People v. Joseph

• Citation: 470 N.E.2d 1303,128 Ill.App.3d 668,83 Ill.Dec. 883
• Decision Date: 09 November 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83,83
• Parties: , 83 Ill.Dec. 883 PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Carlos JOSEPH, a/k/a Joseph Carlos, Defendant-Appellant. 2939.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 1303

470 N.E.2d 1303

128 Ill.App.3d 668, 83 Ill.Dec. 883

PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Carlos JOSEPH, a/k/a Joseph Carlos, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 83 2939.

Appellate Court of Illinois First District, Fifth Division.

Nov. 9, 1984.

James J. Doherty, Public Defender of Cook County, Chicago (Debra Zisook, Alison Edwards, Asst. Public Defenders, Chicago, of counsel), for defendant-appellant.

Richard M. Daley, State's Attorney of Cook County, Chicago (Michael E. Shabat, David A. Cuomo, David A. Izzo, Asst. State's Attys., Chicago, of counsel), for plaintiff-appellee.

LORENZ, Justice:

Following a stipulated bench trial in the circuit court of Cook County, defendant was found guilty of possession of a controlled substance (Ill.Rev.Stat.1981, ch. 56 1/2, par. 1402(b)) and sentenced to two years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. In this appeal defendant contends that he was denied due process of law when he was arrested on the basis of a recalled warrant and there was no independent cause for his arrest.

Prior to trial defendant filed a motion to quash his arrest and suppress the evidence which was obtained thereby. At the hearing on the motion, Officer Gerald Dahlberg testified that at about 2:30 p.m. on August 14, 1982, he and his partner were on routine patrol when they observed the defendant in the vicinity of 7059 South Halsted Street in Chicago, Illinois. The officers, who were familiar with the defendant, put his name into the mobile computer unit in their car, and received information that he was wanted on a bond forfeiture warrant for possession of a controlled substance.

On the basis of this information Dahlberg arrested the defendant and informed him of the outstanding warrant. Defendant did not show him any recall slip or inform him that the warrant had been vacated, and after conducting a patdown search of defendant's person, Dahlberg led him to the squad car. As he did so, he saw defendant drop four pills to the ground.

The parties then stipulated that if attorney Umberto S. Davi were called, he would testify that he represented defendant on the bond forfeiture matter on August 3, 1982, when the bond forfeiture was vacated and the warrant was quashed and recalled. Defense counsel then requested the court to take notice of its own records which showed that bond was posted in the case on August 10, 1982.

After hearing the arguments of counsel, the court took the matter under advisement, then denied defendant's motion to quash the arrest and suppress evidence. In reaching this conclusion the court determined that the officers acted reasonably in arresting defendant based on information which led them to reasonably believe that the warrant issued against the defendant was valid and outstanding at the time they effectuated the arrest.

Trial was held on a subsequent date and proceeded by way of stipulation after defendant was admonished by the trial court. The parties stipulated to the testimony which would be given by Officer Dahlberg concerning defendant's arrest and the recovery of the pills. This was substantially the same testimony that he had given at the hearing on defendant's motion to quash the arrest and suppress evidence. In addition the parties stipulated that the pills released by the defendant and recovered by the officer were inventoried and analyzed by a police department chemist. Two of the pills weighed .39 grams and tested positive for pentazocine, commonly known as Talwin. On this evidence the defendant was found guilty as charged and sentenced to a term of imprisonment.

In this appeal defendant contends solely that he was denied due process of law when he was arrested on the basis of a recalled warrant, that there existed no independent cause for his arrest, and that the trial court improperly denied his motion to quash arrest and suppress evidence. In support of his contention defendant relies principally on Whitely v. Warden (1971), 401 U.S. 560, 91 S.Ct. 1031, 28 L.Ed.2d 306, and its progeny.

Whitely held that a police officer was entitled to act upon information relayed to him in a police radio bulletin that a warrant existed for defendant's arrest, and could properly assume that the warrant was valid. However, when it was later determined that no probable cause existed for the issuance of the warrant in the first place and the warrant was, in fact, invalid, the evidence seized pursuant to the illegal arrest was subject to suppression. 401 U.S. 560, 568-69, 91 S.Ct. 1031, 1037-38, 28 L.Ed.2d 306.

Following this decision the court in People v. Decuir (1980), 84 Ill.App.3d 531, 39 Ill.Dec. 912, 405 N.E.2d 891, applied the reasoning in Whitely to a situation where defendant was arrested on the basis of a warrant which had been quashed and recalled about two weeks before the arrest took place. The court held that although a police officer who is assisting in the execution of an arrest warrant from another jurisdiction may assume that the warrant was issued on the basis of sufficient information to support an independent judicial assessment of probable cause, where the contrary turns out to be true, the illegal arrest cannot be insulated from a challenge to the warrant, and the evidence illegally seized in an arrest made without probable cause must be suppressed. 84 Ill.App.3d 531, 533, 39 Ill.Dec. 912, 405 N.E.2d 891.

On the basis of these cases and those in other jurisdictions which have reached similar conclusions, defendant contends that his arrest, based on the communication of erroneous information to the arresting officer, was invalid and the evidence seized incident thereto should have been suppressed. The State argues that the trial court properly denied defendant's motion to quash the arrest and suppress evidence because the arresting officer received information through police channels that defendant was wanted on a bond forfeiture warrant on the day of his arrest, and defendant did not tell the officer that the warrant had been vacated or show him a warrant recall slip.

As authority for its position, the State cites People v. White (1977), 51 Ill.App.3d 155, 9 Ill.Dec. 234, 366 N.E.2d 491, where this court held that a police officer, who reasonably believes that a warrant has been issued against an accused, may arrest him without having actual possession of the warrant. In White the police officer had been in court and heard a bond forfeiture issue against the defendant two days before the arrest. When confronted, defendant stated that the order had been vacated, but failed to produce proof of it. On these facts this court found that it was reasonable for the police officer to believe that the warrant was still outstanding and upheld...