People v. Lindsey

• Decision Date: 30 October 2018
• Docket Number: Appeal No. 3-15-0877
• Citation: 427 Ill.Dec. 522,118 N.E.3d 723,2018 IL App (3d) 150877
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jonathan LINDSEY, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

2018 IL App (3d) 150877

118 N.E.3d 723

427 Ill.Dec. 522

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Jonathan LINDSEY, Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal No. 3-15-0877

Appellate Court of Illinois, Third District.

Opinion filed October 30, 2018

JUSTICE McDADE delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 In April 2014, the police used a trained drug-detection dog to conduct a free air sniff of the door handle and seams of defendant Jonathan Lindsey's motel room. The dog alerted to the presence of drugs inside the room, and the police obtained a search warrant. During their search, they found 4.7 grams of heroin, and Lindsey was charged with unlawful possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance while being within 1000 feet of a school. Lindsey filed a motion to suppress evidence, arguing that the dog sniff violated his fourth amendment rights. The trial court denied the motion. Ultimately, the court found Lindsey guilty and entered a judgment of conviction and a separate second judgment ordering Lindsey to pay a $3000 drug assessment fee, a $500 drug street value fine, and a $250 DNA analysis fee and to submit a DNA sample. Lindsey appealed, arguing that (1) the trial court erred when it denied his motion to suppress evidence and (2) this court should vacate his fees and fine. We reverse and remand.

¶ 2 FACTS

¶ 3 On April 27, 2014, Lindsey was arrested for driving while his license was suspended. While Lindsey was in custody, he told police he was staying in a motel room at American Motor Inn. He did not give the officers consent to search the room. Rock Island County sheriff deputy Jason Pena arrived at the American Motor Inn with a drug-detection dog and performed a free air sniff on the exterior of Lindsey's motel room door. The dog alerted to the presence of drugs in the room. Rock Island Police Department Detective Timothy Muehler obtained a search warrant and found 4.7 grams of a powdery substance later determined to be heroin. After the search, Lindsey admitted that he possessed the heroin. Lindsey was charged with one count of unlawful possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance while being within 1000 feet of a school (Class X felony).

¶ 4 In July 2015, Lindsey filed a motion to suppress evidence. In the motion, he argued that the dog sniff violated his fourth amendment rights because it constituted an unreasonable search of the corridor of his motel room. He, therefore, claimed that any evidence seized and any statements made to the officers subsequent to the search should be suppressed.

¶ 5 A hearing on the motion was held in September 2015. Rock Island Police Department Sergeant Shawn Slavish testified that a dog sniff was conducted on the door of room 130 at the American Motor Inn. He explained that "the door itself set back in a little alcove and as you stepped into the alcove to the right was Room 130 and I believe across the hall to that would be Room 131." The door to the alcove was propped open and the area was open to the public. Pena informed Slavish that the dog had alerted the presence of drugs at the door. Afterward, the officers obtained a search warrant and searched the room.

¶ 6 Officer Pena testified that, on April 27, the Rock Island Police Department requested him to conduct a free air sniff of motel room 130. During the dog sniff, Pena explained,

"I let him off lead and basically had him go to that side of the building actually checking for free air sniffs alongside that building. Once you reach Room 130, he changed his behavior, alerting to the odor of narcotics. In this particular instance what he did is he came up around the door handle and its seams and he—an alert would be that he would actually sit and lay down, which he did, indicating that he is in the odor of narcotics."

The dog was "within inches" of the door when he sniffed the handle and seams. The dog also searched the general area around the room but did not alert the officer about the presence of drugs until he reached room 130.

¶ 7 Kylinn Ellis testified that Lindsey was her son's father. On April 27, Ellis was in the passenger seat of her car while Lindsey was driving. The police pulled the car over, arrested Lindsey for driving without a license, and took possession of the car. Afterward, Ellis walked to American Motor Inn to charge her phone in Lindsey's motel room. When she arrived, she saw a black Suburban with tinted windows in front of the motel. She also believed someone was in the motel room because "the curtains were moving, and you can see like somebody in there" but she did not actually see a person in the room. She did not know if anyone besides Lindsey had stayed in the motel room but she had seen clothes that were not Lindsey's in the room. As she walked up to the motel room, she was stopped by a detective who told her she could not enter the room.

