People v. Lambert

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Appellate Court Date: 2019.07.31
10:01:46 -05'00'
People v. Lambert, 2019 IL App (5th) 180248
Appellate Court THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.
Caption JAMES R. LAMBERT, Defendant-Appellee.
District & No. Fifth District
Docket No. 5-18-0248
Rule 23 order filed April 19, 2019
Motion to
publish granted May 2, 2019
Opinion filed May 2, 2019
Decision Under Appeal from the Circuit Court of Massac County, No. 16-CF-20; the
Review Hon. Joseph M. Leberman, Judge, presiding.
Judgment Affirmed in part and reversed in part; cause remanded.
Counsel on Patrick Windhorst, State’s Attorney, of Metropolis (Patrick Delfino,
Appeal Patrick D. Daly, and Sharon Shanahan, of State’s Attorneys Appellate
Prosecutor’s Office, of counsel), for the People.
Mark C. Hunter and Cord Z. Wittig, of Kruger, Henry & Hunter, of
Metropolis, for appellee.
Panel PRESIDING JUSTICE OVERSTREET delivered the judgment of the
court, with opinion.
Justices Welch and Moore concurred in the judgment and opinion.
OPINION
¶1 In November 2014, the defendant, James R. Lambert, was involved in an automobile
collision on the Brookport Bridge, which spans the Ohio River between Massac County,
Illinois, and McCracken County, Kentucky. The defendant was initially charged in McCracken
County with offenses stemming from the incident, but the charges were later dismissed on the
grounds that the accident had actually occurred in Illinois. After the defendant was
subsequently charged with similar offenses in Massac County, he filed a motion to suppress
evidence that had been obtained by the McCracken County Sheriff’s Department. Following a
hearing, the circuit court entered an order partially granting the defendant’s motion to
suppress. The State appeals, and for the reasons that follow, we reverse that portion of the
circuit court’s judgment.
¶2 FACTS
¶3 In Illinois v. Kentucky, 500 U.S. 380, 389-90 (1991), after declaring that the boundary
between the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the State of Illinois was the low-water mark
along the Ohio River’s northern shore as it existed in 1792, the United States Supreme Court
remanded the case “to the Special Master for such further proceedings as may be necessary to
prepare and submit an appropriate decree for adoption by the Court, locating the 1792 line.” In
December 1994, after such proceedings were held, the special master filed a report with the
Court advising that the United States Geological Survey had used 7355 geodetic coordinate
points to identify the 1792 low-water mark as nearly as it could presently be determined and
had prepared maps identifying a proposed boundary line based on those coordinates. Report of
Special Master at 6-9, Illinois v. Kentucky, 513 U.S. 177 (1995) (No. 106), https://www.
supremecourt.gov/specmastrpt/ORG_106_12021994.pdf [https://perma.cc/3DKX-FCDW].
The report identified the maps as “Joint Exhibit Numbers 3-24” and the coordinate points as
“Joint Exhibit Numbers 25 and 26.” Id. at 8. The report advised that the exhibits accurately
reflected the 1792 low-water mark as nearly as it could now be determined and recommended
that the Court adopt the exhibits as declarative of the boundary line between Kentucky and
Illinois. Id. at 13-14. The special master’s proposed decree stated that the boundary line
between Kentucky and Illinois “is fixed as geodetically described in Joint Exhibits 3 through
26.” Id. at 18. Notably, the decree further stated that Kentucky and Illinois “each have
concurrent jurisdiction over the Ohio River.” Id. at 19. The decree ordered that copies of the
decree and copies and prints of Joint Exhibits 3 through 26 be filed with the Secretary of State
of Illinois, the Secretary of State of Kentucky, and the county clerk’s offices of the Kentucky
and Illinois counties along the Ohio River, including Massac and McCracken. Id. In January
1995, the Court adopted the special master’s report and entered the proposed decree. Illinois v.
Kentucky, 513 U.S. 177 (1995).
¶4 In February 2016, a Massac County grand jury indicted the defendant on two counts of
aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol (625 ILCS 5/11-501(d)(1)(A), (C) (West
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2014)), one count of obstructing justice (720 ILCS 5/31-4(a)(1) (West 2014)), one count of
unlawful possession of cannabis (720 ILCS 550/4(b) (West 2014)), and one count of unlawful
possession of drug paraphernalia (720 ILCS 600/3.5(a) (West 2014)). In March 2017, the
defendant filed his motion to suppress. In December 2017, the cause proceeded to a hearing on
the motion, where the following evidence was adduced.
