People v. Lindsey
People v. Lindsey
Opinion
*524 ¶ 1 In April 2014, the police used a trained drug-detection dog to conduct a free air sniff of the door handle and seams of defendant Jonathan Lindsey's motel room. The dog alerted to the presence of drugs inside the room, and the police obtained a search warrant. During their search, they found 4.7 grams of heroin, and Lindsey was charged with unlawful possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance while being within 1000 feet of a school. Lindsey filed a motion to suppress evidence, arguing that the dog sniff violated his fourth amendment rights. The trial court denied the motion. Ultimately, the court found Lindsey guilty and entered a judgment of conviction and a separate second judgment ordering Lindsey to pay a $3000 drug assessment fee, a $500 drug street value fine, and a $250 DNA analysis fee and to submit a DNA sample. Lindsey appealed, arguing that (1) the trial court erred when it denied his motion to suppress evidence and (2) this court should vacate his fees and fine. We reverse and remand.
¶ 2 FACTS
¶ 3 On April 27, 2014, Lindsey was arrested for driving while his license was suspended. While Lindsey was in custody, he told police he was staying in a motel *525 *726 room at American Motor Inn. He did not give the officers consent to search the room. Rock Island County sheriff deputy Jason Pena arrived at the American Motor Inn with a drug-detection dog and performed a free air sniff on the exterior of Lindsey's motel room door. The dog alerted to the presence of drugs in the room. Rock Island Police Department Detective Timothy Muehler obtained a search warrant and found 4.7 grams of a powdery substance later determined to be heroin. After the search, Lindsey admitted that he possessed the heroin. Lindsey was charged with one count of unlawful possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance while being within 1000 feet of a school (Class X felony).
¶ 4 In July 2015, Lindsey filed a motion to suppress evidence. In the motion, he argued that the dog sniff violated his fourth amendment rights because it constituted an unreasonable search of the corridor of his motel room. He, therefore, claimed that any evidence seized and any statements made to the officers subsequent to the search should be suppressed.
¶ 5 A hearing on the motion was held in September 2015. Rock Island Police Department Sergeant Shawn Slavish testified that a dog sniff was conducted on the door of room 130 at the American Motor Inn. He explained that "the door itself set back in a little alcove and as you stepped into the alcove to the right was Room 130 and I believe across the hall to that would be Room 131." The door to the alcove was propped open and the area was open to the public. Pena informed Slavish that the dog had alerted the presence of drugs at the door. Afterward, the officers obtained a search warrant and searched the room.
¶ 6 Officer Pena testified that, on April 27, the Rock Island Police Department requested him to conduct a free air sniff of motel room 130. During the dog sniff, Pena explained,
"I let him off lead and basically had him go to that side of the building actually checking for free air sniffs alongside that building. Once you reach Room 130, he changed his behavior, alerting to the odor of narcotics. In this particular instance what he did is he came up around the door handle and its seams and he-an alert would be that he would actually sit and lay down, which he did, indicating that he is in the odor of narcotics."
The dog was "within inches" of the door when he sniffed the handle and seams. The dog also searched the general area around the room but did not alert the officer about the presence of drugs until he reached room 130.
¶ 7 Kylinn Ellis testified that Lindsey was her son's father. On April 27, Ellis was in the passenger seat of her car while Lindsey was driving. The police pulled the car over, arrested Lindsey for driving without a license, and took possession of the car. Afterward, Ellis walked to American Motor Inn to charge her phone in Lindsey's motel room. When she arrived, she saw a black Suburban with tinted windows in front of the motel. She also believed someone was in the motel room because "the curtains were moving, and you can see like somebody in there" but she did not actually see a person in the room. She did not know if anyone besides Lindsey had stayed in the motel room but she had seen clothes that were not Lindsey's in the room. As she walked up to the motel room, she was stopped by a detective who told her she could not enter the room.
¶ 8 The trial court did not find Ellis's testimony that she believed someone was in the motel room after Lindsey was arrested credible because she had testified that she did not see a person in the room
*526
*727
and there could have been other causes, such as an air conditioning or heating unit, for the movement of the curtains. It also stated that the police had a right to bar Ellis from the motel room to secure the scene. Relying on the Eighth Circuit's decision in
United States v. Roby
,
¶ 9 In October 2015, a stipulated bench trial was held. The court found Lindsey guilty and sentenced him to seven years' imprisonment and three years of mandatory supervised release. At sentencing, the court commented on his fines and fees, stating "I note that there's still monies owing there. The clerk is to take all the monies that is showing [ sic ] owing in these cases and reduce everything to judgment, including the costs here, because obviously, he doesn't have the ability to pay any of them and it's just silly to keep these files open just for money issues in relation to that."
¶ 10 In November 2015, the court entered two separate judgments. The first judgment did not list any fines or fees. The second judgment ordered Lindsey to pay a $3000 drug assessment and a $500 drug street value fine. It also ordered him to submit a specimen of his blood, saliva, or other tissue and pay a $250 DNA analysis fee. The Illinois State Police DNA indexing lab system shows that Lindsey had submitted a swab sample on October 16, 2012. Lindsey appealed both his conviction and the imposition of fines and fees.
