People v. Castree

• Decision Date: 03 April 1924
• Docket Number: No. 15401.,15401.
• Citation: 311 Ill. 392,143 N.E. 112
• Parties: PEOPLE v. CASTREE.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

311 Ill. 392

143 N.E. 112

PEOPLE

v.CASTREE.

No. 15401.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Feb. 19, 1924.

Rehearing Denied April 3, 1924.

Error to Winnebago County Court; Fred E. Carpenter, Judge.

Sam Castree was convicted of a violation of the prohibition act, and he brings error.

Reversed and remanded.

Thompson, J., dissenting.Roy F. Hall, of Rockford, for plaintiff in error.

Edward J. Brundage, Atty. Gen., William Johnson, State's Atty., of Rockford, George C. Dixon, of Dixon, and A. B. Louison, of Rockford (James Wilson Gullett, of Springfield, of counsel), for the People.

DUNN, J.

An information of two counts was filed against Sam Castree in the county court of Winnebago county, charging him in the first count with having on February 1, 1923, unlawfully sold intoxicating liquor, and in the second with unlawfully possessing intoxicating liquor on the same date. He was tried and found guilty on both counts, and on March 26, 1923, his motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment were overruled and he was sentenced to 150 days' imprisonment in the county jail and to pay a fine of $100 and costs. He sued a writ of error out of this court on the ground that a constitutional question is involved.

Before the information was filed, the state's attorney had made a complaint, under oath, to two justices of the peace of the county and had caused a search warrant to be issued to search the store building occupied by the plaintiff in error, known as 1427 Rock street, in the city of Rockford, for intoxicating liquor, under which two deputy sheriffs had searched his residence and found and taken away three jugs of intoxicating liquor. The affidavits for the search warrant stated that the reasons for the affiant's belief that intoxicating liquor was unlawfully possessed and kept for sale in the premises were ‘information from responsible person who has seen intoxicated persons coming from said premises.’ Before the trial the plaintiff in error filed a petition, verified by his oath, stating that 1427 Rock street is not a store building but is a residence, and he conducted a small store in the room of the house, which fronts and has its entrance of Lane street, while the entrance to his residence is from Rock street; that there is a door from the house leading into the room which he uses as a store, and there is no other store room in the dwelling, and that all the remainder of such dwelling house is used solely as a dwelling; that the officers having the warrant searched not only the store room but went through the door into his dwelling and searched it in the nighttime, and the intoxicating liquor which they seized was not found in the store, but was taken from his house. The prayer of the petition was that the court investigate the question and that the property alleged to have been taken under the search warrant be impounded and not used in evidence against the plaintiff in error. The court denied the petition, and on the trial admitted in evidence, over the objection of the plaintiff in error, the proceedings under the search warrant, the search of the dwelling as well as the storeroom, the finding of intoxicating liquor in the dwelling, and the jugs and liquor which were seized. The action of the court in denying the motions of the plaintiff in error and admitting the evidence of the officers as to the result of their search raises the principal question in the case, which is: Is evidence obtained by an unreasonable search conducted by officers of the state admissible on the trial of the owner of the premises searched on a criminal charge, upon the ground that it was obtained in violation of his constitutional right?

Section 6 of article 2 of the state Constitution provides:

‘The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrant shall issue without probable cause, supported by affidavit, particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.’

Not all searches are prohibited, but unreasonable searches, only. Warrants may issue, but not without probable cause, supported by affidavit, and only to search the place particularly described. A search without a warrant is an unreasonable search, and a search of a place not described is without a warrant and is unreasonable. The search of the plaintiff in error's dwelling under a warrant particularly describing a store was unreasonable, and therefore was an invasion of the right of security guaranteed him by section 6 of the Bill of Rights. The Fourth Amendment to the federal Constitution is in practically the same words. It was one of the ten amendments ratified by the Legislatures of the various states after having been submitted by the first Congress in response to the recommendation of the states ratifying the Constitution, and the importance with which the right which it guarantees had been regarded is indicated by the various decisions of the Supreme Court sustaining it and the language of one of the most recent of them:

‘It would not be possible to add to the emphasis with which the framers of our Constitution and this court (in Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, in Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, and in Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385) have declared the importance to political liberty and to the welfare of our country of the due observance of the rights guaranteed under the Constitution by these two amendments [The Fourth and Fifth]. The effect of the decisions cited is: That such rights are declared to be indispensable to the ‘full enjoyment of personal security, personal liberty and private property’; that they are to be regarded as of the very essence of constitutional liberty; and that the guaranty of them is as important and as imperative as are the guaranties of the other fundamental rights of the individual citizen—the right, to trial by jury, to the writ of habeas corpus and to due process of law. It has been repeatedly decided that these amendments should receive a liberal construction, so as to prevent stealthy encroachment upon or ‘gradual depreciation’ of the rights secured by them, by imperceptible practice of courts, or by well-intentioned but mistakenly overzealous executive officers.' Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298, 41 Sup. Ct. 261, 65 L. Ed. 647.

It is the general rule that the admissibility of evidence is not affected by the source from which it comes or the illegality of the means by which it was procured. The rule is stated in Gindrat v. People, 138 Ill. 103, 27 N. E. 1085, as follows:

‘Courts, in the administration of the criminal law, are not accustomed to be oversensitive in regard to the sources from which evidence comes, and will avail themselves of all evidence that is competent and pertinent, and not subversive of some constitutional or legal right.’

The last clause is important and is vital to the question now under consideration, for to receive the evidence in this case would be subversive of the plaintiff in error's constitutional right to be secure in his person, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. In the Gindrat Case it was not so, for the person who obtained the evidence there was only a private detective acting under a private employment having no official authority, and it was held, in accordance with the universal holding of the federal courts in similar cases, that section 6 of article 2 of our Constitution is a limitation on the powers of the state government and has nothing to do with the unauthorized acts of private individuals having no authority or color of authority from the state. That provision in a Constitution is intended to protect the individual from official oppression and not from private trespass or criminal violence. The opinion in the Gindrat Case makes plain the difference, in pointing out the clear distinction between that case and the case of Boyd v. United States, supra. In other cases in this court the rule has been applied that where a defendant's property or papers have been by artifice or deceit, or unlawfully, by stealth or force, obtained by an individual not acting under color of authority from the state, the court will determine the admissibility of the evidence without inquiring into the method by which it was procured. Siebert v. People, 143 Ill. 571, 32 N. E. 431;Trask v. People, 151 Ill. 523, 38 N. E. 248;People v. Paisley, 288 Ill. 310, 123 N. E. 573.

In People v. Brocamp, 307 Ill. 448, 138 N. E. 728, the question was presented for the first time in this court of the admissibility in evidence of stolen property which had been obtained by an unlawful search and seizure conducted by virtue of their office by state officers charged with the prosecution of crime. In that case, without a warrant such officers invaded the defendant's premises and without authority of law searched for and seized certain property alleged to have been stolen. It was a case within the exception mentioned in the Gindrat Case, subversive of the defendant's constitutional right, and we held that while the court, on objection to the admission of evidence, will not stop the trial of the case and enter upon the trial of a collateral issue as to the source from which the evidence was obtained, where the defendant makes timely application, before the beginning of the trial, for an order directing the return to him of the property or papers unlawfully seized, the court should hear and determine the question of the legality of the seizure, and if it erroneously refuses to do so and receives the property in evidence against the defendant over his objection, it is an error for which the judgment of conviction must be reversed. This decision was in accordance with the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and of many of the states of the Union.

In Boyd v. United States, supra, the court...