¶5 On the afternoon of November 11, 2014, Deputy Jerry Jones and Sergeant David Shepherd
of the McCracken County Sheriff’s Department were dispatched to the Brookport Bridge to
respond to a reported head-on collision involving a pickup truck and a car. Officers Nick
Myrick and Chris Hines of the Brookport, Illinois, police department also responded to the
reported collision and assisted the Kentucky officers. Jones and Shepherd were the only
witnesses called at the suppression hearing, but the parties stipulated that Myrick would have
testified that he and Hines were the first officers to arrive at the scene of the accident.
¶6 It was undisputed that the Brookport Bridge is approximately a mile long and that the
defendant’s accident occurred on the Illinois side of the bridge along a curve “over dry land in
Illinois.” It was also noted that the curve where the accident occurred was a “bad location” that
had been the scene of numerous prior collisions. The record indicates that the defendant is a
resident of Kentucky and has prior convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol.
¶7 Jones testified that when he arrived at the scene of the accident, he saw the defendant and
his female passenger, Katrina Warren, standing by the truck that had been involved in the
crash. Jones then observed the defendant throw something off the bridge. Jones asked Myrick
and Hines to look under the bridge, and on the dry land below, they discovered a small bag of
marijuana, a pipe with marijuana residue, and a pack of rolling papers. Jones took possession
of the items and later booked them into evidence.
¶8 Jones testified that the car that had collided with the truck sustained “quite a bit of damage”
and that its female occupant had to be removed from the vehicle so that she could be
transported by ambulance to a local hospital. The record indicates that the ambulance had been
dispatched from Kentucky. Jones indicated that Warren had sustained minor injuries and was
also taken to a hospital for medical treatment. After the scene of the accident was “cleared,”
Jones spoke with Warren at the hospital, and she advised him that the defendant had been
driving the truck at the time of the collision. Jones testified that Warren also had an observable
“seat belt burn” that was consistent with a passenger injury.
¶9 Shepherd testified that when he had spoken with the defendant on the bridge, the defendant
exhibited slurred speech and was unsteady on his feet. There was also an odor of alcoholic
beverage about the defendant’s person, and his eyes were red and glassy. Apparently, the
defendant claimed that he had not been driving. Shepherd arrested the defendant for possessing
the contraband recovered from under the bridge and transported him to the McCracken County
jail. Before leaving Illinois, Shepherd read the defendant his Miranda rights (Miranda v.
Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)) and questioned him about the contraband.
¶ 10 At the McCracken County jail, after Shepherd was advised that Warren had identified the
defendant as the driver of the truck, Shepherd cited him for driving under the influence of
alcohol and administered a horizontal gaze nystagmus test. Shepherd testified that the
defendant had refused to submit to further field sobriety tests and had also refused to submit to
chemical testing of his blood, breath, or urine.
¶ 11 It was undisputed that all of the law enforcement officers who responded to the collision on
the Brookport Bridge believed that the accident had occurred within Kentucky’s jurisdiction.
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Jones testified that prior to “this case,” there had been “an agreement with Illinois to where
Kentucky would police every bit of the bridge[,] and Illinois would conduct maintenance on
every bit of the bridge.” Jones indicated that the agreement as to the policing of the entire
bridge had been abandoned after the Kentucky charges against the defendant had been
dismissed. Jones acknowledged that he had “never seen a written agreement” and had only
been advised of the agreement’s existence. The agreement had nevertheless provided “the
assumptions” that the officers had previously “operated upon.” Jones testified that the
Kentucky charges against the defendant had been dismissed on jurisdictional grounds based on
“the case law” regarding “the low[-]water mark” of the Ohio River. Jones indicated that there
were now signs on the bridge “delineating where that mark is.”
¶ 12 Shepherd testified that he had worked for the McCracken County Sheriff’s Department for
21 years and that “up until this case,” the curve in the bridge had historically been considered
Kentucky’s jurisdiction. Shepherd explained that he had personally “worked numerous
collisions in that curve,” but the McCracken County Sheriff’s Department did not work them
anymore.
