People v. Price

• Decision Date: 29 September 1970
• Docket Number: No. 41567,41567
• Citation: People v. Price, 263 N.E.2d 484, 46 Ill.2d 209 (Ill. 1970)
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Walter PRICE, Appellant.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 484

263 N.E.2d 484

46 Ill.2d 209

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Walter PRICE, Appellant.

No. 41567.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Sept. 29, 1970.

Sam Adam, and Edward Marvin Genson, Chicago, appointed by the court, for appellant.

William J. Scott, Gen., Springfield, and Edward V. Hanrahan, State's Atty., Chicago (James B. Zagel, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Elmer C. Kissane, and Paul P. Biebel, Jr., Asst. State's Attys., of counsel), for the People.

KLUCZYNSKI, Justice.

On December 26, 1966, pursuant to a search warrant, Detectives Campbell and Crosby of the Chicago Police Department searched the apartment of the defendant, Walter Price, and seized measuring spoons with traces of heroin and two marjiuana cigarettes. They also found on the person of the defendant a hypodermic needle and syringe. After the arrest Detective Campbell submitted the search warrant and the complaint for the warrant through regular channels to narcotics court.

Defendant's motion to quash the search warrant and to suppress evidence was denied, and he was found guilty in a bench trial of possession of marijuana and sentenced to a term of from one to three years. He appeals directly to this court alleging: (1) that section 108--4 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Ill.Rev.Stat.1967, ch. 38, par. 108--4) is unconstitutional; (2) that a search warrant issued pursuant to an affidavit signed with a fictitious name is void; and (3) that the search warrant should have been quashed because the allegations in support thereof were specifically denied.

Defendant contends that section 108--4 violates the fourth and fourteenth amendments to the United States constitution because it allows unsupervised police intrusion upon a citizen and his home. Section 108--4 provides: 'All warrants shall state the time and date of issuance and be the warrants of the Judge issuing the same and not the warrants of the court in which he is then sitting and such warrants need not bear the seal of the court or clerk thereof. The complaint on which the warrant is issued need not be filed with the clerk of the court nor with the court if there is no clerk until the wararnt has been executed or has been returned 'not executed."

At the hearing on defendant's motion to quash the search warrant, Officers Pates and Jamison testified that they searched the defendant's apartment in 1966 or 1967. On this occasion nothing was seized and no arrests were made. Pates testified that he normally places the warrant in a basket in the office of the narcotics unit. It is then logged in a book and sent to court. Jamison testified that if no contraband is found in a search, a miscellaneous incident card is filled out and attached to the warrant before it is submitted to the office. Then all warrants are filed with the clerk of the municipal court.

Lieutenant Kernan, commanding officer of the narcotic section during the years of 1966 and 1967, testified that Pates and Jamison conducted the second search of defendant's apartment on February 13, 1967, pursuant to a search warrant. The miscellaneous incident card was introduced, but Kernan could not locate the warrant that had been used. According to his records, no other searches of defendant's apartment were made.

Mrs. Price, wife of the defendant, testified that the police searched the apartment on five or six occasions subsequent to her husband's arrest. She was shown a search warrant on these occasions, but was not given a copy.

Arthur Crowe, a circuit court deputy clerk, testified that he receives the search warrants after they have been executed, but never before they are executed.

Defendant argues that section 108--4 allows the police to secure an unlimited number of search warrants because the warrants are not docketed until the warrant has been executed or has been returned 'not executed'. According to the Committee Comments (S.H.A. ch. 38, § 108--4, p. 265), this section was included to 'end the needless requirement of the use of seals in issuing warrants and, scondly, to enhance the law enforcement process...