Case ID: so2d_578/html/0404-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM. GARRETT, Judge,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Stephen DeANGELIS, Appellee.
    No. 90-1370.
    District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
    April 17, 1991.
    Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Sylvia H. Alonso, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellant.
    Michael H. Blacker of Michael H. Blacker, P.A., Coconut Grove, for appellee.
   PER CURIAM.

This is an appeal by the state from the trial court’s suppression of evidence. We affirm.

In Johnson v. State, 438 So.2d 774 (Fla.1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1051, 104 S.Ct. 1329, 79 L.Ed.2d 724 (1984), the court said:

A ruling on a motion to suppress is presumptively correct, and a reviewing court should interpret the evidence and reasonable inferences and deductions drawn from the evidence in a manner most favorable to sustaining the trial court ruling. McNamara v. State, 357 So.2d 410 (Fla.1978).

Id. at 776.

Here, the trial court’s order is fifteen pages in length, containing forty-three paragraphs of findings of fact and another eight paragraphs of findings of fact and law. Some of the latter key paragraphs are as follows:

e. This Court finds that even though DeAngelis dropped Burns off at the Embassy Suites, parked his vehicle with a view of the Mercedes, drove out of the parking lot and reparked, met with Burns for approximately ten seconds, where he received Burns’ walkie talkie, those facts without more did not give the officers probable cause to arrest DeAn-gelis. This Court further finds that DeAngelis at no time responded when Burns used the walkie talkie, diminishing the belief he was performing counter-surveillance. DeAngelis drove out of the parking lot, further diminishing the probability he was acting as counter-surveillance; DeAngelis did not have the cocaine in the BMW; DeAngelis’ ten second conversation with Burns was not overheard and his receipt of the walkie talkie adds nothing to any suspicion of the officers other than that he associated with a drug trafficker. His entry into the hotel, 2-3 minutes after Burns and his use of the bathroom further diminishes the counter-surveillance theory.
f. This Court concludes that DeAn-gelis’ presence in the Embassy Suites and Carlos and Pepe’s parking lot and his conversation with Burns manifest an association and nothing more. These acts the Court finds are as consistent with innocence as with the requisite probable cause underpinning that he was committing, had committed or was about to commit a felony.
g. This Court finds that the officers at best, had merely an articulate suspicion of DeAngelis’ involvement at the time he was arrested. This Court finds that the officers had a right to make a citizen’s encounter of DeAngelis pursuant to Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1967), but did not have probable cause to arrest him at the moment he was taken into custody.
h. This Court finds that as a result of the unlawful arrest, the subsequent search and seizure of the BMW automobile was improper and unlawful; and that the items seized therefrom which DeAngelis sought to suppress are ordered suppressed from use in any wise at the trial of the within cause.

It is our view that a reversal would amount to substituting our judgment for that of the trial court, contrary to the foregoing principles in Johnson.

In addition, we note that the appel-lee was arrested in the hotel lobby; hence, the search of the car could not be justified as a search incidental to arrest, even if the arrest was valid. Cf. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564, reh’g denied, 404 U.S. 874, 92 S.Ct. 26, 30 L.Ed.2d 120 (1971). Similarly, we reject the only other state contentions that the search was valid under the plain view doctrine, or that exigent circumstances existed justifying a search without a warrant. See Coolidge.

ANSTEAD and GLICKSTEIN, JJ., concur.

GARRETT, J., dissents with opinion.

GARRETT, Judge,

dissenting.

I dissent. The trial court erred when he granted appellee’s motion to suppress.

Inside a Fort Lauderdale hotel, undercover officers negotiated to purchase cocaine from appellee’s codefendant. Outside, ap-pellee drove a BMW around the area parking it at several different locations. Before the codefendant left the hotel to look at money located in an undercover vehicle, he used a walkie-talkie, but did not contact anyone. When the officers asked who he had called, the codefendant pointed to the BMW. After looking at the money, the codefendant walked to the BMW, then parked in a nearby restaurant and handed the walkie-talkie to appellee. The code-fendant then removed the suitcase containing cocaine from the trunk of a Mercedes parked perpendicular to the BMW. The codefendant walked back to the hotel and was arrested. About five minutes later, appellee was arrested as he walked into the hotel. A police officer (a member of the surveillance team) walked to the BMW and seized two identical walkie-talkies he saw laying on the front passenger seat in plain view. The officer knew that the cocaine came from a Mercedes and had “input” that the codefendant had used a walkie-talkie during the negotiations and had handed it to appellee. The officer also saw and seized a set of keys on the rear floorboard of the BMW. A key taken from appellee was used to open the BMW.

I believe the officers had the right to enter the BMW and seize the walkie-talkies (later found to be set to the same channel) and the set of keys (later found to fit the ignition of the Mercedes).

The walkie-talkies were the “smoking guns” that linked the BMW to the cocaine sale. Appellee had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the BMW. He left it in an open parking lot and placed the walkie-talkies on the seat where they could be seen through the window by anyone standing next to the BMW. Because the walkie-talkies were in plain view, no search took place when the officer observed them as he stood in the parking lot. “It has been long settled that objects falling in the plain view of an officer who has a right to be in the position to have that view are subject to seizure and may be introduced into evidence.” Harris v. U.S., 390 U.S. 234, 236, 88 S.Ct. 992, 993, 19 L.Ed.2d 1067, 1069 (1984). Once the police saw the walkie-talkies they had probable cause to search the BMW. “For constitutional purposes, we see no difference between on the one hand seizing and holding a car before presenting the probable cause to a magistrate and on the other hand carrying out an immediate search without a warrant. Given probable cause to search, either course is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 52, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 1981, 26 L.Ed.2d 419, 429 (1970). See also, United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982) (police may conduct war-rentless search of vehicle with probable cause as thorough as search authorized by magistrate); Minnis v. State, 577 So.2d 973 (Fla. 4th DCA 1991) (scope of warrentless search conducted by police upon probable cause equal to search magistrate could have authorized).

I acknowledge that appellee’s arrest took place before the officer found the walkie-talkies and that his arrest produced the key that allowed the officers to open the BMW. However, without appellant’s arrest or his key, the walkie-talkies and keys to the Mercedes inevitably would have been discovered. See Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984). Once the police saw the walkie-talkies inside the BMW they had the right to seize the automobile under the Florida Contraband Forfeiture Act. § 932.702(3), Fla.Stat. (1987). Entry into the BMW would have been made without using appellee’s key. The walkie-talkies would have been seized as an instrumentality of the crime. § 932.701(2)(e), Fla.Stat. (1987). The set of keys to the Mercedes would have been impounded as the police inventoried the contents of the BMW. See Cooper v. California, 386 U.S. 58, 87 S.Ct. 788, 17 L.Ed.2d 730 (1967).

Whether the state could convict appellee of conspiracy to traffic or trafficking in cocaine should not have been an issue at the motion to suppress hearing. 
      
      . "[T]he lawfulness of a warrantless search is to be determined by an objective view of the facts, not the subjective view of the person conducting the search.” State v. Bianco, 513 So.2d 739, 740 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987). The fact that the officers might have subjectively believed they were searching the BMW based on a particular exception to the requirement of a search warrant did not affect a search justified on another exception. See State v. Scott, 576 So.2d 411 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991).