Illinois General Assembly - Illinois Compiled Statutes

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725 ILCS 5/103-3.5

    (725 ILCS 5/103-3.5)
    Sec. 103-3.5. Right to communicate with attorney and family; transfers; presumption of inadmissibility.

(a) Persons who are in police custody shall have the right to communicate free of charge with an attorney of his or her choice and members of his or her family as soon as possible upon being taken into police custody, but no later than 3 hours of arrival at the first place of detention. Persons in police custody must be given access to use a telephone via a landline or cellular phone to make 3  telephone calls.

(b) In accordance with Section 103-7, at every police facility where a person is in police custody, a sign containing at minimum, the following information in bold block type must be posted in a conspicuous place:

(1) a short statement notifying persons who are in

police custody of their right to have access to a phone within 3 hours of being taken into police custody; and

(2) that persons who are in police custody have the

right to make 3 phone calls within 3 hours of being taken into custody, at no charge.

(c) In addition to the information listed in subsection (b), if the place of detention is located in a jurisdiction where the court has appointed the public defender or other attorney to represent persons who are in police custody, the telephone number to the public defender or other attorney's office must also be displayed.  The telephone call to the public defender or other attorney must not be monitored, eavesdropped upon, or recorded.

(d) If a person who is in police custody is transferred to a new place of detention, that person's right to make 3 telephone calls under this Section within 3 hours of arrival is renewed.

(e) Statements made by a person who is detained in police custody in violation of this section are presumed inadmissible in court as evidence. The presumption of inadmissibility may be overcome by a preponderance of the evidence that the statement was voluntarily given and is reliable, based on the totality of the circumstances. As used in this subsection, "totality of the circumstances" includes, but is not limited to, evidence that law enforcement knowingly prevented or delayed a person's right to communicate or failed to comply with the requirements of this Section.

(f) The 3-hour requirement under this Section shall not apply while the person in police custody is asleep, unconscious, or otherwise incapacitated or an exigent circumstance prevents the officers from timely complying with this Section. If this occurs, it must be documented within the police report detailing the exigent circumstance. Once the exigent circumstance ends, the right to make 3 phone calls within 3 hours resumes.

(g) In accordance with this Section, the following records shall be maintained: (i) the number of phone calls the person made while in custody; (ii) the time or times the person made phone calls; and (iii) if the person did not make any phone calls, a statement of the reason or reasons why no calls were made.

(h) For purposes of this Section, "place of detention" means a building or a police station that is a place of operation for a municipal police department or county sheriff department or other law enforcement agency, other than a courthouse, that is owned or operated by a law enforcement agency, or other building, such as a school or hospital, where persons are held in detention in connection with criminal charges against those persons.

(Source: P.A. 102-694, eff. 1-7-22.)