People v. Roebuck

• Decision Date: 06 June 1962
• Docket Number: No. 36653,36653
• Citation: People v. Roebuck, 183 N.E.2d 166, 25 Ill.2d 108 (Ill. 1962)
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Paul ROEBUCK, Plaintiff in Error.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 166

183 N.E.2d 166

25 Ill.2d 108

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Defendant in Error, v. Paul ROEBUCK, Plaintiff in Error.

No. 36653.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 6, 1962.

Holland C. Capper, Chicago (Thomas P. Sullivan and Martin S. Bieber, Chicago, of counsel), for plaintiff in error.

William G. Clark, Atty. Gen., springfield, and Daniel P. Ward, State's Atty., Chicago (Fred G. Leach and E. Michael O'Brien, Asst. Attys. Gen. and John T. Gallagher and James R. Thompson, Asst. State's Attys., of counsel), for defendant in error.

HERSHEY, Chief Justice.

Defendant was indicted for the unlawful possession of narcotics. He made a timely motion to suppress evidence which he alleged had been obtained by Chicago police officers in violation of his constitutional rights. The trial judge, after hearing evidence, denied the motion. Defendant was tried by the court without a jury. The People introduced the evidence defendant had moved to suppress. Defendant was found guilty as charged and was sentenced to the penitentiary for from five to ten years. His written post-trial motions were overruled. His sole contention on this writ of error is that the court erred in denying his motion to suppress.

The record of the hearing on the motion to suppress discloses that defendant, who had previously been convicted of a felony, and a female companion, known to the police as a narcotics addict and prostitute, were walking down a public sidewalk in Chicago when they were arrested without a warrant by two Chicago police officers for violation of a Chicago ordinance making it unlawful 'for any habitual drunkard, any person known to be a narcotic addict, any person known to be a prostitute, or any person who aids or abets prostitution, or for any person previously convicted of a felony, of prostitution, or of aiding and abetting prostitution, to assemble or congregate with other persons of any of the foregoing classes in or about the public ways, or other public places in the city, or to loaf or loiter in or about or frequent the premises of any place where intoxicating liquors are sold.' The arresting officers knew of defendant's previous conviction of a felony and also knew that his companion had served 90 days in the house of correction as a narcotics addict and that she was a prostitute.

Immediately following the arrest, as one of the officers was attempting to search defendant, the other officer saw defendant throw an object into a parked car. The object was retrieved and was later identified as heroin. This was the evidence toward which the motion to suppress was directed.

Defendant contends that his conduct was not within the prohibition of the ordinance, and further that the ordinance is unconstitutional. From this he reasons that his arrest and the search incident thereto were both unlawful, and that his motion to suppress should have been allowed. The People, on the other hand, citing People v. Stewart, 23 Ill.2d 161, 177 N.E.2d 237, and Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 44 S.Ct. 445, 68 L.Ed. 898, contend that the incriminating evidence was not obtained as the result of any search, reasonable or unreasonable, since it was taken from a car where it was plainly visible from the outside, and since it had been abandoned by the defendant before its seizure by the police. Unlike the cases cited by the People, however, the discovery of the heroin was a direct and immediate result of the arrest and search of the defendant. We are, therefore, unable to accept the People's contention that the seizure of the heroin can be divorced from the question of the lawfulness of the arrest and the reasonableness of the attendant search of defendant's...