Chicago DUI Attorney Comments on Your Car NOT Being Your Castle!

This Chicago DUI attorney wants to remind you that there’s more to worry about than whether or not you will get charged with a DUI when you are driving.  She’s posted here and here about being charged with a DUI for marijuana. 

Now, what about those other crimes that you can be charged with while in what you thought was your car, a place that you deem as private to intrusion as your home?

Do you think an officer has the right to order you to close your windows and turn your blowers on high for a dog-sniff?

Recently, the Illinois Supreme Court pushed back your right’s to privacy in your car.

From People v. Cheryl L. Bartelt, No. 107276:

 

After a lawful traffic stop, a police officer performed a set-up

procedure, which entailed ordering the driver, defendant, Cheryl L.

Bartelt, to roll up her truck’s windows and turn the ventilation

system’s blowers on high before a second officer conducted a canine

sniff of the exterior of her truck. The dog alerted on both doors of the

truck, and a subsequent search of the truck resulted in discovery of

drug evidence.

 

The only issue on appeal is whether  the officers’ actions in

ordering defendant to roll up her windows and turn the blowers on

high before conducting the dog sniff of the truck’s exterior constituted

an unreasonable search under the fourth amendment. This seems to be

an issue of first impression nationwide because the parties have not

cited, nor has our research revealed, any decisions that have addressed

the issue.

 

The dissent would like us to recharacterize the issue as whether

the officers’ actions in ordering defendant to roll up her windows and

turn the blowers on high before conducting the dog sniff of the truck’s

exterior constituted an unreasonable  seizure under the  fourth

amendment. We decline to do so because it is clear that, in her briefs

and oral arguments before this court, defendant argues that the

officers’ actions in ordering her to roll up her windows and turn the

blowers on high before conducting the dog sniff of the truck’s exterior

constituted an unreasonable search, not an unreasonable seizure.

Here’s a portion of the dissent:

 

This appeal squarely presents the question of whether a police

officer’s order to a driver, during a routine traffic stop, to perform a

“set-up” procedure  to facilitate a canine sniff for narcotics, is an

unreasonable seizure which violates the fourth amendment. It is my

view that it is. Despite the fact that this precise issue was litigated by

the parties in the circuit court, and even though the majority’s own

recitation of the factual background and procedural history of this

cause repeatedly references seizure principles, my colleagues decline

to analyze this  appeal in the context of whether defendant was

subjected to  an unreasonable seizure. Instead, they review the

propriety of the police action by inquiring whether the “ordering” of

defendant to perform the set-up procedure is “an unreasonable

search.” Slip op. at 8. Using this inappropriate analytical framework,

the majority holds that there is no constitutional violation. As I agree

with neither the majority’s analysis nor the result, I respectfully

dissent.

Keep in mind,that this type of charge can occur whenever you are not the sole driver of your vehicle.

Sure it’s difficult, but you have to remember that the strength of our constitution is challenged when things are wrong, not when things are right.