¶ 13 Following the hearing on the defendant’s motion to suppress, the parties submitted
memorandums in support of their respective positions regarding the evidence that had been
obtained by the Kentucky officers. Referencing sections 107-3 and 107-4 of Code of Criminal
Procedure of 1963 (725 ILCS 5/107-3, 107-4 (West 2014)), the defendant emphasized that the
present case did not involve a “fresh pursuit” situation and that the Kentucky officers had
exercised authority that “went well beyond the authority that a private citizen would have in
making a citizen[’]s arrest.” The defendant argued that “[a]ll of the actions of the Kentucky
officers were improper, if not illegal.”
¶ 14 In response, the State maintained, among other things, that even assuming that the
defendant’s extraterritorial arrest had resulted in a violation of his constitutional rights,
suppression of the evidence obtained by the Kentucky officers was not warranted under the
“good faith” principles generally recognized in People v. LeFlore, 2015 IL 116799. The State
asserted that all of the officers who had responded to the defendant’s accident had acted with a
good-faith belief that the accident had occurred in Kentucky. The State also noted that signs
designating the Illinois-Kentucky border had since been erected on the Brookport Bridge.
¶ 15 In March 2018, the circuit court entered a written order finding that all of the officers who
had responded to the defendant’s accident had “believed that the Kentucky officers had
jurisdiction of any incident that occurred on the Brookport Bridge,” which “was a mistake of
fact.” The court found that, because of that mistake of fact, the Kentucky officers had taken
charge of the accident scene. The court determined that the Kentucky officers’ authority to
make an arrest in Illinois was the limited authority afforded a private citizen pursuant to section
107-3. See People v. Lahr, 147 Ill. 2d 379 (1992). The court concluded that a private citizen
could have arrested and questioned him with respect to the contraband he had thrown from the
bridge but could not have subsequently detained and questioned him at the McCracken County
jail. The court therefore granted the defendant’s motion to suppress with respect to the
evidence, “including the officer’s observations,” obtained at the jail and denied the motion
with respect to the cannabis, the drug paraphernalia, and the questioning and observations that
had occurred in Illinois. The court did not address the State’s argument that the suppression of
the evidence was not warranted because the officers had acted in good faith. In April 2018, the
State filed a certificate of substantial impairment and a timely notice of appeal pursuant to
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Illinois Supreme Court Rule 604(a)(1) (eff. July 1, 2017).
¶ 16 DISCUSSION
¶ 17 At the outset, we note that the State does not challenge the circuit court’s finding that the
Kentucky officers exceeded the statutory authority that they had under the circumstances. The
State also concedes for the sake of its argument on appeal that the defendant’s extraterritorial
arrest violated the fourth amendment and that the exclusionary rule applies. But see People v.
Fitzpatrick, 2013 IL 113449, ¶ 20 n.1; United States v. Ryan, 731 F.3d 66, 70-71 (1st Cir.
2013) (and cases cited therein); State v. Morris, 92 A.3d 920, 928-29 (R.I. 2014); Delker v.
State, 2008-CT-00114-SCT (¶¶ 12-18) (Miss. 2010). The State’s sole assertion is that by
rejecting its contention that “the present case falls squarely under the good-faith exception to
the exclusionary rule,” the circuit court erred in suppressing the evidence that was obtained
while the defendant was incarcerated in the McCracken County jail. In response, primarily
relying on our supreme court’s decision in People v. Carrera, 203 Ill. 2d 1 (2002), the
defendant argues that the circuit court’s judgment should be affirmed because the good-faith
exception is inapplicable. We agree with the State.
¶ 18 On appeal from a circuit court’s granting of a motion to suppress evidence, the court’s
findings of fact are given great deference and will only be reversed if they are against the
manifest weight of the evidence. People v. Bonilla, 2018 IL 122484, ¶ 8. The circuit court’s
legal ruling on whether the evidence should be suppressed, however, is reviewed de novo. Id.
“[W]here, as here, there is no factual or credibility dispute, and the question involves only the
application of the law to the undisputed facts, our standard of review is de novo.” People v.
Butorac, 2013 IL App (2d) 110953, ¶ 14.