¶ 11 ANALYSIS
¶ 12 I. Fourth Amendment
¶ 13 A. Reasonable Expectation of Privacy
¶ 14 Lindsey argues that the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence was error because the police officer's use of a drug-detection dog near his motel room door constituted a warrantless search and, therefore, violated his fourth amendment rights. He claims that case law established that a guest in a motel room is constitutionally protected under the fourth amendment and that this rule also applies to his motel door, which is a part of the structure of the motel room. He also alleges that, pursuant to
Kyllo v. United States
,
¶ 15 To begin, Lindsey references
Stoner v. California
,
¶ 16 Our supreme court in
Eichelberger
concluded that a hotel occupant's reasonable expectation of privacy is
reduced
with
*527
*728
regard to the area immediately adjoining the room and cites
United States v. Burns
,
"[m]otel occupants possess the justifiable expectation that if their conversation is conducted in a manner undetectable outside their room by the electronically unaided ear, that it will go unintercepted. Contrarily, to the extent they converse in a fashion insensitive to the public, or semipublic, nature of walkways adjoining such rooms, reasonable expectations of privacy are correspondingly lessened." Burns ,624 F.2d at 100 .
¶ 17 In Agapito , the Second Circuit stated that a person has a different expectation of privacy in the corridor of a hotel room than in the curtilage of a private residence. The court explained:
" '[D]espite the fact that an individual's Fourth Amendment rights do not evaporate when he rents a motel room, the extent of privacy he is entitled to reasonably expect may very well diminish. For although a motel room shares many of the attributes of privacy of a home, it also possesses many features which distinguish it from a private residence: "A private home is quite different from a place of business or a motel cabin. A home owner or tenant has the exclusive enjoyment of his home, his garage, his barn or other buildings, and also the area under his home. But a transient occupant of a motel must share corridors, sidewalks, yards, and trees with the other occupants. Granted that a tenant has standing to protect the room he occupies, there is nevertheless an element of public or shared property in motel surroundings that is entirely lacking in the enjoyment of one's home." ' " Agapito ,620 F.2d at 331 (quoting United States v. Jackson ,588 F.2d 1046 , 1052 (5th Cir. 1979), quoting Marullo v. United States ,328 F.2d 361 , 363 (5th Cir. 1964) ).
¶ 18 Lindsey also cites multiple cases with varying fact patterns to support the proposition that the use of a drug-sniffing dog in the common area of a motel constitutes a fourth amendment search. In
Florida v. Jardines
,
*528
*729
¶ 19 Justice Kagan concurred, stating that if the case had reviewed Jardines's reasonable expectation of privacy, the Court's decision in
Kyllo
, would provide guidance.
Id.
at 14,
¶ 20 In
United States v. Whitaker
,
"Whitaker's lack of a right to exclude did not mean he had no right to expect certain norms of behavior in his apartment hallway. Yes, other residents and their guests (and even their dogs) can pass through the hallway. They are not entitled, though, to set up chairs and have a party in the hallway right outside the door. Similarly, the fact that a police officer might lawfully walk by and hear loud voices from inside an apartment does not mean he could put a stethoscope to the door to listen to all that is happening inside. Applied to this case, this means that because other residents might bring their dog though the hallway does not mean the police can park a sophisticated drug-sniffing dog outside an apartment door, at least without a warrant."Id. at 853-54 (citing Jardines ,569 U.S. at 9 ,133 S.Ct. 1409 ).
The court concluded that the facts presented constituted a search under the fourth amendment and that Whitaker's rights were violated when the officers conducted a warrantless search in the hallway of his apartment. Id. at 854.
¶ 21 In a similar analysis, our supreme court in
People v. Burns
,
¶ 22 The State argues that case law establishes that a guest in a motel room is entitled to a reduced expectation of privacy. Furthermore, it claims that this court should adopt the ruling in
Roby
,
¶ 23 We find that the reasoning in
Whitaker
and
Jardines
is more persuasive. Similar to a sense-enhancing technology, a trained drug-detection dog is a sophisticated sensing device not available to the general public. See
Jardines
,
¶ 24 The State argues that Lindsey's reasonable expectation of privacy is reduced with regard to the area immediately adjoining the motel room. In
Whitaker
, the court recognized that the defendant did not have a complete expectation of privacy in his apartment hallway; however, this did not mean he had "no reasonable expectation of privacy against persons in the hallway snooping into his apartment using sensitive devices not available to the general public."
Whitaker
,
¶ 25 B. Exclusionary Rule
¶ 26 Next, we address whether Pena's violation meets the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. The State contends that it has met the good faith exception because the officer had no reason to believe that he was violating Lindsey's fourth amendment rights. Although the State acknowledges that the police could not rely on any binding precedent to authorize the dog sniff or the search warrant, it argues, however, there is no precedent prohibiting the officers' actions in a hotel hallway and, if anything, the officers would have relied on Roby and similar cases as guidance.
