People v. Parker
| Citation | 42 Ill.2d 42,245 N.E.2d 487 |
| Decision Date | 22 November 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 41055,41055 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Lawrence G. PARKER, Appellant. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Illinois |
Julius Lucius Echeles and Jo-Anne Wolfson, Chicago, for appellant.
William G. Clark, Atty. Gen., Springfield, and Basil G. Greanias, State's Atty., Decatur (Fred G. Leach, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Frederick O. Erickson, Asst. State's Atty., of counsel), for appellee.
Lawrence Parker, the defendant, was convicted under two indictments charging him with illegal possession of narcotics. His motion to suppress the admission in evidence of certain marijuana found in his desk at his place of employment and at his home was denied, and he was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to a term of not less than 2 nor more than 5 years in the penitentiary. He appeals, contending that the indictments against him were void, that the State failed to prove that the seized substances were marijuana, that a certain instruction relating to 'dangerous drugs' was improperly refused, and that his constitutional rights were violated by the denial of his motion to suppress. In the view we take of the case, it is necessary only to discuss the evidence bearing on this latter contention since we hold that the motion to suppress should have been allowed.
The contraband in question was uncovered and seized pursuant to a search warrant issued March 15, 1967, by a judge of the circuit court of Macon County. The verified complaints for the warrants recited that the complainant, Kenneth Metcalf, a State narcotics inspector, 'has been informed by an informant who has previously given information to said complainant which proved to be true' that Lawrence Parker had a quantity of marijuana stored in his desk at his place of employment and at his home which the informer had personally observed. They further recited that the informer had purchased samples of this marijuana from Lawrence Parker in recent months which had been turned over to the complainant, subjected to analysis and proved to be marijuana.
The issue presented here, as below, is whether the foregoing affidavits established probable cause for the issuance of the search warrants. As they were the only matters presented to the circuit judge, the warrants must stand or fall solely on their contents. It is now well settled, following the Supreme Court's decisions in Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697, 78 A.L.R.2d 233; Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723, and Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637, that an affidavit based on the observations of one other than the affiant is not to be deemed insufficient, 'so long as a substantial basis for crediting the hearsay is presented.' (See People v. Williams, 36 Ill.2d 505, 508, 224 N.E.2d 225; People v. York, 29 Ill.2d 68, 193 N.E.2d 773.) To establish such basis, 'the magistrate (issuing the warrant) must be informed of some of the underlying circumstances from which the informant concluded that the narcotics were where he claimed they were, and some of the underlying circumstances from which the officer (the affiant) concluded that the informant * * * was 'credible' or his information 'reliable. " Aguilar, 378 U.S. at 114, 84 S.Ct. at 1514.
In our judgment, the instant...
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