YOUR RIGHT TO COMMUNICATE WHILE IN POLICE CUSTODY IN ILLINOIS

Under 725 ILCS 5/103-3.5, you have the right to make three phone calls free of charge with an attorney of your choice and members of your family within three hours of arrival at the first place of detention. You must be given access to a telephone to make the calls. If you are moved to a new place of detention, your right to make three calls within three hours of arrival is renewed.

If police violate these rights, your statements to them are presumed inadmissible as evidence. However, the state may overcome this presumption by showing that your statement was voluntarily given and is reliable based on the totality of the circumstances. The court may consider whether police knowingly prevented or delayed your right to communicate or failed to comply with the law’s requirements.

The three-hour rule does not apply if you are asleep, unconscious or otherwise incapacitated or if an exigent circumstance prevents police from complying. Exigent circumstances include threats to safety. The police report must then document the exigent circumstance. Once the exigent circumstance ends, the right to make three phone calls within three hours resumes.

The police must display a notice of your right to the three calls and must display the public defender’s phone number, where available.  Police must maintain records of the number of calls you made, when you made them, and any reason if you did not make thecalls.

Prior to 1/1/22, police could hold you a “reasonable time” before allowing you to make phone calls.

If you have questions about this or another related Illinois criminal or traffic matter, please contact Matt Keenan at 847-568-0160 or email matt@mattkeenanlaw.com.

(Besides Skokie, Matt Keenan also serves the communities of Arlington Heights, Chicago, Deerfield, Des Plaines, Evanston, Glenview, Morton Grove, Mount Prospect, Niles, Northbrook, Park Ridge, Rolling Meadows, Wilmette and Winnetka.)