the evidence presented would be substantially the same as that presented at the hearing on Smith's motion, with the additional evidence that Youngman had been Mirandized and waived his rights before making his statement. The trial court noted that its ruling would be the same because before Youngman was Mirandized, the original stop had been unlawful. The court then stated, “[T]he State has filed * * * a Motion to Reconsider or a response to the defense of what they used and I've got both of those. One is Mr. Youngman['s] and one is Miss Smith['s], but realistically they are the same.” After discussing the grounds for suppression in both cases, the court stated, “[T]he Motion to Reconsider in relation to Miss Smith is denied. The defense Motion to Suppress on Mr. Youngman is allowed. The Motion to Reconsider, also filed by [the prosecutor], is denied.”

¶ 14 A written order from the trial court dated December 4, 2014, states, “The state's motion to reconsider the motion to suppress was heard and denied on 8/14/2014.” The State filed its notice of appeal on August 20, 2014. The record contains a motion to reconsider the ruling on Youngman's motion file-stamped August 18, 2014.

¶ 15 In their initial brief on appeal, defendants raised separate jurisdictional defects in each of their cases. Specifically, defendants contended that the appeal in Smith's case was untimely because her suppression motion was granted on July 2, 2014, but the motion to reconsider was not filed until August 8, 2014, which was 37 days after the original ruling. In Youngman's case, defendants contended that the motion to reconsider, formally filed on August 18, 2014, had not been ruled upon when the notice of appeal was filed, rendering the notice of appeal inoperative.

¶ 16 After defendants filed their response brief, this court, on its own motion, ordered that the record on appeal be supplemented instanter. The record was supplemented with two orders from the trial court dated March of 2015. The first order reads: “On July 29th, 2014 without objection the State was given an additional 30 days to file a motion to reconsider the motion to suppress. The motion to reconsider was timely filed by the State. This will supplement the record on appeal.” The second order reads: “The states [sic ] motion to reconsider the defendants [sic ] motion to suppress evidence is heard and denied based on the reasons stated on the record previously.” This order, which is file-stamped March 26, 2015, is dated “Nunc pro tunc 8/19/2014.”

¶ 17 ANALYSIS

¶ 18 I. Jurisdiction

¶ 19 At the outset, we must address defendants' individual challenges to this court's jurisdiction. First, defendants argue that this court lacks jurisdiction over Smith's case because the State failed to timely file its notice of appeal. This failure, defendants contend, stems from the State's...