THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AMY LYNN MUELLER, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 2-17-0863
Appellate Court of Illinois, Second District
December 13, 2018
January 8, 2019
2018 IL App (2d) 170863
Hon. Joel D. Berg, Judge, presiding.
Appeal from the Circuit Court of McHenry County, Nos. 17-DT-109, 17-TR-4537. Affirmed.
Patrick D. Kenneally, State‘s Attorney, of Woodstock (Patrick Delfino, David J. Robinson, and Stephanie Hoit Lee, of State‘s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor‘s Office, of counsel), for the People.
Matthew J. Haiduk, of Geneva, for appellee.
Presiding Justice Birkett and Justice Spence concurred in the judgment and opinion.
OPINION
¶ 1 Defendant, Amy Lynn Mueller, was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol (
I. BACKGROUND
¶ 2 At the hearing on defendant‘s motion, the sole witness was Trent Raupp, a McHenry County sheriff‘s deputy. He testified as follows.
¶ 3 On February 11, 2017, at 1:40 a.m., he was on patrol in the area of U.S. Route 12 and Illinois Route 31. Defendant‘s Jeep was stopped in the left-turn lane at a light at the intersection. When the light turned green, she turned left onto Route 31. There was nothing unusual in the turn. Raupp followed defendant. She was not speeding.
¶ 4 Raupp testified that, as defendant drove south, he observed her commit three lane violations. The first time, the Jeep‘s driver‘s-side tires rolled onto the yellow center line and touched it for a few seconds. The vehicle did not cross the line but returned to its lane. Raupp could not recall whether the move back was abrupt or smooth.
¶ 5 Raupp testified that the second time was when, after traveling some distance, the Jeep‘s passenger‘s-side tires touched the white fog line but never crossed over it. Raupp was asked, “But it never left its lane; correct?” He responded, “Correct, sir.” The touching was only “temporary.”1 The Jeep moved back toward the center of the lane without doing anything unusual; Raupp could not say that the move was abrupt. The third violation was when the Jeep‘s passenger‘s-side tires again rode on the white fog line. This was “momentary.” The tires never crossed over the line.
¶ 6 Other than the three incidents of what he regarded as ILU, Raupp did not see defendant violate any traffic laws. He acknowledged that the stretch of road on which he followed defendant was not straight and had “some twists and turns.” Also, he acknowledged that the video system in his squad car had been inoperable since October 2016 and that he had not requested any repair. Based on the three incidents alone, he stopped the Jeep nearly a mile from where he first saw it. The trial court denied the State‘s motion for a directed finding, and the State rested without presenting additional evidence.
¶ 7 Defendant argued that Raupp had had no basis to stop her for touching a center or fog line. The State maintained that Raupp had had a reasonable suspicion to stop defendant for ILU. The State did not raise any other basis for the stop, such as erratic driving or weaving within a lane. It contended, however, that under Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54, 135 S. Ct. 530 (2014), even had Raupp gotten the law wrong, his mistake was reasonable and therefore did not invalidate the stop.
¶ 8 The trial court held for defendant, explaining as follows. Heien is limited to extraordinary situations where the law gives police no guidance. Here, People v. Hackett, 2012 IL 111781, provided guidance by
¶ 9 The State moved to reconsider. It argued in part that Hackett held that crossing the yellow line or the fog line violates the ILU statute but did not address whether touching either line without crossing it also violates the law. The State argued alternatively that, under People v. Greco, 336 Ill. App. 3d 253, 257 (2003), defendant‘s erratic driving within her lane provided a reasonable suspicion to stop her. The State also reiterated that at worst Raupp had made a reasonable mistake of law, validating the stop.
¶ 10 The trial court denied the State‘s motion to reconsider. In a lengthy order, the court stated as follows. Raupp‘s testimony had been “problematic. He either didn‘t remember important details or was flippant with [defendant‘s] attorney.” “In any event,” however, “Deputy Raupp never saw the Jeep‘s tires cross over either the yellow center line or the white fog line, nor did he observe any jerky or erratic driving corrections. The three lane-line touches occurred over a mile-long ‘twist[ing] and turn[ing] stretch of road.’ ”
¶ 11 The court‘s order continued as follows. Under Hackett, to stop defendant for ILU, Raupp had needed a reasonable suspicion that she had deviated from her lane. Whether she had been driving as nearly as practicable within her lane was not pertinent to reasonable suspicion. See Hackett, 2012 IL 111781, ¶ 28; People v. Flint, 2012 IL App (3d) 110165, ¶ 15. No Illinois case had held that merely driving on the center line or the fog line creates a reasonable suspicion of ILU. In People v. Smith, 172 Ill. 2d 289, 297 (1996), the court stated, “[W]hen a motorist crosses over a lane line and is not driving as nearly as practicable within one lane, the motorist has violated the statute.” In Flint, 2012 IL App (3d) 110165, ¶¶ 8, 17, the court held that the officer had a reasonable suspicion to stop the defendant for ILU after observing his vehicle‘s tire cross completely over the center line. In People v. Leyendecker, 337 Ill. App. 3d 678, 682 (2003), this court stated that Smith required the trial court to consider “whether [the officer] had a reasonable suspicion that *** [the] defendant had crossed over a lane line.” Thus, the trial court concluded, “current law require[d] evidence that [defendant‘s] tires crossed over the lane lines” to create a reasonable suspicion of ILU. That had not occurred.
