Quick Takes on Illinois Supreme Court Opinions Issued Thursday, February 6, 2025
A leading appellate attorney reviews the two Illinois Supreme Court opinions handed down Thursday, February 6.
People v. Morgan, 2025 IL 130626
By Kerry J. Bryson, Office of the State Appellate Defender
Since the Pretrial Fairness Act took effect, there has been a split in the appellate court regarding the appropriate standard of review to be applied when reviewing a circuit court’s ultimate detention decision under 725 ILCS 5/110-6.1, as well as the underlying factual findings supporting that decision. The Supreme Court resolved that split in Morgan.
Kendall Morgan was charged with home invasion and domestic battery, and the State filed a petition to deny pretrial release. The court held a detention hearing, at which the parties proceeded solely by way of proffer. No witnesses were called. The State proffered evidence of the facts underlying the charges, as well as Morgan’s criminal history. Defense counsel proffered evidence that Morgan recently had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was planning to seek treatment, requesting that he be placed on electronic monitoring instead of being detained. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court granted the State’s petition to deny pretrial release. The appellate court concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying release.
The Supreme Court noted that both parties and the appellate court had disagreed on the applicable standard of review. Morgan argued for de novo review in cases like this, where the parties proceeded solely by proffer, and for a mixed standard of review when live testimony is presented (manifest weight of the evidence for the court’s factual findings and de novo for the court’s ultimate detention decision). The State asserted that the manifest-weight standard should apply regardless of whether the court heard live evidence. And, the appellate court applied the abuse-of-discretion standard below.
After reviewing each of the standards of review and the types of questions to which each is typically applied, the Supreme Court concluded that where live testimony is presented at a detention hearing, the ultimate detention decision, in addition to any underlying factual findings, is reviewed to determine whether it was against the manifest weight of the evidence. The Court explained that the decision whether to detain is not a question of law, but rather involves an individualized assessment of whether the State has presented clear and convincing evidence that defendant likely committed the offense(s) and whether the defendant poses a flight risk or threat to safety that no conditions of release can mitigate. A court’s ultimate decision regarding detention is comparable to decisions about whether to terminate parental rights. The procedures for making such a determination are structured to ensure due process, while the ultimate decisions are controlled by the court’s individualized findings on the specific questions involved. They are not questions of law, but rather are findings made on the basis of the unique facts presented. And a trial court’s determination on those matters should not be disturbed unless they are against the manifest weight of the evidence.
At issue here, though, was not live testimony but rather a hearing conducted entirely by proffer. In such a case, the circuit court does not gauge the demeanor and credibility of witnesses and review of the court’s factual findings should be de novo. Where no live testimony is presented, the reviewing court is in the same position as the trial court was with regard to the proffered evidence and thus a more deferential standard of review is not warranted. The reviewing court may conduct its own independent review of the proffered evidence.
The Supreme Court noted that the State conceded at oral argument that it could not point to a single Illinois case reviewing a circuit court’s factual finding under the manifest weight standard where no live testimony had been presented. Instead, the State argued that the circuit court’s ability to “observe” the defendant at the hearing is a fact-finding advantage warranting deferential review. But the Supreme Court disagreed. Observation of a defendant who exercises the constitutional right to remain silent is of no evidentiary value on the issue of detention or release as there is no manner by which to weigh a silent defendant’s demeanor. Indeed, a silent defendant’s credibility is not even at issue.
While the Court agreed with Morgan that de novo review was appropriate, it went on to affirm the judgment denying pretrial release. Ultimately, that determination was of no practical effect as to Morgan, as he had since pled guilty. (The Supreme Court had noted at the outset that the issue here was moot but found review appropriate under the public interest exception to the mootness doctrine).
Justice Overstreet authored a special concurrence, joined by Chief Justice Theis and Justice Rochford, agreeing that the detention decision was not error, but applying the abuse-of-discretion standard to reach that determination. The special concurrence would have adopted abuse-of-discretion as the appropriate standard because a detention decision ultimately requires the circuit court to apply statutory factors to whatever evidence is presented. It is neither entirely factual nor entirely legal. Reviewing for an abuse of discretion “encompasses all aspects of the multifaceted inquiry required of the circuit court, while recognizing it is in a better position than the reviewing court to consider the ability of potential conditions or combinations of conditions of pretrial release to mitigate future risks posed by a defendant.”