¶ 19 “The fourth amendment of the United States Constitution, applicable to the states through
the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment, guarantees to all citizens the right to be
free from unreasonable searches and seizures.” In re Lakisha M., 227 Ill. 2d 259, 264 (2008). A
“seizure” occurs when an individual’s freedom of movement is restrained by physical force or
a show of authority (United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 553 (1980)), and “[f]or
purposes of the fourth amendment, a seizure is an arrest” (People v. Lopez, 229 Ill. 2d 322, 346
(2008)).
¶ 20 Article I, section 6, of the Illinois Constitution of 1970 (Ill. Const. 1970, art. I, § 6) contains
a search-and-seizure clause similar to the fourth amendment’s, which is interpreted “in
‘limited lockstep’ with its federal counterpart.” LeFlore, 2015 IL 116799, ¶ 16 (quoting
People v. Caballes, 221 Ill. 2d 282, 314 (2006)). Under the limited-lockstep doctrine, the
decisions of the United States Supreme Court will be followed unless doing so would conflict
with Illinois’s longstanding history and traditions or drastically change Illinois’s constitutional
law. See Fitzpatrick, 2013 IL 113449, ¶¶ 15-21. We note that Kentucky employs a similar
doctrine (see Commonwealth v. Cooper, 899 S.W.2d 75, 77-78 (Ky. 1995)) and has
consistently interpreted its search-and-seizure clause “in congruence with” the fourth
amendment (Parker v. Commonwealth, 440 S.W.3d 381, 387 (Ky. 2014)).
¶ 21 To deter unlawful police conduct and thereby effectuate the fourth amendment’s guarantee
against unreasonable searches and seizures, the United States Supreme Court created the
exclusionary rule. Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 10-11 (1995). Notably, “the abuses that gave
rise to the exclusionary rule featured intentional conduct that was patently unconstitutional.”
Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 143 (2009). Where applicable, the exclusionary rule
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precludes the admission of evidence obtained in violation of the fourth amendment. People v.
Sutherland, 223 Ill. 2d 187, 227 (2006).
¶ 22 “The fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine is an outgrowth of the exclusionary rule
providing that ‘the fourth amendment violation is deemed the “poisonous tree,” and any
evidence obtained by exploiting that violation is subject to suppression as the “fruit” of that
poisonous tree.’ ” People v. Burns, 2016 IL 118973, ¶ 47 (quoting People v. Henderson, 2013
IL 114040, ¶ 33). However, “ ‘[t]he mere fact of a fourth amendment violation does not mean
that exclusion necessarily follows’ because there ‘is no constitutional right to have the
evidence resulting from an illegal search or seizure suppressed at trial.’ ” Id. ¶ 51 (quoting
LeFlore, 2015 IL 116799, ¶ 22). “Instead, application of the exclusionary rule has been
restricted to those ‘unusual cases’ where it can achieve its sole objective: to deter future fourth
amendment violations.” LeFlore, 2015 IL 116799, ¶ 22 (quoting United States v. Leon, 468
U.S. 897, 918 (1984)).
¶ 23 Importantly, because the suppression of evidence will often work to suppress the truth and
effectively pardon the commission of a criminal offense, application of the exclusionary rule
requires that the deterrent benefit of suppressing the evidence outweigh the substantial social
costs. See Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229, 237 (2011). Because the exclusionary rule
focuses on “the ‘flagrancy of the police misconduct’ at issue,” it should not be applied
reflexively. Id. at 238 (quoting Leon, 468 U.S. at 911). “Exclusion of evidence is a court’s last
resort, not its first impulse,” and “when there is no illicit conduct to deter, the deterrent
rationale loses much of its force.” Burns, 2016 IL 118973, ¶¶ 51-52. “Real deterrent value” is a
“ ‘necessary condition for exclusion’ ” (Davis, 564 U.S. at 237 (quoting Hudson v. Michigan,
547 U.S. 586, 596 (2006))), and the United States Supreme Court has “repeatedly rejected
efforts to expand the focus of the exclusionary rule beyond deterrence of culpable police
conduct” (id. at 246). “Thus, exclusion is invoked only where police conduct is both
‘sufficiently deliberate’ that deterrence is effective and ‘sufficiently culpable’ that deterrence
outweighs the cost of suppression.” LeFlore, 2015 IL 116799, ¶ 24 (quoting Herring, 555 U.S.
at 144). Accordingly, “even when a fourth amendment violation has occurred, the evidence
that resulted will not be suppressed when the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule
applies.” Id. ¶ 17.
