SPRINGFIELD, ILL. -- UPDATED: March 25 at 3:54 p.m.
The Fourth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution protects you from illegal search and seizures.
An Illinois woman thought that right had been violated when she was arrested in Quincy on meth related charges in 2006. Police pulled the car over and asked the woman to roll up her windows and turn on the vent blowers. A drug dog was called in to sniff the car and found meth. The lady thought this "trap" was illegal.
A local judge agreed.
The Adams County State's Attorney appealed the case, and an appellate court agreed and said the so-called trap was legal.
The woman's attorney then took that decision to the Illinois State Supreme Court, where in a split decision, the high court upheld the Appellate Court's ruling.
We asked Quincy Police Deputy Chief Ron Dreyer what the decision means for police.
He said, "It's probably going to be beneficial as far as our searches and our K-9 use because the officers that do this will explain stagnant air is hard for a dog to smell or determine what's in that vehicle. When the air comes out of that vehicle, the dog can make a determination."
Deputy Chief Dreyer adds the Quincy Police K-9 officers are trained to do this, it is not unique to the Quincy Police Department.
He says the officers and the dogs are re-certified every year.
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Police across Illinois now have the okay from the state's highest court to move ahead with drug sniff "set-ups".
The Illinois Supreme Court issued an opinion Thursday in the case of People v. Bartelt, a 2006 drug case from Quincy. The officers in the case pulled Cheryl Bartelt because they suspected she had just bought meth.
As they waited for a police dog to arrive to sniff her car, the officers told Bartelt to roll up the windows in her car and turn-on her blowers. That "set-up" spread the scent of meth, and when the drug dog arrived it smelled the drugs. Officers searched Bartelt's car and found meth. She was arrested and headed to trial, but Bartelt's lawyers said the police went too far by having her turn on her car's blowers. A lower court agreed.
But a sharply divided Illinois Supreme Court said the police did not step over the line. Four justices agreed with the police, three did not. Justice Lloyd Karmeier wrote in his opinion that a dog sniff is "not within the meaning of the fourth amendment" and neither is a "set-up."
But Justice Charles Freeman questioned both the police and the other high court justices when he wrote a "set-up was an additional seizure and unreasonable under the fourth amendment."
Quincy Police Chief Robert Copley says he's pleased with the court's ruling and is looking forward to reinstating "set-ups" as a tool his officers can use on the streets.
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Original Story:
A Quincy drug case has 4th amendment watchdogs upset.
People State of Illinois, appellee, v. Cheryl L. Bartelt, appellant stems from a 2006 traffic stop.
You can read the entire Illinois Supreme Court docket here.
Police say it was a legal search. But the defendant says the search was not within the law.
Bartelt says that it was illegal for the officers to enter the car before the K9 dog alerted and that because they asked her to close the doors and windows of the car and turn on her blower, they in effect moved and minipulated the air within the car that would not otherwise have been subject to plain view or smell.
What do you think? Take our poll below.
The case goes before the court Thursday and KHQA will bring you more details on this case as soon as they are made available.
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