¶ 8 The trial court did not find Ellis's testimony that she believed someone was in the motel room after Lindsey was arrested credible because she had testified that she did not see a person in the room and there could have been other causes, such as an air conditioning or heating unit, for the movement of the curtains. It also stated that the police had a right to bar Ellis from the motel room to secure the scene. Relying on the Eighth Circuit's decision in United States v. Roby , 122 F.3d 1120 (8th Cir. 1997), the court determined that Lindsey did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the corridor of his motel room because, unlike an apartment or house, the corridor of a motel room "was a public place of accommodation, and it was a public access area." The trial judge explained that there were no Illinois cases that addressed this issue, and although he agreed with some of the points discussed in the Roby dissent, he was not going to create new case law. Ultimately, the court denied the motion to suppress.

¶ 9 In October 2015, a stipulated bench trial was held. The court found Lindsey guilty and sentenced him to seven years' imprisonment and three years of mandatory supervised release. At sentencing, the court commented on his fines and fees, stating "I note that there's still monies owing there. The clerk is to take all the monies that is showing [sic ] owing in these cases and reduce everything to judgment, including the costs here, because obviously, he doesn't have the ability to pay any of them and it's just silly to keep these files open just for money issues in relation to that."

¶ 10 In November 2015, the court entered two separate judgments. The first judgment did not list any fines or fees. The second judgment ordered Lindsey to pay a $3000 drug assessment and a $500 drug street value fine. It also ordered him to submit a specimen of his blood, saliva, or other tissue and pay a $250 DNA analysis fee. The Illinois State Police DNA indexing lab system shows that Lindsey had submitted a swab sample on October 16, 2012. Lindsey appealed both his conviction and the imposition of fines and fees.

¶ 11 ANALYSIS

¶ 12 I. Fourth Amendment

¶ 13 A. Reasonable Expectation of Privacy

¶ 14 Lindsey argues that the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence was error because the police officer's use of a drug-detection dog near his motel room door constituted a warrantless search and, therefore, violated his fourth amendment rights. He claims that case law established that a guest in a motel room is constitutionally protected under the fourth amendment and that this rule also applies to his motel door, which is a part of the structure of the motel room. He also alleges that, pursuant to Kyllo v. United States , 533 U.S. 27, 121 S.Ct. 2038, 150 L.Ed.2d 94 (2001), the dog sniff violated his fourth amendment rights because a drug-detection dog was used to explore details of the motel room not previously discernible without physical intrusion.

¶ 15 To begin, Lindsey references Stoner v. California , 376 U.S. 483, 84 S.Ct. 889, 11 L.Ed.2d 856 (1964), and People v. Eichelberger , 91 Ill. 2d 359, 63 Ill.Dec. 402, 438 N.E.2d 140 (1982), to support his argument that a guest in a motel room is entitled to constitutional protections under the fourth amendment. In Stoner , the United States Supreme Court established that "[n]o less than a tenant of a house, or the occupant of a room in a boarding house, [citation], a guest in a hotel room is entitled to constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures." Stoner , 376 U.S. at 490, 84 S.Ct. 889.

¶ 16 Our supreme court in Eichelberger concluded that a hotel occupant's reasonable expectation of privacy is reduced with regard to the area immediately adjoining the room and cites United States v. Burns , 624 F.2d 95 (10th Cir. 1980), and United States v. Agapito , 620 F.2d 324 (2nd Cir. 1980), to support its reasoning. In Burns , the Tenth Circuit stated that, in the context of conversation,

"[m]otel occupants possess the justifiable expectation that if their conversation is conducted in a manner undetectable outside their room by the electronically unaided ear, that it will go unintercepted. Contrarily, to the extent they converse in a fashion insensitive to the public, or semipublic, nature of walkways adjoining such rooms, reasonable expectations of privacy are correspondingly lessened." Burns , 624 F.2d at 100.

¶ 17 In Agapito , the Second Circuit stated that a person has a different expectation of privacy in the corridor of a hotel room than in the curtilage of a private residence. The court explained:

" ‘[D]espite the fact that an individual's Fourth Amendment rights do not evaporate when he rents a motel room, the extent of privacy he is entitled to reasonably expect may very well diminish. For although a motel room shares many of the attributes of privacy of a home, it also possesses many features which distinguish it from a private residence: "A private home is quite different from a place of business or a motel cabin. A home owner or tenant has the exclusive

...