IL: Tow and inventory of car left on high school parking lot was unreasonable

Defendant was pulled over and arrested on a warrant. He pulled into a high school parking lot when he was stopped. Taking the car for inventory was unnecessary under the regulations at issue. People v. Spencer, 408 Ill. App. 3d 1, 948 N.E.2d 196, 350 Ill. Dec. 127 (2011):

Defendant further maintains that the evidence presented at the suppression hearings establishes that the Fremd parking lot was private property and that the police did not have the authority to tow his vehicle because his car was legally parked therein. The police have the authority to seize and remove vehicles that are impeding traffic or threatening public safety and convenience. Clark, 394 Ill. App. 3d at 348. However, the mere fact that an arrestee’s car would be left unattended is insufficient to justify impoundment unless the vehicle would be illegally parked. People v. Ursini, 245 Ill. App. 3d 480, 483 (1993).

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We determine that the evidence presented at the suppression hearings does not establish that the impoundment of defendant’s vehicle was lawful. Although Detective Pistorius testified that defendant’s car was not legally parked at the time he was arrested, he did not provide the reason it was not legally parked. The State did not present any evidence showing that defendant was prohibited from parking in the lot, and Detective Pistorius testified that he did not recall seeing any signs indicating that parking was forbidden or that unauthorized vehicles would be towed. Also, the State did not present any evidence showing that defendant’s vehicle was impeding traffic or threatening public safety (Clark, 394 Ill. App. 3d at 349), and Detective Pistorius testified that it was not impeding traffic when defendant was arrested. While the State asserts in its brief that Detective Pistorius would have potentially put schoolchildren at risk by leaving the vehicle in the parking lot, it does not explain, nor can we see, how the car’s presence in the lot would have endangered any of the school’s students. In addition, the State did not present any evidence showing that defendant consented to the impoundment of his vehicle or that an employee or representative of Fremd High School requested that it be towed. Schultz, 93 Ill. App. 3d at 1076. Furthermore, Detective Pistorius testified that the car was impounded pursuant to RMPD policy that an arrested person’s vehicle shall be towed, and not because it was illegally parked.

Thus, the record shows that defendant made a prima facie case that the evidence that was taken from the lock box in the trunk of his car was obtained during an illegal search by showing that the search was conducted without a warrant. Gipson, 203 Ill. 2d at 306-07. The State was then required to come forward with evidence rebutting that claim and showing that the evidence was collected during a legal inventory search. Id. at 307. The mere fact that defendant’s vehicle would have been left unattended is insufficient to justify its impoundment. Ursini, 245 Ill. App. 3d at 483. In this case, the State did not present sufficient evidence to show that the threshold requirement of a legal inventory search, that the impoundment of defendant’s vehicle was lawful, was met (Clark, 394 Ill. App. 3d at 348-49), and we therefore determine that the warrantless search of defendant’s vehicle cannot be justified as an inventory search.