People v. Bonilla

2017 IL App (3d) 160457
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedJune 14, 2017
Docket3-16-0457
StatusUnpublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 2017 IL App (3d) 160457 (People v. Bonilla) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Bonilla, 2017 IL App (3d) 160457 (Ill. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

2017 IL App (3d) 160457

Opinion filed June 14, 2017 ______________________________________________________________________________

IN THE

APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS

THIRD DISTRICT

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ) Appeal from the Circuit Court ILLINOIS, ) of the 14th Judicial Circuit, ) Rock Island County, Illinois. Plaintiff-Appellant, ) ) Appeal No. 3-16-0457 v. ) Circuit No. 15-CF-225 ) DERRICK BONILLA, ) The Honorable ) Frank R. Fuhr, Defendant-Appellee. ) Judge, presiding. ______________________________________________________________________________

JUSTICE CARTER delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion. Justice O’Brien concurred in the judgment and opinion. Justice Wright dissented, with opinion. ______________________________________________________________________________

OPINION

¶1 Defendant, Derrick Bonilla, was charged with unlawful possession of cannabis with

intent to deliver (720 ILCS 550/5(c) (West 2014)). He filed a motion to quash warrant and

suppress evidence (motion to suppress), which the trial court granted after a hearing. The State

appeals. We affirm the trial court’s judgment.

¶2 FACTS

¶3 The facts in this case are not in dispute and were stipulated to as follows by the parties at

the hearing on the motion to suppress. Police officers had received a tip that drugs were being sold out of apartment 304 of the Pheasant Ridge Apartment Complex in Moline, Illinois. Acting

on that tip, on March 19, 2015, the officers brought a trained drug-detection dog to that location.

The exterior doors leading into the apartment building’s common-area hallways were not locked,

and there was no lock, pass card, entry system, or anything whatsoever on the closed exterior

doors of the apartment building that would prevent any person off the street from entering into

the common-area hallways of the apartment building. Once inside the apartment building, canine

officer Genisio walked his drug-detection dog down some of the common-area hallways. The

first area that the dog was walked through was the second floor common-area hallway, which

included apartments 201, 202, 203, and 204. The dog showed no interest in that hallway and did

not alert on any of the doorways. The next area Officer Genisio walked his dog through was the

third floor common-area hallway, which included apartments 301, 302, 303, and 304. The dog

showed no interest in apartments 301, 302, or 303. As the dog came to apartment 304, however,

the dog moved back and forth in the doorway, sniffing at the bottom of the door, and signaled a

positive alert for the presence of illegal drugs. The police officers obtained a search warrant for

apartment 304 based upon the drug-detection dog’s alert. After obtaining the search warrant, the

officers searched the apartment and found a quantity of cannabis and certain other items.

Defendant, who lived in apartment 304, was later arrested and charged with unlawful possession

of cannabis with intent to deliver.

¶4 In June 2015, defendant filed the instant motion to suppress. A hearing was held on the

motion in August 2016. As noted above, the parties stipulated to the facts for the hearing and no

additional testimony or other evidence was presented. At the conclusion of the hearing, after

listening to the arguments of the attorneys, the trial court granted the motion to suppress. In so

doing, the trial court stated:

2 “But I think whether you are doing it as a privacy interest under Kylo [sic]

[(Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001))] or a curtilage property interest

under Jardines [(Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. ___, 133 S. Ct. 1409 (2013))], I

think it would just be unfair to say you can’t come up on a person who lives in a

single family residence and sniff his door but you can go into someone’s hallway

and sniff their door if they happen to live in an apartment. That’s a distinction

with an unfair difference. So I’m granting the motion.”

¶5 After the State’s oral motion to reconsider was denied, the State appealed. The State did

not file a separate certificate of impairment but did set forth in its notice of appeal that the

granting of defendant’s motion to suppress had the substantive effect of dismissing the charges.

¶6 ANALYSIS

¶7 On appeal, the State argues that the trial court erred in granting defendant’s motion to

suppress evidence. The State asserts, although not necessarily in the order that follows, that the

motion to suppress should have been denied because (1) the common-area hallway in front of

defendant’s apartment door, where the alleged search took place, did not constitute curtilage

under the law; (2) defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the common-area

hallway or in the air or odor of cannabis emanating from under his apartment door; (3) neither

the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Jardines nor the Illinois Supreme Court’s ruling in

Burns (People v. Burns, 2016 IL 118973, ¶¶ 31-45) supports the trial court’s grant of the motion

to suppress in the instant case; (4) under the established precedent, the police dog sniff in this

case was not a search for purposes of the fourth amendment and was different from the thermal

imaging scan that was condemned by the United States Supreme Court in Kyllo; and (5) even if

this court finds that the alleged search violated the fourth amendment, the good faith exception to

3 the exclusionary rule operates to avoid suppression of the evidence seized under the search

warrant in this case since the police were acting in reliance upon the legal landscape as it existed

at the time with respect to the use of drug-detection dogs in areas that were open to the general

public. For all of the reasons set forth, the State asks that we reverse the trial court’s grant of the

motion to suppress and that we remand this case for further proceedings.

¶8 Defendant argues that the trial court’s ruling was proper and should be upheld. Defendant

asserts that the motion to suppress was correctly granted because the police officer physically

intruded, without an implied license, on the constitutionally protected curtilage just outside of

defendant’s apartment door to conduct a warrantless search with a drug-detection dog.

According to defendant, it makes no difference in this case on the determination of curtilage

whether the main entry to the apartment building was locked or unlocked. Defendant

acknowledges that the police officer, like any other member of the public, had an implied license

to approach defendant’s apartment and knock on the front door, but claims that the officer

exceeded the scope of that license by approaching with a trained drug-detection dog for the sole

purpose of detecting illegal activity within the apartment. Defendant asserts further that the good

faith exception does not apply in this case because the police officer could not have reasonably

believed under any United States precedent that his actions were authorized. For all of the

reasons stated, defendant asks that we affirm the trial court’s suppression order.

¶9 In general, a reviewing court applies a two-part standard of review to a trial court’s ruling

on a motion to suppress evidence. Ornelas v.

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Related

People v. Bonilla
2017 IL App (3d) 160457 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2017)

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2017 IL App (3d) 160457, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-bonilla-illappct-2017.