{ "id": 1527803, "name": "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ROBERT S. LIDSTER, Defendant-Appellant", "name_abbreviation": "People v. Lidster", "decision_date": "2001-03-30", "docket_number": "No. 2 \u2014 99\u20141288", "first_page": "825", "last_page": "830", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "319 Ill. App. 3d 825" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "887 S.W2d 16", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.W.2d", "case_ids": [ 9995527 ], "year": 1994, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "19" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/sw2d/887/0016-01" ] }, { "cite": "293 Ill. App. 3d 180", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 847610 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1997, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "189" }, { "page": "189-90" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/293/0180-01" ] }, { "cite": "428 U.S. 543", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 6178901 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1976, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "551-52" }, { "page": "1124-25" }, { "page": "3080" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/428/0543-01" ] }, { "cite": "531 U.S. 32", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 9505377 ], "weight": 21, "year": 2000, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "41-42" }, { "page": "343" }, { "page": "454" }, { "page": "38-39" }, { "page": "341-42" }, { "page": "452-53" }, { "page": "44" }, { "page": "345" }, { "page": "455" }, { "page": "44" }, { "page": "345" }, { "page": "455" }, { "page": "44" }, { "page": "345" }, { "page": "455" }, { "page": "44" }, { "page": "345" }, { "page": "455" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/531/0032-01" ] }, { "cite": "443 U.S. 47", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 6179718 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1979, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "50-51" }, { "page": "361-62" }, { "page": "2640" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/443/0047-01" ] }, { "cite": "440 U.S. 648", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 6187389 ], "weight": 5, "year": 1979, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "654" }, { "page": "667-68" }, { "page": "1396" }, { "page": "654" }, { "page": "668" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/440/0648-01" ] }, { "cite": "109 Ill. 2d 273", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3125798 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1985, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "280" }, { "page": "280" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/109/0273-01" ] }, { "cite": "304 Ill. App. 3d 44", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 564566 ], "year": 1999, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "49" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/304/0044-01" ] }, { "cite": "496 U.S. 444", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 12123840 ], "weight": 9, "year": 1990, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "450" }, { "page": "420" }, { "page": "2485" }, { "page": "455" }, { "page": "423" }, { "page": "2488" }, { "page": "453-54" }, { "page": "422" }, { "page": "2487" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/496/0444-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 679, "char_count": 10883, "ocr_confidence": 0.771, "pagerank": { "raw": 7.259244762335987e-08, "percentile": 0.43267599771260795 }, "sha256": "e554b31b97c0c3047c7e7e04702c33df360289240bc61d034f4213e13d682bbd", "simhash": "1:58ebb5546b44bcc7", "word_count": 1784 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T14:43:10.227950+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ROBERT S. LIDSTER, Defendant-Appellant." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "JUSTICE McLAREN\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nFollowing a jury trial, defendant, Robert Lidster, was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol (625 ILCS 5/11 \u2014 501(a)(2) (West 1998)). Defendant was arrested after being stopped at an \u201cinformational roadblock\u201d conducted by the Lombard police department. He appeals, contending that the trial court erred in denying his motion to quash his arrest and suppress evidence because the roadblock was an unreasonable seizure.\nOn August 30, 1997, Lombard police set up an \u201cinformative stop\u201d on North Avenue, at the location of a hit-and-run accident a week before. The officers intended to stop all eastbound traffic and pass out flyers about the accident, hoping that someone had witnessed the incident and could provide information about the offender or his vehicle.\nWhile conducting the roadblock, Detective Wayne Vasil was standing in the center lane of North Avenue. As each vehicle pulled up, an officer would hand the driver a flyer about the accident. One such vehicle was defendant\u2019s Mazda minivan, which almost struck Vasil as defendant approached. At that point, Vasil was not aware that defendant had violated any state law or city ordinance, although he had \u201csome sort of feeling that something might be wrong.