Matthew R. Leisten, Ogle County State’s Attorney’s Office, Oregon
815-732-1170 | E-mail Matthew R. Leisten
Illinois Supreme Court Says Police Unlawfully Searched Locked Cabinet During Gas Leak Investigation
In People v. Hagestedt, 2025 IL 130286, the Illinois Supreme Court held that the police conducted an unlawful search into a defendant’s locked kitchen cabinet during a gas leak investigation.
In Hagestedt, police officers entered the defendant’s townhome to assist a fire department with investigating a gas leak. The fire department determined that the kitchen stove was the source of the gas leak. One of the officers was unsure whether the stove had been shut off. After checking the stove, the officer began exiting the kitchen and saw an upper cabinet that was chained and padlocked. The cabinet door was one inch ajar. The officer used his flashlight to look inside the cabinet and saw suspected cannabis. Another officer arrived and pulled back the chained cabinet doors and saw suspected cannabis inside the cabinet. 2025 IL 130286 at ¶5 – 6.
The police obtained a search warrant for the townhome and recovered cannabis, heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl. The defendant was charged with possession with intent to deliver cannabis and possession of a controlled substance. The trial court denied the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence, and the defendant was convicted of the charges after a stipulated bench trial. The appellate court affirmed. 2025 IL 130286 at ¶¶7 – 10.
The Supreme Court reversed the convictions and held that the defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the kitchen cabinet because he protected his privacy by chaining and locking the cabinet. 2025 IL 130286 at ¶24. The Supreme Court next held that the police conducted a “search” when they opened the doors further and used a flashlight to peer into the cabinet. 2025 IL 130286 at ¶39. The court noted that a “search” has been repeatedly defined by the court, including the U.S. Supreme Court, as “prying into hidden places for that which is concealed . . . while a search does not occur when one observes what is in open view.” 2025 IL 130286 at ¶28. The nature of the opening is a consideration for determining when a search occurs. 2025 IL 130286 at ¶38.
The court concluded that the officer “took deliberate action that was unrelated to his authorized intrusion [to check the gas leak] which constituted an independent search.” 2025 IL 130286 at ¶39. The court noted that although the cabinet was in plain view, its contents were not in plain view because the cabinet doors were padlocked. The officers were unable to see the cabinet’s contents before they pulled the door back and used a flashlight to look inside. There was also no evidence that the cabinet was the source of the gas leak and no evidence that the flashlight was necessary to investigate the gas leak. Id.
Therefore, the defendant had an expectation of privacy in the kitchen cabinet. Since the search warrant relied on facts obtained from an unreasonable warrantless search, the search warrant was suppressed and any evidence obtained from the search warrant was suppressed “as fruit of the poisonous tree.” 2025 IL 130286 at ¶46.
For more information about criminal law, see CRIMINAL RECORDS: EXPUNGEMENT AND OTHER RELIEF (IICLE®, 2024). Online Library subscribers can view it for free by clicking here. If you don’t currently subscribe to the Online Library, visit www.iicle.com/subscriptions.