## Facts

- A Champaign police officer stopped Susan Kail while she rode a bicycle on a business-district sidewalk in violation of a city ordinance.
- The officer testified the stop was motivated by suspicion that Kail was a prostitute and by a department policy of “strictly enforcing all laws against suspected prostitutes.”
- After the stop, the officer observed a second ordinance violation: the bicycle lacked a required bell.
- The officer issued a citation only for the bell violation and arrested Kail because she lacked adequate identification or funds to post bond.
- The officer admitted she had seen “hundreds, perhaps thousands” of bicycles without bells in three years and had never before arrested anyone for that offense.
- At the police station, officers conducted an inventory search during booking and discovered marijuana.
- Kail was charged with unlawful possession of more than 30 but not more than 500 grams of cannabis with intent to deliver.
- The trial court denied Kail’s motion to suppress, a jury convicted her, and she was sentenced to one year of incarceration.

## Issues

1. Whether a police policy of strictly enforcing minor ordinances against “suspected prostitutes,” while generally not enforcing those ordinances against others, violates equal protection as intentional selective enforcement.
2. Whether an arrest and station-house inventory search flowing from that discriminatory enforcement require suppression of the discovered marijuana and reversal of the conviction.

## Decision

- The appellate court reversed the conviction.
- The court held the department’s policy, as applied, was unconstitutional selective enforcement that violated equal protection.
- Because the stop and arrest were the product of discriminatory enforcement, the marijuana discovered during the inventory search was tainted and should have been suppressed.
- The trial court erred in denying the motion to suppress.

## Legal Principles

- Enforcement of ordinances, like enforcement of statutes, is constrained by equal protection.
- Police discretion in enforcement is permitted, but not when enforcement is intentional and based on an unjustifiable standard such as class or status.
- A formal or admitted policy targeting a defined group, combined with evidence that similarly situated others are not subjected to the same enforcement, supports a finding of unconstitutional selective enforcement.
- A legitimate governmental goal (e.g., reducing prostitution) does not justify a method of enforcement that denies equal protection.
- Evidence obtained as a direct result of unconstitutional selective enforcement is subject to suppression as derivative of the constitutional violation.

## Conclusion

The court reversed Kail’s conviction because the stop and arrest were driven by an explicit policy of targeting suspected prostitutes for strict enforcement of minor ordinances ordinarily ignored, violating equal protection; the resulting inventory-search marijuana evidence was suppressed as tainted.


People v. Kail, 501 N.E.2d 979 (Ill. App. Ct. 4th Dist. 1986)