\u201d Vasil stated that defendant\u2019s van had already been stopped pursuant to the roadblock before nearly striking him.\nVasil approached the van to ask defendant why he had almost hit him. During the ensuing conversation, Vasil began to suspect that defendant might be under the influence of alcohol. As a result, he directed defendant to pull onto a side street for field sobriety tests. Another officer conducted the tests and defendant was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.\nDefendant moved to quash his arrest, arguing that the roadblock was unconstitutional. The trial court denied the motion. Subsequently, a jury found defendant guilty and the court sentenced him to court supervision. After the court denied his posttrial motion, defendant filed a timely notice of appeal.\nOn appeal, defendant renews his argument that the roadblock was unconstitutional. He contends that, under the balancing test developed by the state and federal courts, the public interest in conducting the roadblock \u2014 searching for evidence about a prior crime \u2014 did not outweigh the intrusion on the rights of innocent motorists.\nA fourth amendment seizure occurs when a vehicle is stopped at a checkpoint. Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 450, 110 L. Ed. 2d 412, 420, 110 S. Ct. 2481, 2485 (1990); People v. Fullwiley, 304 Ill. App. 3d 44, 49 (1999). Whether a particular roadblock or similar device violates the fourth amendment is a question of reasonableness. People v. Bartley, 109 Ill. 2d 273, 280 (1985). The test courts have developed to assess the reasonableness of a procedure involves balancing the intrusion on an individual\u2019s fourth amendment interests against the program\u2019s promotion of legitimate government interests. Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 654, 59 L. Ed. 2d 660, 667-68, 99 S. Ct. 1391, 1396 (1979). This in turn requires the court to weigh the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure and the degree to which the seizure advances those interests against the severity of the interference with individual liberty. Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 50-51, 61 L. Ed. 2d 357, 361-62, 99 S. Ct. 2637, 2640 (1979); Bartley, 109 Ill. 2d at 280.\nAfter the parties filed their briefs, the United States Supreme Court decided City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 148 L. Ed. 2d 333, 121 S. Ct. 447 (2000). There, citizens sought to enjoin the city\u2019s use of roadblocks to search for evidence of drug trafficking. The court found the roadblock program unconstitutional because its sole purpose was to uncover evidence of \u201cordinary criminal wrongdoing.\u201d Edmond, 531 U.S. at 41-42, 148 L. Ed. 2d at 343, 121 S. Ct. at 454. Noting that its roadblock cases had recognized only a limited exception to the rule that a seizure must be accompanied by some measure of individualized suspicion, the Edmond majority observed that the roadblocks the Court had previously approved were designed to further a compelling purpose such as promoting highway safety by targeting drunk drivers (see Sitz, 496 U.S. at 455, 110 L. Ed. 2d at 423, 110 S. Ct. at 2488) or policing the border to stanch the flow of illegal aliens (see United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 551-52, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1116, 1124-25, 96 S. Ct. 3074, 3080 (1976)). Edmond, 531 U.S. at 38-39, 148 L. Ed. 2d at 341-42, 121 S. Ct. at 452-53. However, the Court declined \u201cto suspend the usual requirement of individualized suspicion where the police seek to employ a checkpoint primarily for the ordinary enterprise of investigating crimes.\u201d Edmond, 531 U.S. at 44, 148 L. Ed. 2d at 345, 121 S. Ct. at 455.\nAlthough the roadblock in this case is in some ways different from the one at issue in Edmond, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the roadblock\u2019s ostensible purpose was to seek evidence of \u201cordinary criminal wrongdoing.\u201d Vasil testified that the roadblock was set up in the hope of obtaining more information about a driver responsible for killing a bicyclist a week earlier. The police stopped cars near the site of the accident and at about the same time of day the accident occurred in the hope that someone who left work at that time or otherwise traveled that route regularly might have seen the accident. The express purpose of the roadblock was to search for evidence of a crime.\nEdmond did leave open the possibility that an \u201cemergency\u201d might justify a checkpoint the purpose of which would ordinarily be considered routine crime control. The Court gave as examples preventing an imminent terrorist attack and catching a dangerous criminal \u201cwho is likely to flee by way of a particular route.\u201d Edmond, 531 U.S. at 44, 148 L. Ed. 2d at 345, 121 S. Ct. at 455. Clearly, no such emergency was present here. The crime in question had occurred a week before. Moreover, the officers did not testify that they expected even to catch the offender; they merely wanted to get a more accurate description of him. This is the type of routine investigative work that the police must do every day and does not justify the extraordinary means chosen to further the investigation.