¶ 12 Turning to the State‘s argument based on Greco, the court first found that it was forfeited, as the State had not raised it until its motion to reconsider. Second, the court held that the argument lacked merit anyway. Raupp had never testified that he saw defendant weaving within her lane or driving erratically, and he could not say that her deviations were abrupt or how long they had lasted. Moreover, she had been driving on a curved road in the darkness of the early morning.
¶ 13 Finally, the court held, Heien and People v. Gaytan, 2015 IL 116223, which adopted Heien‘s holding, did not apply. In those cases, the statutes involved were ambiguous; here, the ILU statute clearly required a lane deviation, which meant crossing over a line. Thus, Raupp‘s mistake of law
II. ANALYSIS
¶ 14 On appeal, the State contends that (1) the trial court applied the wrong legal standard to the motion to quash and suppress, (2) the court erred in holding that there was no reasonable suspicion to stop defendant for ILU, (3) even if defendant had not actually violated the ILU statute, Raupp‘s mistake of law in believing otherwise was reasonable, thus giving him a reasonable suspicion to stop her, and (4) alternatively, under Greco, Raupp had a reasonable suspicion to stop defendant for driving erratically.
¶ 15 The State‘s first argument need not concern us. We review the trial court‘s judgment, not its reasoning, and we may affirm on any basis called for by the record. See People v. Cleveland, 342 Ill. App. 3d 912, 915 (2003). The State‘s fourth argument need not concern us either. The State concedes that it forfeited the Greco argument by failing to timely raise it. See Hanley v. City of Chicago, 343 Ill. App. 3d 49, 54 (2003). We decline to disregard the forfeiture, as the State‘s tardiness in raising the Greco argument denied defendant the opportunity to introduce evidence against it. See In re Marriage of Rodriguez, 131 Ill. 2d 273, 279 (1989). We note that the trial court found the argument both forfeited and meritless on the facts.
¶ 16 We turn to the State‘s second and third arguments. The State contends that, under section
¶ 17 Resolving the issues that the State‘s arguments raise requires us to construe section
¶ 18 Section
¶ 20 Nonetheless, we conclude that the statute is not ambiguous and that Raupp did not have a reasonable basis to stop defendant. Although the Code does not specifically define “lane,” it defines “[l]aned roadway” as “[a] roadway which is divided into two or more clearly marked lanes for vehicular traffic.”
¶ 21 We note that, in Hackett, the supreme court quoted Smith: “[W]hen a motorist crosses over a lane line and is not driving as nearly as practicable within one lane, the motorist has violated the [ILU] statute.” Hackett, 2012 IL 111781, ¶¶ 16, 25, 26 (quoting Smith, 172 Ill. 2d at 297). We recognize that the court cited this language in the context of rejecting the argument that section
¶ 22 Moreover, this interpretation is consistent with the official rules of the road, in Illinois and elsewhere. The rules issued by our Secretary of State‘s office, of which police officers as well as drivers are on notice, state in pertinent part as follows. “Yellow center lines separate lanes of traffic moving in opposite directions.” (Emphasis added.) Ill. Sec‘y of State, 2018 Illinois Rules of the Road 76 (Mar. 2018), https://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/publications/pdf_publications/dsd_a112.pdf [https://perma.cc/3GA7-MJGH]. “When there is a solid and a broken yellow line separating two lanes of traffic moving in opposite directions, a driver may pass only when the broken yellow line is nearest the driver‘s lane.” (Emphasis added.) Id. at 77. The “U.S. Road Rules” at DMV.org (a privately owned website) contain similar
¶ 23 Persuasive foreign authority supports our holding. In State v. Neal, 362 P.3d 514 (Idaho 2015), the Idaho Supreme Court interpreted a section of the Idaho Code essentially identical to the one here (id. at 519; see
¶ 24 Nonetheless, the court held that “[i]t is not a reasonable interpretation of the statute to conclude that the legislature intended to prohibit drivers from merely touching the line painted at the edge of the roadway.” Id. at 521. The court noted the following considerations. First, a section of the Idaho Code required drivers to drive on the right half of the roadway but, although it excluded sidewalks, shoulders, berms, and rights-of-way, it made no mention of fog lines. Id. at 520 (citing
¶ 25 Although the Neal court twice characterized the statute as “ambiguous” (Neal, 362 P.3d at 520, 522), it concluded that a contrary interpretation would ”not [be] reasonable.” (Emphases added.) Id. at 521. Illinois courts define an “ambiguous” statute as one that is “capable of more than one reasonable interpretation.” (Emphasis added.) In re Jose A., 2018 IL App (2d) 180170, ¶ 25. Therefore, Neal provides well-reasoned support for our conclusion that the ILU statute is unambiguous.
¶ 26 We conclude that the statute is unambiguous. Moreover, the meaning of the statute was or should have been within Raupp‘s knowledge; he was on notice of the rules of the road. Therefore, Heien and Gaytan do not apply, and the stop cannot be validated as based on a reasonable mistake of law.
¶ 27 In any event, we note that a stop for ILU is valid when “a police officer observes multiple lane deviations, for no obvious reason.” (Emphasis added.) Hackett, 2012 IL 111781, ¶ 28. Here, even if defendant‘s multiple touches could be considered “lane deviations,” the road‘s “twists and turns” provided an innocent (and obvious) explanation for those brief touches. Thus, under any construction of section
III. CONCLUSION
¶ 29 We affirm the order of the circuit court of McHenry County.
¶ 30 Affirmed.