People v. Wallace

Summary

The Illinois Appellate Court, Fourth District, affirmed Jimmie L. Wallace’s conviction for unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon and his sentence of three years and two months. Wallace challenged the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained from a vehicle and backpack search and argued that the unlawful-possession statute was unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The opinion addresses vehicle inventory searches, probable cause, officer safety, and constitutional challenges to firearm restrictions.

Holdings

1. The officers lawfully separated Wallace from his backpack during the traffic stop, and the backpack was subject to the inventory search because it was a container located in the vehicle when the vehicle was lawfully impounded. Once the officer found a glass jar containing suspected methamphetamine, probable cause authorized a warrantless automobile search extending to containers in the vehicle capable of concealing contraband, including the backpack.
2. The inventory search was initially valid notwithstanding the officers’ failure to complete an itemized list. The search was conducted pursuant to reasonable standardized procedures before the officer found the glass jar and developed probable cause; the later failure to complete the inventory did not invalidate the search or require suppression.
3. The unlawful-possession-of-a-weapon-by-a-felon statute, 720 ILCS 5/24-1.1(a), is not unconstitutional on its face or as applied to Wallace. Under controlling Illinois appellate precedent, felons are outside the class of law-abiding citizens whose conduct is presumptively protected under Bruen, and the court declined to distinguish between violent and nonviolent felonies.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the warrantless search of Wallace’s backpack violated the Fourth Amendment because an officer ordered him to leave the backpack in an impounded vehicle before an inventory search.
2. Whether the vehicle inventory search was invalid because officers did not fully comply with department inventory procedures or prepare an itemized inventory.
3. Whether Illinois’s unlawful-possession-of-a-weapon-by-a-felon statute, 720 ILCS 5/24-1.1(a), violates the Second Amendment facially or as applied to a defendant whose predicate felony was nonviolent and drug-related.

Disposition

affirmed