The Illinois Supreme Court has just ruled that citizens cannot be searched and arrested for running in the rain with a bulging pocket.
Two Chicago police officers saw Francisco Lozano running down a sidewalk in the rain while holding the front of his shirt pocket, which appeared to be bulging.
They deemed this behavior suspicious enough to warrant Lozano’s arrest, but Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis, writing for a unanimous court, ruled that such behavior did not give officers cause to arrest Lozano.
She wrote, “No right is held more sacred by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law.”