People v. Hagestedt, 2025 IL 130286
By Kerry J. Bryson, Office of the State Appellate Defender
The fire department was summoned to Casey Hagestedt’s home in response to a reported gas leak. Police officers also responded and entered the home. By the time the officers arrived, the fire department had already determined that the source of the gas was the stove and had begun ventilating the residence. The odor of gas was still strong, though, and one of the officers (Liebich) went to the kitchen to check for damage to the stove. Finding none, Liebich turned to exit the kitchen, at which point he observe an upper cabinet secured with a chain and padlock through its handles. This “admittedly suspicious” cabinet was ajar about an inch, and Liebich leaned in and used his flashlight to peer into the gap, observing a container with a green leafy substance, as well as syringes, inside. Liebich called over the other officer, Stanish, who could not immediately see inside the cabinet. Stanish pulled on the cabinet doors, opening them another inch or two, and observed suspected cannabis inside. He also noted the presence of a camera on top of the refrigerator, pointed directly at the padlocked cabinet. A search warrant was obtained based upon the officers’ observations of the contents of the cabinet, and the items inside were seized. Hagestedt was charged with various drug offenses.
Hagestedt filed a motion to suppress, which was denied based on the trial court’s conclusion that the officers were operating within the scope of thieir community caretaking function, and that they observed the contents of the cabinet in the course of providing aid during an emergency. The trial judge determined that Liebich’s use of a flashlight to see inside the cabinet fell within the plain view doctrine. And, while Stanish violated the fourth amendment when he pulled on the cabinet door, that violation was harmless because Liebich had already made his observations. Following a stipulated bench trial, Hagestedt appealed. The appellate court affirmed in a split opinion.
In the Supreme Court, the State argued that there was no fourth amendment search because the officers were lawfully present in Hagestedt’s home to investigate the gas leak when Liebich looked in an open cabinet door and observed the contents in plain view. Hagestedt, on the other hand, argued that the acts necessary to view the contents of the cabinet indicated that they were not plainly visible and amounted to a warrantless search.
The Supreme Court first addressed an argument raised by the State for the first time in the Supreme Court, specifically that Hagestedt had not established a cognizable privacy interest sufficient to assert a fourth amendment violation because he presented no evidence at the suppression hearing that he owned, rented, or was a guest in the home, and no evidence that he used, secured, or had a key to the cabinet. Hagestedt argued that the State forfeited this argument by not raising it in the trial court. The Court agreed that the State forfeited the issue and went on to find that Hagestedt had established a reasonable expectation of privacy, regardless. Indeed, at the suppression hearing, the State had taken the position that it was Hagestedt’s home. And, the Court concluded that “[b]y chaining and locking a cabinet in his kitchen, defendant took actions to protect his privacy...”.
As to the substantive fourth-amendment challenge, the Court went on to find that Liebich exceeded the scope of his role as a community caretaker and conducted a warrantless search by peering into the cabinet. While Liebich did not reach out and touch the cabinet doors like Stanish did, his act of looking through a small gap in a closed and locked cabinet with a flashlight invaded Hagestedt’s privacy in a way that was unrelated to the original, lawful entry to the home. And, although the cabinet was in plain view, its contents were not. Those contents were secured behind closed doors, locked with a chain and a padlock.
The Court acknowledged that there are cases holding that the use of a flashlight to illuminate an area is not, itself, a search, but noted that the nature of the opening through which a flashlight was used was an important consideration. For instance, those cases involved looking through a vehicle’s window, an open bedroom door, an open closet, and a barn opening covered with see-through netting. Here, on the other hand, Liebich had to position himself at an angle and shine his flashlight into a small gap in a cabinet with solid wood doors, rendering his view “embellished and not plain.” This was an unconstitutional warrantless search.
The Court also noted that the second officer, Stanish, had testified that he had reentered the home after Hagestedt had been removed and had detected the odor of cannabis at that time. This was rejected as a separate, independent basis to uphold the issuance of the warrant. The officer’s reentry after the gas leak had been resolved was beyond the scope of his community caretaking function. Accordingly, his detection of the odor of the cannabis at that time was pursuant to a warrantless search. Additionally, the events in question here occurred in 2017, at a time when the legislature was in the process of decriminalizing and legalizing the use and possession of cannabis, such that the odor of cannabis in a home, without more, no longer inherently indicated the commission of a crime.
The evidence obtained from the unlawful search of Hagestedt’s kitchen cabinet should have been suppressed. Without that evidence, the State could not prove the charges, and thus Hagestedt’s conviction was reversed outright.