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On February 3, 2015 the Illinois Appellate Court held that an officer is not authorized to pat down an individual for weapons during the course of a community-caretaking encounter. Accordingly, a defendant cannot be charged with resisting arrest for his failure to comply with an officer’s requests during the community-caretaking encounter.

In People v. Slaymaker, the defendant was charged with resisting arrest under 720 ILCS 5/31-1(a). He was convicted and sentenced to 180 days in jail with credit for time served.

On August 2, 2011, the defendant was walking down a highway in Roscoe when an officer approached him after sunset. The officer noticed the defendant walking down the paved portion of the highway median and, concerned the defendant had car trouble, the officer pulled over to the side of the road where the defendant was walking.

The officer asked the defendant where he was going, and the defendant told the officer he was going to McDonald’s, which was just a little bit further down the road. The officer noted that the defendant did not appear to be in medical distress and “he was not panting or sweating profusely.” The officer saw the defendant reach his right hand into his pocket, so the officer grabbed defendant’s hand and told him he was going to pat him down for weapons. The defendant started screaming into the cell phone and would not obey the officer’s orders. After a scuffle, the defendant was handcuffed.

The prosecutor argued that the incident was a “community-caretaking function” and not a “seizure.” The defendant’s attorney argued that “no authority exists for seizing someone during a community-caretaking function,” and once the defendant “plausibly said that he was going to McDonald’s and the officer saw no indication that defendant was in medical distress, defendant should have been allowed to go about his business.”

Under the resisting arrest criminal statute a person commits the offense of resisting or obstructing a peace officer when that person “knowingly resists or obstructs the performance by one known to the person to be a peace officer . . . of any authorized act within his or her official capacity.” The defendant argued that the officer was without authority to physically restrain him and pat him down for weapons during the course of a community-caretaking function. The issue facing the court was whether the officer’s conduct was “authorized” under the statute. The resisting arrest statute does not apply “where police are not effectuating an arrest.”

The court defined “community-caretaking” as a “capacity in which the police perform some task unrelated to the investigation of crime, such as helping children find their parents, mediating noise disputes, responding to call about missing persons or sick neighbors, or helping inebriates find their way home.” To determine whether a seizure is justified under the community-caretaking principle, the “law enforcement officers must be performing some function other than the investigation of a crime,” and “the search or seizure must be reasonable because it was undertaken to protect the safety of the general public.”

Here, the parties did not dispute that the initial encounter was justified as community-caretaking, but the court found that the officer was not authorized to prolong the encounter to frisk for weapons. The fact defendant reached into his pocket and that his pockets were “bulging” did not give rise to reasonable suspicion or presence of a weapon justifying a search. When the defendant told the officer he was on his way to McDonald’s the community-caretaking encounter ended and the defendant should have been allowed to go on his way.

The court reversed the defendant’s conviction.

If you have questions about this case or the law of resisting arrest, give Laura a call!