¶ 27 Generally, courts will not admit evidence obtained in violation of the fourth amendment.
Burns
,
¶ 28 The exclusionary rule is applied only in unusual cases when its application will deter future fourth amendment violations.
¶ 29 Illinois courts have addressed the good faith exception in the context of binding authority.
Bonilla
,
¶ 30 Here, the parties concede, and we agree, that there was no binding appellate precedent in effect at the time but subsequently overruled that Pena could have relied on to justify the dog sniff. In fact, there was sufficient binding precedent for him, as a reasonably well-trained officer, to *531 *732 know the dog sniff required a warrant. The dog sniff in this case occurred on April 27, 2015. At least four, and arguably five, cases decided prior to this dog sniff establish the proposition sufficiently that a reasonably well-trained officer should have known that conducting a warrantless air sniff to detect contents inside a hotel room violates the fourth amendment.
¶ 31 Fifty-one years prior to the search in this case, the United States Supreme Court decided, in
Stoner
,
¶ 32 Thirty-three years prior to this search, the Illinois Supreme Court decided
Eichelberger
,
¶ 33 Fourteen years prior to Pena's search, in Kyllo , the Supreme Court, in a case involving the use of thermal imaging to detect activity inside a home, decided that the use of a sense-enhancing technology not available to the general public to obtain information about activities inside a home that are not visible to the naked eye and that could not be obtained without physical intrusion into the home is a search entitled to fourth amendment protection.
¶ 34 Two years prior to the Pena search, the United States Supreme Court decided in
Jardines
,
¶ 35 Finally, in
People v. Burns
,
¶ 36 In sum, these decisions had clearly established at the time of Pena's dog's sniff of the door to Lindsey's motel room that the sniff violated his reasonable expectation *532 *733 of privacy in his motel room and could not have been undertaken without a warrant. The fact that subsequent decisions of the Illinois Supreme Court and our appellate courts have restated this fact with additional specificity and clarity does not undermine the fact that the earlier cases were quite sufficient to have apprised a reasonably well-trained officer that the execution of the Pena dog sniff without a warrant violated the fourth amendment. The evidence seized as a result of the sniff should have been suppressed on this basis.
¶ 37 Second, the evidence shows that the dog sniff was not merely "simple, isolated negligence," as argued by the State, but was a deliberately executed attempt to find drugs inside Lindsey's motel room. See
LeFlore
,
¶ 38 II. Court Fines
¶ 39 Because Lindsey's conviction has been vacated and this case is being remanded, the fines and fees issues raised by the defendant are moot. However, in the event that a petition for leave to appeal is filed and granted, we briefly address those issues. Lindsey argues that the trial court erred when it assessed a $3000 drug assessment and $500 street value fine in its written judgment because the court stated that it would not impose any fines at sentencing. He asks this court to vacate the drug assessment and street value fine. The State concedes that both fees should be vacated.
¶ 40 "When the oral pronouncement of the court and the written order conflict, the oral pronouncement of the court controls."
People v. Roberson
,
¶ 41 At sentencing, the trial court instructed the clerk to remove Lindsey's fines. However, the second judgment showed that the court assessed a $3000 drug assessment and $500 street value fine. Based on the evidence presented, we *533 *734 vacate the $3000 drug assessment and $500 street value fine.
¶ 42 III. DNA Analysis Fee
¶ 43 Lindsey also alleges that the trial court erred when it ordered him to submit a DNA sample and pay a $250 DNA analysis fee although he previously submitted a DNA sample and paid the fee. He asks this court to vacate the DNA analysis fee. The State concedes that this fee should be vacated.
¶ 44 Section 5-4-3(a) of the Unified Code of Corrections provides that any person convicted of felony offense must submit specimens of blood, saliva, or tissue to the Illinois Department of State Police. 730 ILCS 5/5-4-3(a) (West 2016). Section 5-4-3(j) states that if someone submits specimens of blood, saliva, or tissue, he must pay a $250 analysis fee.
¶ 45 Lindsey states that he failed to preserve this issue for review. However, the State does not argue that he waived this issue and concedes to the vacatur of the analysis fee.
People v. Williams
,
¶ 46 CONCLUSION
¶ 47 The judgment of the circuit court of Rock Island County is reversed and remanded.
¶ 48 Reversed and remanded; fines and fees vacated.
Justice O'Brien concurred in the judgment and opinion.
Justice Schmidt concurred in part and dissented in part, with opinion.
¶ 49 JUSTICE SCHMIDT, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
¶ 50 Even assuming that the majority correctly determined that the dog sniff in this case violated the fourth amendment (it did not), the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies.
¶ 51 Up to this point, courts have determined that canine sniffs of residential and apartment doors constitute fourth amendment searches. See
Jardines
,
*534
*735
Agapito
,
¶ 52 With respect to the fines and fees issues, I agree that we should accept the State's concession and vacate them. Otherwise, I would affirm.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jonathan LINDSEY, Defendant-Appellant.
- Cited By
- 1 case
- Status
- Unpublished