{
  "id": 2432186,
  "name": "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DEAN E. LUPTON, Defendant-Appellee",
  "name_abbreviation": "People v. Lupton",
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DEAN E. LUPTON, Defendant-Appellee."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "JUSTICE CALVO\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nOn July 25, 1987, Dean Lupton was arrested and charged in the circuit court of Christian County for the offenses of driving under the influence, driving while license revoked, and illegal transportation of alcohol. Lupton moved to quash the arrest on grounds that the officer had no probable cause to stop him. After an evidentiary hearing, the court granted the defendant\u2019s motion and dismissed the charges of driving under the influence and illegal transportation of alcohol. The State nol-prossed the remaining charge of driving while license revoked and filed this appeal.\nAt the hearing on Lupton\u2019s motion, Officer Rohn Burke of the Taylorville police department testified that on July 27, 1987, at about 2:45 a.m., he was traveling north on South Washington Street. While stopped at the intersection of Washington and Market, he observed Lupton approaching from the east toward the same intersection at a high rate of speed. As Lupton\u2019s pickup reached the intersection, he slammed on his brakes, sliding about' 10 feet and screeching to a halt just past the stop sign and across the first line of a clearly marked crosswalk.\nBurke turned on his red lights, turned left and pulled alongside Lupton\u2019s truck, which remained stopped at the intersection. Officer Burke instructed Lupton to pull over, but Lupton simply looked at Burke and drove on. Burke turned around and followed Lupton for approximately V-lz blocks, at which time Lupton pulled into an alleyway and stopped.\nAs Lupton got out of his truck and approached Burke, the officer noticed that he was having trouble .,.r\"n.Ing. Burke requested Lupton to produce his driver\u2019s license, and L/r.ton responded that he did not have it with him. Officer Burke noticed the smell of alcohol on Lupton\u2019s breath and asked him to perform several field sobriety tests, which Lupton failed. Upon checking, Burke found that Lupton\u2019s driver\u2019s license had been suspended. Burke thereupon placed Lupton under arrest.\nLupton denied speeding or skidding into the intersection and maintained that he had stopped even with the stop sign, but acknowledged that he might have crossed into the crosswalk. Lupton also stated that the screeching noise was caused by worn brake shoes, not tires skidding on pavement. He further stated that he had not seen Burke\u2019s red lights and had not heard Burke tell him to pull over and denied having had anything to drink.\nWhen asked as to his reasons for stopping Lupton, Burke responded that his main reason was \u201cerratic driving,\u201d which he described as excessive speed and the improper stop. Based upon this, the court found that Officer Burke had stopped Lupton for erratic driving, not for speeding or entering into a crosswalk, and- that even accepting Officer Burke\u2019s statements as true, Lupton\u2019s conduct did not constitute erratic driving. The court thereupon granted Lupton\u2019s motion and quashed the arrest.\nGenerally, a police officer may stop a person where the officer believes, on the basis of articulable facts, that there is a substantial possibility that the individual has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. (Terry v. Ohio (1968), 392 U.S. 1, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889, 88 S. Ct. 1868.) This is a so-called \u201cTerry stop.\u201d\nOn appeal, the State argues that Burke\u2019s testimony clearly indicates articulable facts justifying the stop and that the trial court erred in quashing the arrest. Specifically, the State argues that the trial court erred in not considering whether Lupton\u2019s excessive rate of speed or skidding into a crosswalk were themselves articulated facts justifying a stop, but only considering whether such factors constituted \u201cerratic driving.\u201d Lupton argues that the trial court\u2019s decision should be affirmed because to reverse it would all but abandon the objective standard of \u201carticulated facts\u201d and would allow police officers to stop anyone whose conduct constituted erratic driving in the officer\u2019s own subjective view.\nThe trial court seems to have framed the issue as whether Lupton\u2019s conduct constituted \u201cerratic driving.