¶ 24 The good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule is a judicially created rule providing that
evidence obtained in violation of a defendant’s fourth amendment rights will not be suppressed
when the police acted with an objectively reasonable good-faith belief that their conduct was
lawful or when their conduct involved only simple, isolated negligence. Bonilla, 2018 IL
122484, ¶ 35; LeFlore, 2015 IL 116799, ¶ 24. When determining whether the good-faith
exception to the exclusionary rule is applicable, a court must consider whether a reasonably
well-trained officer would have known that his conduct was illegal in light of all of the
circumstances. LeFlore, 2015 IL 116799, ¶ 25. A reasonably well-trained officer is expected to
know what is required under the fourth amendment. See Davis, 564 U.S. at 241.
¶ 25 The good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule recognizes that the purpose of the
exclusionary rule is not served where the evidence sought to be suppressed was obtained as a
result of “nonculpable, innocent police conduct.” Id. at 240. The good-faith exception thus
applies where the police act in reliance on the legal landscape that existed at the time, so long
as it was objectively reasonable to do so and a reasonable officer would not have suspected that
his conduct was wrongful under the circumstances. LeFlore, 2015 IL 116799, ¶ 31. Moreover,
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the fourth amendment itself will tolerate a seizure arising from an officer’s mistake of fact, so
long as the mistake was a reasonable one to make. Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. ___, ___,
135 S. Ct. 530, 536 (2014).
¶ 26 The good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule also recognizes that police officers
should not be penalized for errors made by other officials upon whom they must rely to execute
their duties and responsibilities. See Davis, 564 U.S. at 240-41. The United States Supreme
Court has thus found that the good-faith exception is applicable where an officer reasonably
relies on a search warrant later deemed invalid, on binding judicial precedent upholding a
statute later deemed unconstitutional, or on erroneous arrest-warrant information obtained
from a database maintained by judicial or police employees. Id. at 238-40. Application of the
good-faith exception is not, however, limited to the specific circumstances addressed in the
decisions rendered by the United States Supreme Court. LeFlore, 2015 IL 116799, ¶ 29.
¶ 27 In Carrera, 203 Ill. 2d at 11, a majority of our supreme court held that “Illinois law is
settled that the exclusionary rule is applicable where the police effectuate an extraterritorial
arrest without appropriate statutory authority.” The defendant cites this holding as supportive
of the circuit court’s judgment in the present case. As the State observes, however, as the
supreme court later explained in People v. Holmes, 2017 IL 120407, ¶¶ 19-20, the Carrera
majority specifically declined to consider whether the good-faith exception to the exclusionary
ruled applied because Carrera involved a statute enacted in violation of the single-subject
clause of the Illinois Constitution (Ill. Const. 1970, art. IV, § 8(d)), which implicated the void
ab initio doctrine. Thus, “the majority resolved the case by applying the void ab initio doctrine
and declined to address the good-faith exception due to its belief that application of the
good-faith exception would be counter to the void ab initio doctrine.” Holmes, 2017 IL
120407, ¶ 20. Because the void ab initio doctrine is not implicated in the present case, Carrera
did not preclude the circuit court’s application of the good-faith exception. We therefore reject
the defendant’s suggestion that the circuit court was right to ignore the State’s argument that
the officers who responded to his accident had acted with a good-faith belief that the accident
had occurred in Kentucky’s jurisdiction.
¶ 28 Turning to the merits of the State’s claim, as previously indicated, although Myrick and
Hines were the first officers to arrive at the scene of the defendant’s accident, they did not
assume control of the situation. Instead, they assisted Jones and Shepherd, who did assume
control. Jones testified that prior to “this case,” there had been an agreement between Illinois
and Kentucky providing that “Kentucky would police every bit of the bridge[,] and Illinois
would conduct maintenance on every bit of the bridge.” Shepherd testified that he had worked
for the McCracken County Sheriff’s Department for 21 years and that “up until this case,” the
curve in the bridge where the defendant’s accident occurred had historically been considered
Kentucky’s jurisdiction. Shepherd further indicated that the McCracken County Sheriff’s
Department had been dispatched to the Illinois side of the bridge to work “numerous collisions
in that curve” while the agreement was in effect. Jones explained that after the McCracken
County charges against the defendant had been dismissed, signs had been placed on the bridge
delineating the boundary between Kentucky and Illinois and the agreement had been
terminated.
