People v. Tassone

• Decision Date: 24 September 1968
• Docket Number: No. 40645,40645
• Citation: 41 Ill.2d 7,241 N.E.2d 419
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Sam TASSONE, Appellant.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 419

241 N.E.2d 419

41 Ill.2d 7

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Appellee, v. Sam TASSONE, Appellant.

No. 40645.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Sept. 24, 1968.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 21, 1968.

Albert I. Zemel, Chicago, for appellant.

William G. Clark, Atty. Gen., Springfield, and John J. Stamos, State's Atty., Chicago (Fred G. Leach, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Elmer C. Kissane and John M. Goldberg, Asst. State's Attys., of counel), for appellee.

SOLFISBURG, Chief Justice.

The defendant, Sam Tassone, was indicted in the circuit court of Cook County for the crime of theft. Following a bench trial the defendant was found guilty in October, 1965, and was sentenced to the penitentiary for one to three years. He appeals directly to this court contending, among other things, that his arrest was illegal and that evidence demonstrating that the truck he was driving was stolen should have been suppressed.

On July 26, 1964, two police officers of the Forest View Police Department observed a semi-trailer truck parked behind a motel at approximately 7:30 P.M. On the side of the truck was printed the name 'Interstate Motor Freight System.' On approaching the truck the officers observed that it was unoccupied although the keys were in the ignition. The truck was then placed under surveillance, during which time the officers notified the police station and asked that Interstate be contacted in order to ascertain whether the truck had been stolen.

After having watched the truck for approximately three hours, the officers observed an automobile containing three occupants arrive at the scene, but apparently the automobile did not come from the motel. One of the occupants, the defendant, left the automobile, entered the truck and proceeded to drive it away. The officers followed the truck and curbed it after it had been driven about one-half mile. The defendant thereupon produced his driver's license but, according to the officers, refused to answer any questions pertaining to his possession of the truck. He was then placed under arrest and the truck taken into possession by the police.

A motion to suppress was originally granted by the trial judge. Shortly before defendant's trial, however, the trial judge asked for further argument and denied the motion to suppress. At the hearing on the motion, one of the arresting officers testified he had received word from the police station prior to defendant's arrest that the truck had been stolen from Interstate. On cross-examination, however, the officer admitted testifying before the grand jury that he had no knowledge that the truck had been stolen until after the defendant had been arrested. The Forest View police station's operating log, introduced in evidence by the defendant, indicates that, although the dispatcher had been requested by the investigating officer to ascertain whether or not the truck had been stolen, no such ascertainment was made prior to defendant's arrest. The State, moreover, apparently concedes that the arrest took place before the officers learned that the truck was stolen, but argues that even without this knowledge, the police had reasonable grounds to arrest the defendant.

We need not decide whether the search and seizure can be sustained under the traditional test of whether it was incident to an arrest without a warrant based on probable cause to believe that the defendant had committed or was committing a felony. The validity of all searches and seizures must be determined from the facts and circumstances in each case in the light of the fourth amendment's proscription of unreasonable searches and seizures and consistent with the opinions of the United States Supreme Court. (Ker v. State of California, 374 U.S. 23, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 10 L.Ed.2d 726.) In Terry v. State of Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, the court held that a limited search could be reasonable without being incident to a valid arrest based on probable cause. Whether a search and seizure is reasonable depends upon whether the officer's action was justified at its inception and whether it was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified initial interference with a defendant's personal security. In making this determination an objective standard is to be applied: would the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search warrant a man of reasonable caution to believe that the action taken was appropriate? Terry v. State of Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 8, S.Ct. 1868, 1879, 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d 889.

In light of the guidelines set forth in the Terry case, the facts of this case indicate that the stopping of the truck was entirely proper and reasonable. The officer, as a representative of the law enforcement arm of government, was interested in effectively discovering and preventing crime, and this interest justified the officer in approaching the defendant to investigate the suspicious circumstances and possibly criminal behavior. While there would be nothing suspicious in defendant's merely entering and driving a truck, suspicion was reasonably aroused when a truck, which has been parked behind a motel on a Sunday for at least three hours, and which had the keys in the ignition, was...