\u201d We believe the issue is not whether Lupton\u2019s conduct constituted erratic driving, but whether Burke had articulable facts justifying a Terry stop. Some confusion seems to have resulted from the use of the term \u201cerratic driving\u201d in several Terry stop cases. In People v. Houldridge (1983), 117 Ill. App. 3d 1059, 454 N.E.2d 769, the court stated that \u201cerratic driving, such as weaving across a roadway or even weaving within the lane of traffic within which a vehicle is traveling, provides a sufficient basis for an investigatory stop.\u201d (Houldridge, 117 Ill. App. 3d at 1062, 454 N.E.2d at 771-72.) In People v. Loucks (1985), 135 Ill. App. 3d 530, 481 N.E.2d 1086, this court held that weaving within one\u2019s own lane of traffic, conduct we referred to as \u201cerratic driving,\u201d justified a Terry stop. In People v. Truman (1986), 144 Ill. App. 3d 498, 494 N.E.2d 1210, the court held that defendant\u2019s conduct, which consisted of weaving across the center line and driving off the right shoulder, was sufficient to justify a Terry stop. Citing Houldridge, the court stated that \u201c[pjulling a car over constituted a legitimate Terry stop when the officer observes an individual driving erratically.\u201d (Truman, 144 Ill. App. 3d at 500, 494 N.E.2d at 1211.) In each of the above cases, the officer in question- had articulable reasons to justify a Terry stop, reasons which the court broadly labeled as \u201cerratic driving.\u201d The question in each case was not whether the defendant\u2019s conduct constituted \u201cerratic driving,\u201d but whether the underlying conduct, which the court termed \u201cerratic driving,\u201d constituted articulated reasons for the stop.\nIn this case, the trial court focused solely on whether the factors cited by Burke as reasons for stopping Lupton constituted \u201cerratic driving.\u201d Upon comparing Lupton\u2019s conduct with the conduct of the defendants in Houldridge and Truman, the trial court concluded that conduct in those cases was \u201cmore erratic\u201d than Lupton\u2019s conduct and that Lupton\u2019s conduct was not sufficiently erratic to justify a stop. The proper focus, however, should have been whether Burke had articulable reasons to believe that there was a substantial possibility that a crime was being committed, the standard for a Terry stop, regardless of whether such conduct was \u201cerratic.\u201d \u201cErratic driving\u201d is itself not an articulable reason justifying a Terry stop and we do not read the above-cited cases as holding so. We believe that the trial court erred in finding \u201cerratic driving\u201d as the reason for the stop. Burke had specific articulated reasons for stopping Lupton: approaching an intersection at an apparently excessive rate of speed and screeching to a halt, conduct which Burke described as \u201cerratic driving\u201d and an \u201cimproper stop.\u201d The trial court seems to have viewed the term \u201cerratic driving\u201d itself as a reason separate and distinct from the reasons of apparent speeding and the screeching halt, when in fact Burke was only using the term \u201cerratic driving\u201d to describe the underlying conduct. We find that Officer Burke had articulable reasons to believe that there was a substantial possibility that Lupton was driving under the influence and that the trial court\u2019s decision quashing the arrest was in error.\nThe judgment of the circuit court of Christian County is reversed and remanded for further proceedings.\nReversed and remanded.\nHARRISON, P.J., and WELCH, J., concur.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "JUSTICE CALVO"
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Gregory Grigsby, State\u2019s Attorney, of Taylorville (Kenneth R. Boyle, Stephen E. Norris, and Matthew E. Franklin, all of State\u2019s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor\u2019s Office, of counsel), for the People.",
      "Thomas W. Lacy, of Ihylorville, for appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DEAN E. LUPTON, Defendant-Appellee.\nFifth District\nNo. 5-87-0726\nOpinion filed December 2, 1988.\nGregory Grigsby, State\u2019s Attorney, of Taylorville (Kenneth R. Boyle, Stephen E. Norris, and Matthew E. Franklin, all of State\u2019s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor\u2019s Office, of counsel), for the People.\nThomas W. Lacy, of Ihylorville, for appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0001-01",
  "first_page_order": 23,
  "last_page_order": 27
}