In People v. Turner, the Supreme Court of Illinois addressed the issue of whether an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the trauma room of a hospital’s emergency department.[1] A unanimous court, applying a totality of the circumstances test, ruled that defendant Cortez Turner did not.[2]

In October of 2016, a shooting occurred in Murphysboro, Illinois, that resulted in the death of a man named Detrick Rogers. Cortez Turner sustained a gunshot wound during the incident.[3] Afterward, Mr. Turner arrived at an emergency department trauma room and was treated for a gunshot wound in his leg.[4] During treatment, his bloody pants were put in a plastic bag and placed with the rest of his clothing on the room’s counter.[5] The police were called by the hospital and entered the trauma room to speak with Turner.[6] After speaking with him and, according to the officers, getting consent from Turner, they took his bloody clothes from the room.[7]

Later, before a grand jury, Turner denied knowing how he was shot.[8] The state charged him with two counts of perjury, various weapons charges, and first-degree murder.[9] At trial, Turner moved to suppress the bloody clothing seized from the trauma room, arguing that the “police did not have a warrant, the clothing was not in plain view, and defendant did not consent to its seizure.”[10] His motion was denied.[11] Turner was convicted on all counts.[12]

On appeal, the appellate court vacated one of Turner’s firearm charges and one of his perjury charges.[13] However, it upheld the trial court’s denial of Turner’s motion to suppress the bloody clothing.[14] Turner then appealed to the Supreme Court of Illinois.[15]

In an opinion written by Justice Elizabeth Rochford, the Supreme Court affirmed and upheld Turner’s conviction.

The Illinois Constitution, like the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, prohibits unreasonable search and seizures.[16] The Illinois Supreme Court explained that “the search and seizure clause of [the] state constitution is in ‘limited lockstep’ with the [F]ourth [A]mendment.”[17]

The court concluded that Turner lacked a privacy interest in the trauma room and thus needed to base his argument on a “privacy-based approach.”[18]

Applying a totality of the circumstances test, the court considered the following factors:

(1) Ownership of the property searched, (2) whether the defendant was legitimately present in the area searched, (3) whether defendant has a possessory interest in the area or property seized, (4) prior use of the area searched or property seized, (5) the ability to control or exclude others from the use of the property, and (6) whether the defendant himself had a subjective expectation of privacy in the property.[19]

Applying these six factors, the court found that Turner only satisfied the second: he did have a right to be in the trauma room as a patient receiving care for his injuries.[20] The other factors, however, did not weigh in his favor, and thus Turner did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the trauma room.[21]

Turner argued that he prevailed on the fourth factor, the prior use of the area, because in the case of a hospital, courts should consider the “prior use by society at large.”[22] Rather than adopting this reasoning, the court determined that this factor was irrelevant to its analysis, concluding that “unlike with cases involving vehicles, prior use is not a helpful factor in considering whether a defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in an emergency department trauma room.”[23]

For the fifth factor, Turner argued that he possessed a right to exclude people from the trauma room. However, as the court noted, Turner introduced no evidence at trial to support this argument.[24] The court explained, “[t]he only evidence about exclusion from the trauma room . . . established the hospital’s control over access to the room.”[25] Still, Turner argued that a trauma room is analogous to a hotel in terms of the right to exclude.[26] The court rejected this argument, noting that under Illinois law hospitals are required to report gunshot wounds.[27] The Eighth Circuit in United States v. Mattox applied a similar statute in its rejection of the argument that a trauma room patient had the same reasonable expectation of privacy as a hotel occupant.[28] The Illinois Supreme Court agreed that the situations are simply not comparable, and that Turner had not introduced sufficient evidence to show he had control over or the ability to exclude others from the trauma room.[29]

On the sixth and final factor—the subjective expectation of privacy—the court noted that on appeal Turner “failed to introduce any evidence establishing this factor.”[30] Turner countered by arguing that all that is needed to satisfy this factor is the fact that, as a patient receiving care, he behaved as a typical occupant of the space.[31] The court rejected this, concluding that “someone does not demonstrate a subjective expectation of privacy simply by acting as a typical occupant of a space.”[32] Further undermining Turner’s argument were the facts that he voluntarily spoke with detectives and that there was no evidence that he “asked for the door to be closed, requested to have no visitors, or asked the detectives to leave.”[33]

Having concluded that Turner only satisfied one factor, the court held that he failed to establish that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy within the trauma room, affirming the lower court’s denial of Turner’s motion to suppress.[34] The court was careful to stress that whether a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy depends on the particular circumstances of the case, and it noted that “that a number of state and federal courts have reached the same conclusion when considering similar cases.”[35]

[1] People v. Turner, 2024 IL 129208 (Ill. 2024).

[2] Id. at *16.

[3] Id at *1.

[4] Id.

[5] Id. at *2.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Id. at *1.

[9] Id.

[10] Id.

[11] Id. at *6.

[12] Id.

[13] Id.

[14] Id.

[15] Id. at *8.

[16] Id.; see U.S. Const. amend. IV; Ill. Const. art. 1, § 6.

[17] Turner, 2024 IL 129208, at *9.

[18] Id. at *9.

[19] Id.

[20] Id. at *10.

[21] Id. at *15.

[22] Id. at *10.

[23] Id. at *11.

[24] Id.

[25] Id. at *12.

[26] Id.

[27] Id.; see 20 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. 2630/3.2 (West 2016).

[28] 27 F.4th 668, 674 (8th Cir. 2022).

[29] Turner, 2024 IL 129208, at *13.

[30] Id.

[31] Id.

[32] Id. at *15.

[33] Id.

[34] Id. at *16.

[35] Id. at *15.

Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public policy matters. Any expressions of opinion are those of the author. We welcome responses to the views presented here. To join the debate, please email us at [email protected].