Illinois Supreme Court curbs police powers in car searches

Illinois Supreme Court curbs police powers in car searches

November 21, 2003

BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Legal Affairs Reporter

A traffic stop does not give police license to conduct a full-fledged criminal investigation, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday in two different cases.

The court reversed a marijuana conviction of Roy Caballes, who was stopped for driving 71 mph in a 65 mph zone on Interstate 80. While a state trooper wrote him a warning ticket, another trooper walked a drug-sniffing dog around his car.

The dog reacted, and the troopers found marijuana in the trunk.

Prosecutors argued that, under U.S. Supreme Court rulings, letting police dogs sniff outside the car does not violate the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure because the dogs do not actually enter the car.

But Justice Thomas Kilbride wrote in a 4-3 opinion, "The police impermissibly broadened the scope of a traffic stop in this case into a drug investigation." (snip/...)

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-search21.html

This it makes it much harder for cops to harrass people for DWB (Driving While Black/Brown) !!!

Wow. What a good ruling.

Things are looking up for Illinois. First they stand up to the Scalia Court ruling which allowed pretextual traffic stops; and now they have a chance to get rid of Lord Black's influence in their newspapers.


I hope Illinois is a forefront defender of our American freedoms! Thanks for the uplifting news!

We have a good Supreme Court these days here in Illinois and Justice Kilbride is just a super guy. I've known him since before he went on the Court, and he's had a long running committment to equal justice for all--irrespective of ability to pay. I hold a deep respect for him simply because he does represent many of the finer aspects of the practice of law.

I need to check on this--but I suspect that the three justices who dissented are the GOP members of the Court... I know at least two of them are.

Laura