Illinois Appellate Court
Criminal Court
Fourth Amendment
Defendant was convicted, after bench trial, of several counts arising out of his possession of a handgun, all which merged into armed habitual criminal conviction. Court properly denied Defendant's pretrial motion to quash arrest and suppress evidence of the gun. Officer's command for Defendant to exit the car occurred while the stop was in progress, and the command was not a new police-citizen encounter and thus did not require separate justification under the 4th amendment. Arrest of Defendant would not lead a reasonable person in Defendant's position to believe that he was free to leave. Stop was prompted by fact that neither Defendant nor the other rear-seat passenger was wearing a seatbelt.(HYMAN and PIERCE, concurring.)