¶ 29 Although it is not clear whether the agreement was formal or informal, it appears that prior
to this case, the agreement had amicably governed the jurisdiction of the Brookport Bridge for
at least 21 years without ever being questioned or challenged. Because the agreement
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represented the relevant legal landscape that existed at the time, all of the officers who
responded to the defendant’s accident believed that Kentucky had jurisdiction over any
incident that occurred on the bridge. Mistaken or not, that belief was objectively reasonable
because, prior to this case, Kentucky had been exercising such jurisdiction. Furthermore, while
the agreement was in effect, there were no signs on the bridge marking the territorial boundary
line between Kentucky and Illinois.
¶ 30 Under the circumstances, all of the officers who responded to the defendant’s accident
acted with an objectively reasonable good-faith belief that their conduct was lawful, and by
merely responding to the accident and working it as they had always worked accidents on the
bridge, none would have suspected otherwise. They also acted as well-trained officers would
be expected to act; the officers from Kentucky who were dispatched to handle the accident
responded and took charge, and the Brookport officers who responded to assist had generously
assisted. The officers did not deliberately violate the defendant’s rights and only later learned
that he had been subject to an extraterritorial arrest. A reasonably well-trained officer would
not have believed that his or her conduct was improper under the circumstances.
¶ 31 On appeal, the defendant intimates that because Illinois v. Kentucky was decided nearly 30
years ago, a reasonably well-trained officer should have known that, because Kentucky’s
northern border did not extend past the Ohio River’s low-water mark as it was in 1792, the
curve in the Brookport Bridge was Illinois territory. The defendant relatedly argues that the
present case demonstrates recurring negligence on the part of the police. We disagree. Not only
do the defendant’s claims suggest that the responding officers had a duty to determine whether
Illinois v. Kentucky affected the validity of the longstanding agreement regarding the policing
of the bridge, it presumes that Illinois v. Kentucky worked to immediately dissolve the
agreement.
¶ 32 Although it is axiomatic that a reasonably well-trained officer would be expected to know
the boundaries of the areas that he or she is ordered to police, the officer does not establish
those boundaries and does not have the authority to do so. Police officers are “entitled to rely
on traditional sources for the factual information on which they decide and act” (Scheuer v.
Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 246 (1974)), which would necessarily include boundary markers and
signs. Police officers are further entitled to rely on information received from their dispatchers
(United States v. Mounts, 248 F.3d 712, 715 (7th Cir. 2001)) and instructions received from
their supervisors, “particularly where those instructions [are] not inconsistent with their
personal knowledge and experience” (Washington Square Post No. 1212 American Legion v.
Maduro, 907 F.2d 1288, 1293 (2d Cir. 1990)). Police officers are not expected to be “legal
technicians” (In re Marsh, 40 Ill. 2d 53, 56 (1968)), however, and a reasonably well-trained
officer is not responsible for anticipating or resolving legal matters that are beyond his or her
purview (see United States v. Workman, 863 F.3d 1313, 1320-21 (10th Cir. 2017); United
States v. Diaz, 841 F.2d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 1988)).
¶ 33 Here, it was not the responding officers’ responsibility to determine whether Illinois v.
Kentucky might have changed the legal landscape that had been governed by agreement, nor
was it their responsibility to locate and mark the Illinois-Kentucky boundary line on the
Brookport Bridge. See 605 ILCS 5/2-202, 4-201.12 (West 2014); 625 ILCS 5/11-301, 11-303
(West 2014); Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 189.010(3), 189.231, 189.337 (West 2014). Moreover,
pursuant to the Supreme Court’s decree, the maps and coordinates that might have assisted an
officer’s attempt to locate the boundary line were presented to the governmental authorities
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who were specifically named in the decree. It was seemingly incumbent on those authorities to
anticipate any jurisdictional issues that might have arisen in the immediate wake of the Court’s
decision and to resolve, as they apparently did here, those that might later arise. As the State
suggests, however, not only did the Court’s decision not work to immediately dissolve the
longstanding agreement regarding the policing of the Brookport Bridge, given that the Court’s
decree gave Kentucky and Illinois concurrent jurisdiction over the Ohio River, the decree
might have been viewed as facially validating the agreement. But see Bedell v.