\nOne apparent concern of the Court in Edmond was that, if \u201cthe ordinary enterprise of investigating crimes\u201d (Edmond, 531 U.S. at 44, 148 L. Ed. 2d at 345, 121 S. Ct. at 455) could be the basis for a checkpoint, there would be no theoretical limit on when such tactics could be employed and the requirement of individualized suspicion would be nullified. While the crime under investigation here, involving the death of an innocent person, is undoubtedly serious, equally serious crimes unfortunately happen every day in many jurisdictions. If investigating such a crime could be the basis for a roadblock, police could stop all cars entering or leaving town virtually every day on the chance that someone might have seen something that would aid the investigation.\nSuch unbridled use of checkpoints also leaves open the possibility of police subterfuge, using the pretense of investigating some infamous crime to stop motorists based on \u201cthe generalized and ever-present possibility that interrogation and inspection may reveal that any given motorist has committed some crime.\u201d Edmond, 531 U.S. at 44, 148 L. Ed. 2d at 345, 121 S. Ct. at 455. We note that in this case a second officer was stationed on a side street, apparently to prevent drivers from evading the roadblock. This tends to discredit the explanation that the police were merely seeking information. Presumably, if a motorist were willing to provide information to the police, he or she would not attempt to avoid the roadblock.\nThe State argues that the public interest in seeing the hit-and-run solved was not insubstantial and that the police took reasonable steps to minimize the intrusion on the motorists\u2019 rights. However, assuming for the sake of argument that the police did everything reasonably possible to minimize the intrusion, Edmond strongly suggests that a criminal investigation can never be the basis for a roadblock, at least absent some emergency circumstance not present here. Such an interest is simply not sufficiently weighty to counterbalance even a minimal intrusion on the rights of drivers stopped at the checkpoint.\nFinally, although not itself dispositive, some mention should be made of the third element of the balancing equation, the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest. The Supreme Court has required that the facts on which such an intrusion is based must \u201cbe capable of measurement against \u2018an objective standard.\u2019 \u201d Prouse, 440 U.S. at 654, 59 L. Ed. 2d at 668, 99 S. Ct. at 1396. Generally, the choice among reasonable enforcement alternatives must be left with local governmental officials \u201c \u2018who have a unique understanding of, and a responsibility for, limited public resources.\u2019 \u201d People v. Adams, 293 Ill. App. 3d 180, 189 (1997), quoting Sitz, 496 U.S. at 453-54, 110 L. Ed. 2d at 422, 110 S. Ct. at 2487. However, this does not mean that the courts must \u201c \u2018blindly defer to whatever enforcement techniques are chosen by officials\u2019 \u201d because courts must analyze these techniques to ensure that they are, in fact, reasonable in the context of the fourth amendment. Adams, 293 Ill. App. 3d at 189-90, quoting Holt v. State, 887 S.W2d 16, 19 (Tex. Crim. App. 1994). Here, the State presented no empirical evidence of the effectiveness of such a checkpoint program. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it seems likely that more traditional law enforcement techniques would have been just as, if not more, effective than the roadblock without infringing on the constitutional rights of numerous motorists, none of whom was suspected of a crime.\nBecause the roadblock at which defendant was apprehended did not comply with constitutional standards, the trial court should have granted defendant\u2019s motion to quash his arrest and suppress evidence. Absent this evidence, there remains no evidence to support his conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol.\nThe judgment of the circuit court of Du Page County is reversed.\nReversed.\nGEIGER and BOWMAN, JJ., concur.", "type": "majority", "author": "JUSTICE McLAREN" } ], "attorneys": [ "G. Joseph Weller, of State Appellate Defender\u2019s Office, of Elgin, and Elaine Sofferman, of Wiegman & Farmer, of Somonauk, for appellant.", "Joseph E. Birkett, State\u2019s Attorney, of Wheaton (Martin E Moltz and Sally A. Swiss, both of State\u2019s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor\u2019s Office, of counsel), for the People." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ROBERT S. LIDSTER, Defendant-Appellant.\nSecond District\nNo. 2 \u2014 99\u20141288\nOpinion filed March 30, 2001.\nRehearing denied April 24, 2001.\nG. Joseph Weller, of State Appellate Defender\u2019s Office, of Elgin, and Elaine Sofferman, of Wiegman & Farmer, of Somonauk, for appellant.\nJoseph E. Birkett, State\u2019s Attorney, of Wheaton (Martin E Moltz and Sally A. Swiss, both of State\u2019s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor\u2019s Office, of counsel), for the People." }, "file_name": "0825-01", "first_page_order": 843, "last_page_order": 848 }