ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT CURBS POLICE POWERS IN CAR SEARCHES

A traffic stop does not give police license to conduct a full-fledged
criminal investigation, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday in two
different cases.

The court reversed a marijuana conviction of Roy Caballes, who was stopped
for driving 71 mph in a 65 mph zone on Interstate 80. While a state trooper
wrote him a warning ticket, another trooper walked a drug-sniffing dog
around his car.

The dog reacted, and the troopers found marijuana in the trunk.

Prosecutors argued that, under U.S. Supreme Court rulings, letting police
dogs sniff outside the car does not violate the Fourth Amendment protection
against unreasonable search and seizure because the dogs do not actually
enter the car.

But Justice Thomas Kilbride wrote in a 4-3 opinion, "The police
impermissibly broadened the scope of a traffic stop in this case into a drug
investigation."

The same lineup of justices also reversed a drug possession conviction for
Raymond Harris, a passenger in a car stopped in Will County. A sheriff's
officer stopped the car for an illegal left turn. He requested
identification from Harris because he was considering letting Harris drive
the vehicle back, he said.

The officer discovered an outstanding warrant for Harris' failure to appear
in court and arrested him. He found a pea-size rock of cocaine.

"The warrant check was not supported by a reasonable, articulate suspicion
that [Harris] had committed or was about to commit a crime," Justice Charles
Freeman wrote.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan is considering whether to appeal the cases to
the U.S. Supreme Court, which has given police more leeway to conduct
searches during traffic stops, said Solicitor General Gary Feinerman.

But Andrea Lyon, president of the Illinois Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers and a professor at DePaul University College of Law, calls the
rulings "pretty unreviewable" because federal law allows the states to grant
more due process than federal case law requires, she said.

"I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised because, over the last few decades,
we have been giving up so much of the Fourth Amendment," Lyons said. "What
the Illinois Supreme Court is doing is saying, 'We take our citizens' right
to be free from unlawful searches and seizures seriously.' "

Caballes' attorney Ralph Meczyk said, "The Illinois Supreme Court was not
willing to chip away at Illinois citizens' basic rights."

In both cases, the court ruled that "motions to suppress" evidence entered
against the defendants -- namely the drugs -- should have been granted. In
both cases, the same minority of three justices argued that the searches
were not "unreasonable."