Commonwealth, 870 S.W.2d 779, 781 (Ky. 1993) (“Commission of a statutory offense in
Kentucky gives rise to the authority of the courts of this state to preside over the prosecution of
the case.”). We also note that even assuming that the Kentucky officers who responded to the
defendant’s accident had reason to question their informed belief that they had jurisdiction
over the entire bridge, when they were dispatched to the bridge to handle the defendant’s
accident, they had no choice but to comply. “A police officer does not have the prerogative of
actively disobeying an order from a superior while seeking a determination as to the validity of
that order.” Martin v. Matthys, 149 Ill. App. 3d 800, 808 (1986). “Such a practice would thwart
the authority and respect which is the foundation of the effective and efficient operation of a
police force.” Id.; see also Johnson v. Retirement Board of the Policemen’s Annuity & Benefit
Fund, 114 Ill. 2d 518, 522 (1986) (noting that “unlike an ordinary citizen, the policeman has no
option as to whether to respond” (emphasis in original)).
¶ 34 Ultimately, despite the fact that the Court’s decree in Illinois v. Kentucky was entered in
1995, it is not surprising that the agreement was not dissolved and that the signs delineating the
boundary between Illinois and Kentucky were not posted until after the defendant was
successful in having the McCracken County charges against him dismissed in the present case.
While it may take years or even decades to emerge, such a challenge will certainly give notice
of the need for such changes. See, e.g., Benham v. State, 637 N.E.2d 133, 137 (Ind. 1994)
(holding that although Indiana and Kentucky each have concurrent jurisdiction over the Ohio
River as confirmed in Kentucky v. Indiana, 474 U.S. 1 (1985), Indiana’s jurisdiction over
criminal offenses is limited to its “actual territorial boundaries”); City of Cincinnati v. Dryden,
698 N.E.2d 538, 540 (Mun. Ct. Hamilton County 1998) (holding that although Ohio and
Kentucky each have concurrent jurisdiction over the Ohio River pursuant to Ohio v. Kentucky,
410 U.S. 641 (1973), Ohio’s jurisdiction over criminal offenses occurring on the bridges
spanning the river is limited to “those activities [that] occur north of the boundary line declared
by the Supreme Court”). To the extent that those changes could have or should have occurred
prior to this case, however, is not something assignable to officers who responded to the
defendant’s accident.
¶ 35 Lastly, because there are now signs on the Brookport Bridge marking the boundary line
between Illinois and Kentucky and because the McCracken County Sheriff’s Department no
longer polices the Illinois side of the bridge, it is unlikely that an extraterritorial arrest like the
defendant’s will reoccur. As previously noted, “[r]eal deterrent value” is a “ ‘necessary
condition for exclusion’ ” (Davis, 564 U.S. at 237 (quoting Hudson, 547 U.S. at 596)), and the
“sole objective” of the exclusionary rule is “to deter future fourth amendment violations”
(LeFlore, 2015 IL 116799, ¶ 22). Here, excluding the evidence in question would not serve
that objective and would only punish the cooperative police work of the officers who acted
with an objectively good-faith belief that the defendant’s accident had occurred in Kentucky’s
jurisdiction. The exclusionary rule “simply cannot be applied to a situation where it offers little
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or no deterrent benefit and where there is not the least bit of culpability that can be charged to
the officer’s conduct.” Id. ¶ 51.
¶ 36 As noted, when partially granting the defendant’s motion to suppress, the circuit court
found that all of the officers who had responded to the scene of the accident had mistakenly
believed that Kentucky had jurisdiction over any incident that occurred on the Brookport
Bridge. The court did not consider, however, whether the responding officers had acted with an
objectively reasonable good-faith belief that their conduct was lawful, whether the officers’
mistake of fact was reasonable, whether a reasonably well-trained officer would have known
that his conduct was illegal in light of all of the circumstances, or whether excluding the
evidence at issue had any deterrent value. Because the exclusion of evidence is a court’s “last
resort” (Burns, 2016 IL 118973, ¶ 51), we conclude that the court should not have ignored the
State’s good-faith argument and should have denied the defendant’s motion to suppress in its
entirety. We accordingly reverse the portion of the court’s judgment that granted the motion
with respect to the evidence obtained at the McCracken County jail. The court’s judgment is
otherwise affirmed, and the cause is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with
this decision.
¶ 37 Affirmed in part and reversed in part; cause remanded.
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