{
  "id": 5469268,
  "name": "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Appellant, v. HARLAN D. SEARLE, Appellee",
  "name_abbreviation": "People v. Searle",
  "decision_date": "1981-09-30",
  "docket_number": "No. 53514",
  "first_page": "385",
  "last_page": "389",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "86 Ill. 2d 385"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "Ill.",
    "id": 8772,
    "name": "Illinois Supreme Court"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 29,
    "name_long": "Illinois",
    "name": "Ill."
  },
  "cites_to": [],
  "analysis": {
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T17:04:19.345141+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Appellant, v. HARLAN D. SEARLE, Appellee."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "MR. JUSTICE SIMON\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nThe State Police stopped Harlan Searle, a motorcyclist, for a traffic violation, found that the engine of his motorcycle did not bear a legible manufacturer\u2019s identification number as required by law, and seized the motorcycle. Searle attempted, through the Secretary of State\u2019s office, to have the proper number affixed to the motorcycle, which had been rebuilt out of several used parts, including a used engine, so that he might have it back. The police responded that they were holding it as evidence for a criminal complaint against Searle. Eventually, he was tried and found guilty of the misdemeanor of unknowingly possessing a vehicle without a required identification number. However, the court then realized that the case had been brought in the wrong county, the one in which the State Police headquarters was located rather than the county in which he was stopped, and the complaint was dismissed. The State\u2019s Attorney in the proper county refused to proceed against Searle. Next came an application by the State to the circuit court of Woodford County under section 4 \u2014 107(i) of the Illinois Vehicle Code (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95b, par. 4 \u2014 107(i)) for an order to sell the motorcycle. Had the proper number for the engine been impossible to determine, the motorcycle would have been subject to forfeiture; but Searle, by going back through the chain of title, proved what the number should be. Accordingly, the circuit court of Woodford County ordered the police to stamp the number on the cycle and return it to Searle.\nThe State, however, asserted that under section 4 \u2014 207 of the Illinois Vehicle Code (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95b, par. 4 \u2014 207) Searle could not get the vehicle back without first paying the storage charges for the time the police had held it. The police had stored it in a commercial garage at high daily rates, and as the two trials, despite Searle\u2019s demand for speedy disposition, had produced a long delay, the storage charges amount to several thousand dollars, probably more than the value of the motorcycle. The circuit court of Woodford County held section 4 \u2014 207 unconstitutional as a deprivation of due process, and ordered the vehicle returned to Searle without charge. The State appeals directly to this court under Supreme Court Rule 302(a)(1) (73 Ill. 2d R. 302(a)(1)).\nThe State\u2019s claim to storage charges rests on section 4 \u2014 207 of the Illinois Vehicle Code, which provides:\n\u201cReclaimed vehicles \u2014 Expenses. Any time before a vehicle is sold at public sale or disposed of as provided in Section 4 \u2014 208, the owner or other person legally entitled to its possession may reclaim the vehicle by presenting to the law enforcement agency having custody of the vehicle proof of ownership or proof of the right to possession of the vehicle. No vehicle shall be released to the owner or other person under this Section until all towing and storage charges have been paid.\u201d (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 9S\u00e1, par. 4 \u2014 207.)\nAs we interpret the Code, section 4 \u2014 207 does not apply to the present case. There is therefore no need to consider whether it is constitutional.\nAll the statutory provisions involved in this case are found in chapter 4 of the Vehicle Code. That chapter is divided into three articles. Article III is about the Vehicle Recycling Board, and is irrelevant to this dispute. Section 4 \u2014 207, the one dealing with payment of storage charges, is part of article II, entitled \u201cAbandoned, Lost, Stolen, or Unclaimed Vehicles.\u201d Article II prescribes, in more or less chronological order, a coherent scheme for handling such vehicles, that is to say, vehicles that have somehow gotten separated from their owners. Vehicles are not to be abandoned (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95/2, par. 4 \u2014 201). Stray vehicles are to be towed into custody (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95*2, pars. 4 \u2014 202, 4 \u2014 203), and a report made (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95/2, par. 4 \u2014 204). Various officials try to discover and notify the owner. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95/2, pars. 4 \u2014 205, 4 \u2014 206.) The vehicle may be reclaimed upon proof of ownership (or other right to possession), but towing and storage charges must first be paid (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95*2, par. 4 \u2014 207, the provision at issue). If nobody claims the vehicle, it is sold. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95)2, pars. 4 \u2014 208, 4 \u2014 209.) In either case, another report is made. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95)1, par. 4 \u2014 210.) The proceeds of the sale are disposed of (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 9512, par. 4 \u2014 211), and the buyer gets a certificate of title (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95b, par. 4 \u2014 212).\nSearle\u2019s motorcycle was not an abandoned, lost, stolen, or unclaimed vehicle. All the legal proceedings in this case have arisen not under article II but under article I, entitled \u201cAnti-Theft Laws.\u201d Article I, prescribes, inter alia, a program of identification numbers. The manufacturer must affix such numbers. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95b, par. 4 \u2014 107(g).) If a vehicle is discovered without required numbers, it is seized and held for identification. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95b, par. 4 \u2014 107(i).) The State Police reaffix the number, if possible. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95b, par. 4 \u2014 107(h).) If the proper number cannot be ascertained, the vehicle is considered contraband, and sold. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95b, par. 4 \u2014 107(i).) In any event, possession of a vehicle without a number is an offense, a felony if knowing (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95b, par. 4 \u2014 103(d)), a misdemeanor if unknowing (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95b, par. 4 \u2014 102(d)).\nNothing in the organization or language of the Code suggests that the last sentence of section 4 \u2014 207, an integral part of article II, has any application in a proceeding under article I. On the contrary, section 4 \u2014 207 as a whole obviously does not apply to this case: Searle was not able, as contemplated by section 4 \u2014 207, to reclaim his property \u201c[a]ny time 5,00 by presenting 000 proof of ownership 00\u00b0.\u201d And section 4 \u2014 207 itself limits its demand for payment of towing and storage charges to vehicles released to the owner \u201cunder this Section,\u201d thereby implying that vehicles may be released under other parts of the Code without payment of such charges. Moreover, section 4 \u2014 107(i), in dealing with the sale of a vehicle for which the proper number cannot be ascertained, provides expressly that the proceeds of the sale are to be disposed of in accordance with section 4 \u2014 211, a part of article II (under which towing, storage, and processing charges are paid off the top, and the balance goes to the municipality or county). If the procedures of article II were intended to spill over generally to article I, that express incorporation by reference would have been unnecessary.\nRequiring Searle to pay storage charges before he can get his motorcycle back upsets the plan of article I. The legislature has established a penalty for possessing a vehicle without a number. The maximum fine is set at $1,000 \u2014 assuming the defendant is convicted. But under the State\u2019s view of the law, that is an illusion; the $1,000 is only the beginning; in addition to the official criminal fine, the owner must pay storage charges amounting, probably, to more than the fine, and this even if the criminal case ends in his favor, as here. The legislature has provided that a vehicle is to be forfeited only if its number cannot be ascertained. But under the State\u2019s view, the vehicle is effectively forfeited, in that the accrued charges exceed its value, whenever the legal proceedings take a long time. The statute (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 95/2, par. 4 \u2014 107(i)) provides that the State\u2019s Attorney is to ask the court for an order to sell the vehicle only after the criminal case, in which the vehicle is evidence, is finished. The delays, therefore, are caused not only by the necessities of the identification process but by the criminal process. In the State\u2019s view, the defendant is in effect to pay for storage of the evidence against him \u2014 even if he is acquitted. This is neither a reasonable interpretation of the statute nor a sensible result.\nSection 4 \u2014 207\u2019s provision for payment of charges may make sense in its proper context, namely the reclaiming of a mislaid vehicle after a short delay and correspondingly modest charge. In the present context of a long adversary proceeding, it makes no sense. It is not in article I; it does not belong in article I; and we will not read it into article I.\nThe motorcycle must be returned to its owner without charge, as the circuit court ordered, though for different reasons.\nThe judgment of the circuit court of Woodford County is affirmed.\nJudgment affirmed.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "MR. JUSTICE SIMON"
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Tyrone C. Fahner, Attorney General, of Springfield (Patricia Rosen, Assistant Attorney General, of Chicago, of counsel), for appellant.",
      "William H. Herring, of Peoria, for appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "(No. 53514.\nTHE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Appellant, v. HARLAN D. SEARLE, Appellee.\nOpinion filed September 30, 1981.\nTyrone C. Fahner, Attorney General, of Springfield (Patricia Rosen, Assistant Attorney General, of Chicago, of counsel), for appellant.\nWilliam H. Herring, of Peoria, for appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0385-01",
  "first_page_order": 397,
  "last_page_order": 401
}