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People v. Cordero6/10/2005
is justified on community caretaking grounds does not depend on the officer's subjective purposes in effecting the seizure so long as his actions are objectively reasonable under the circumstances. Our district has in the past fallen into a subjectivist error. Thus, in Simac the court said: "The 'community caretaking' function must be completely divorced from any initial suspicion of criminal activity." (Emphasis added.) Simac, 321 Ill. App. 3d at 1004. In People v. Croft, 346 Ill. App. 3d 669, 673 (2004), we said: "An encounter is a function of community caretaking when an officer initiates it to check on an individual's well-being, without initial thought of criminal activity." (Emphasis added.) Elsewhere in Croft we again said: "When an officer questions an individual to check on his well-being, without initial thought of criminal activity, he is within the purview of community caretaking." (Emphasis added.) Croft, 346 Ill. App. 3d at 673. In our analysis in Croft, we reasoned:
"In the present case, we are not convinced that Officer Row's initial contact with defendant fell within the community caretaking function. Rather, Officer Row's testimony revealed that the purpose behind the encounter was investigative. Four thefts and two incidents of vandalism were reported the week before the encounter. According to Officer Row, seeing defendant push a bicycle while in dark pants at 11:15 p.m. 'just seemed strange' and was 'not a normal occurrence in that neighborhood.' Officer Row subsequently initiated the encounter 'to make sure that there was nothing else going to happen.'
* Officer Row did not question defendant without initial suspicion of criminal activity. On the contrary, he questioned defendant to investigate his possible involvement in recent instances of theft and vandalism in the neighborhood. See People v. Dent, 343 Ill. App. 3d 567, 578 (2003) (police are not performing a community caretaking function when they are specifically investigating reports of criminal activity). Because Officer Row's purpose in questioning defendant was not totally divorced from detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence, we cannot say that he was performing community caretaking." Croft, 346 Ill. App. 3d at 673-74.
We took this approach as recently as Smith. See Smith, 346 Ill. App. 3d at 162 ("Where, as here, police action is not motivated by crime detection or investigation but, rather, by an intent to render aid in an emergency situation, a suspicionless seizure of a person in furtherance of that goal does not violate the fourth amendment"). This approach is improper. The test for determining whether a seizure is justified is objective, the question being whether the facts and circumstances known to the officer at the time of the seizure warranted his action. See People v. Chavez, 327 Ill. App. 3d 18, 31-32 (2001). An officer's testimony is relevant not for what it reveals about his inner thoughts, but for what it discloses about the objective circumstances of the encounter.
The error in Croft and these other cases is rooted in a misunderstanding of the language from Cady, quoted in Murray, that police officers " 'frequently investigate vehicle accidents in which there is no claim of criminal liability and engage in what, for want of a better term, may be described as community caretaking functions, totally divorced from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute.' " Murray, 137 Ill. 2d at 388, quoting Cady, 413 U.S. at 441, 37 L.Ed. 2d at 714- 15, 93 S.Ct. at 2528. Cady was noting that many police-citizen encounters have nothing to do with crime, not requiring that they must have nothing to do with crime
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