IL: Community caretaking entry didn’t permit police trying to look in locked cabinet

Officers were in defendant’s house investigating a gas leak. A kitchen cabinet had a chain and lock on it, and the police while in the house manipulated it and shined a flashlight to see what was inside. This was an unreasonable search. People v. Hagestedt, 2025 IL 130286, 2025 Ill. LEXIS 185 (Feb. 6, 2025):

[*P24] In addition, we find that defendant has sufficiently established a reasonable expectation of privacy in the kitchen cabinet. By chaining and locking a cabinet in his kitchen, defendant took actions to protect his privacy and had shown that he sought to preserve the contents of the cabinet as private. See People v. Neal, 109 Ill. 2d 216, 221-22, 486 N.E.2d 898, 93 Ill. Dec. 365 (1985) (by concealing items in a pouch, and concealing the pouch itself, defendant exhibited a subjective expectation that the items would remain private). Society recognizes as reasonable a defendant’s expectation of privacy in items concealed from plain view in closed containers, especially in a defendant’s own home. McCavitt, 2021 IL 125550, ¶ 61; see People v. Absher, 242 Ill. 2d 77, 83, 950 N.E.2d 659, 351 Ill. Dec. 163 (2011) (“Although the fourth amendment protects an individual’s privacy in a variety of settings, ‘[i]n none is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than when bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual’s home.'” (quoting Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 589, 100 S. Ct. 1371, 63 L. Ed. 2d 639 (1980))).