People v. Loveless

400 N.E.2d 540, 80 Ill. App. 3d 1052, 36 Ill. Dec. 120, 1980 Ill. App. LEXIS 2303
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedJanuary 24, 1980
Docket78-212
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 400 N.E.2d 540 (People v. Loveless) 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. Loveless, 400 N.E.2d 540, 80 Ill. App. 3d 1052, 36 Ill. Dec. 120, 1980 Ill. App. LEXIS 2303 (Ill. Ct. App. 1980).

Opinion

Mr. JUSTICE BARRY

delivered the opinion of the court:

The defendant, Blake Loveless, was charged by indictment with the offense of unlawful possession of cannabis in violation of section 4(d) of the Cannabis Control Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 56½, par. 704(d)). Pri- or to trial the defendant moved to suppress the cannabis seized on the grounds that it had been obtained as a result of an illegal seizure. The Circuit Court of Peoria County granted the defendant’s motion to suppress, and the State appeals. Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 110A, par. 604(a)(1).

On March 2, 1977, the Peoria Police Department received an anonymous tip that Blake Loveless was selling drugs at Gene’s 615 Club in Peoria. According to the tip, the defendant was wearing an “orangish brown leather jacket.” In response to this tip, Officer John Stenson, who knew Loveless by sight, arrived at the club. Upon entering the building he observed Loveless sitting on the first bar stool by the front door. Directly across from where he was seated was a booth and a table. At this time Loveless was not wearing an outer garment. However, on the table there had been placed a leather “coat” fitting the description of the coat given in the tip. The coat was folded in half. Officer Stenson walked directly over to the table and began to pick up the coat. The defendant, upon seeing this, said, “Hey man, that’s my coat.” Nevertheless, Officer Stenson continued to pick up the coat, and as he did so a brown paper sack fell out on the table. As it fell it opened, and Officer Stenson observed that the sack contained a number of manila envelopes. On the basis of past experience, Stenson knew that such envelopes commonly contained marijuana. Consequendy, Loveless was placed under arrest.

The only issue presented in this case on appeal is whether the trial court properly suppressed evidence obtained by the police as the result of a warrantless seizure of the defendant’s coat, which at the time of the seizure was lying on a table in a public place a short distance from where the defendant was seated. Before we subject the State’s conduct to fourth amendment scrutiny, however, we must address the threshold question of whether the fourth amendment applies to the governmental intrusion in the instant case.

In determining whether the fourth amendment applies to this case, we must decide whether the defendant had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” with regard to his coat. “What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. [Citations.] But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected. ” (Katz v. United States (1967), 389 U.S. 347, 351-52, 19 L. Ed. 2d 576, 582, 88 S. Ct. 507, 511.) Such an expectation must be justifiable to be protected. (United States v. White (1971), 401 U.S. 745, 28 L. Ed. 2d 453, 91 S. Ct. 1122.) The standard is an objective one, as a justifiable expectation of privacy is one which society, and not the individual, is prepared to recognize as reasonable. United States v. Speights (D.N.J. 1976), 413 F. Supp. 1221.

The State argues that the defendant, by placing his coat on a table in a public place, some distance away from where he was seated, had no reasonable expectation of privacy in regard to that coat. Of the four cases relied upon by the State in support of its position (United States v. Alewelt (7th Cir. 1976), 532 F.2d 1165; Patler v. Slayton (4th Cir. 1974), 503 F.2d 472; United States v. Haughn (D.N.J. 1976), 414 F. Supp. 37; United States v. Speights (D.N.J. 1976), 413 F. Supp. 1221), we find the Alewelt case to be the most analogous to the case at bar. In Alewelt, the FBI received information that a man fitting the defendant’s description and wearing a “brown leather Air-Force-type jacket, white cloth cap and metal framed, reflective sunglasses” had robbed a Springfield, Illinois, bank. On the day of the robbery, the investigators went to the office of the defendant’s mother, who worked at the Department of Public Health. The door to the office was open, and upon entry, the agents observed on a coat rack “a brown leather Air-Force-type jacket. In the jacket pocket, apparently clearly visible, were a white cloth cap and several bundles of money in wrappers.” (532 F.2d 1165, 1167.) The agents consequently seized the jacket. On appeal, the defendant contended that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to his jacket and thus the agents’ warrantless seizure should be subjected to fourth amendment scrutiny. The court disagreed:

“[B]y placing the jacket on a coat rack in the general working area of an outer office where he had no possessory interest, the defendant relinquished that degree of control, and reasonable expectation of privacy, necessary to sustain a challenge to the legality of the subsequent search and seizure on Fourth Amendment grounds. (Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S. Ct. 507,19 L. Ed. 2d 576 (1967)). He knew that during business hours the office was occupied by numerous state employees and any member of the public could lawfully enter it. * * * He knew or should have known that the coat rack was so placed that a person in the public hall could see the jacket through the open doorway without actually entering the room. ‘What a person knowingly exposes to the public * * * is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.’ Katz v. United States, supra, 389 U.S. at 351, 88 S. Ct. at 511, 19 L. ed. 2d at 582.” 532 F.2d 1165, 1168.

Just as defendant Alewelt had no reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to his jacket hung on a coat rack in an office open to the public, Blake Loveless had, at least initially, no reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to his coat placed on the table in Gene’s 615 Club. An individual who places a coat on a table in a busy tavern must reasonably expect that that coat will be touched or handled by an employee or by any member of the public who desires to use or sit at that table. Indeed, it is unreasonable to assume that it will not be. By placing his coat on the table, Loveless knowingly exposed it to the public, and as a consequence had then no reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to it.

However, the Supreme Court’s statement in Katz that “[wjhat a person knowingly exposes to the public ° ° 0 is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection” has one major qualification: “But what he seeks to preserve as private * 6 ® may be constitutionally protected.” (389 U.S. 347, 351-52, 19 L. Ed. 2d 576, 582, 88 S. Ct.

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Bluebook (online)
400 N.E.2d 540, 80 Ill. App. 3d 1052, 36 Ill. Dec. 120, 1980 Ill. App. LEXIS 2303, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-loveless-illappct-1980.