Title: State v. Teamer

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC13-318 
____________ 
 
STATE OF FLORIDA, 
Petitioner, 
 
vs. 
 
KERRICK VAN TEAMER, 
Respondent. 
 
[July 3, 2014] 
 
QUINCE, J. 
 
This case is before the Court for review of the decision of the First District 
Court of Appeal in Teamer v. State, 108 So. 3d 664 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013).1  The 
district court certified that its decision is in direct conflict with the decision of the 
Fourth District Court of Appeal in Aders v. State, 67 So. 3d 368 (Fla. 4th DCA 
2011).  We have jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.  As we explain, we 
approve the First District’s decision and disapprove that of the Fourth District. 
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 
 
1.  The record presents some confusion regarding the Respondent’s surname.  
Although his full name is “Kerrick Van Teamer,” his surname is “Teamer,” not 
“Van Teamer.”  This opinion refers to him and his case below accordingly. 
                                          
 
On June 22, 2010, an Escambia County Deputy Sheriff observed Kerrick 
Teamer driving a bright green Chevrolet.  Teamer, 108 So. 3d at 665.  After 
noticing the car, the deputy continued on his patrol, driving into one of the 
neighborhoods in that area.  Upon traveling back to where he had first seen 
Teamer, the deputy again observed Teamer driving the same car.  The deputy then 
“ran” the number from Teamer’s license plate through the Florida Department of 
Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV) database, as is customary for him 
while on patrol, and learned that the vehicle was registered as a blue Chevrolet.  Id.  
The database did not return any information regarding the model of the vehicle.  
Based only on the color inconsistency, the deputy pulled the car over to conduct a 
traffic stop. 
“Upon interviewing the occupants, the deputy learned that the vehicle had 
recently been painted, thus explaining the inconsistency.”  Id.  However, during the 
stop, the deputy noticed a strong odor of marijuana emanating from the car and 
decided to conduct a search of the vehicle, Teamer, and the other passenger.  Id.  
“Marijuana and crack cocaine were recovered from the vehicle, and about $1,100 
in cash was recovered from [Teamer].  [He] was charged with trafficking in 
cocaine (between 28–200 grams), possession of marijuana (less than 20 grams), 
and possession of drug paraphernalia” (scales).  Id. 
 
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On October 4, 2010, Teamer filed a motion to suppress the results of the 
stop as products of an unlawful, warrantless search.  At the hearing on the motion 
to suppress, the deputy acknowledged that, in his training and experience, he had 
encountered individuals who would switch license plates and he could not verify a 
vehicle’s identification number without pulling over the vehicle.  Id.  On cross-
examination, the deputy acknowledged that the car was not reported stolen, he had 
not observed any other traffic violations or suspicious or furtive behavior, he was 
not “aware of any reports of stolen vehicles or swapped plates in the area,” and 
“the only thing that was out of the ordinary was the inconsistency of the vehicle 
color from the registration.”  Id. 
The trial court denied the motion to suppress, explaining that the rationale 
for the denial was that the deputy “had a legal right to conduct an investigatory 
stop when a registration search of the automobile license tag reflected a different 
color than the observed color of the vehicle.”  The trial court found that the deputy 
made the investigatory stop “because the registration was not consistent with the 
color of the vehicle” and that since “the vehicle was legally stopped for 
investigative purposes,” the odor of marijuana that the officer smelled during the 
stop gave him probable cause to conduct a search.  After a jury trial, Teamer was 
convicted on all three counts as charged in the information.  The trial judge 
sentenced him to six years on count one and time served on the other two counts. 
 
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Teamer appealed, and the First District reversed the trial court’s denial of 
Teamer’s motion to suppress, certifying conflict with the Fourth District in Aders.  
Id. at 670.  The First District acknowledged “that any discrepancy between a 
vehicle’s plates and the registration may legitimately raise a concern that the 
vehicle is stolen or the plates were swapped from another vehicle,” but found that 
such concern must be weighed “against a citizen’s right under the Fourth 
Amendment to travel on the roads free from governmental intrusions.”  Id. at 667.  
The district court cited several cases demonstrating that color discrepancy is 
typically one of several factors constituting reasonable suspicion.  Id. at 668.  The 
First District then cited two nonbinding cases2 for the principle that a color 
discrepancy alone does not provide reasonable suspicion for a stop.  Id. at 668-69.  
Relying on those cases and other “somewhat analogous cases involving 
investigations of ‘temporary tags,’ ” the district court ruled that a color discrepancy 
alone did not warrant an investigatory stop.  Id. at 669-70.  The court found that 
under the converse ruling, “every person who changes the color of [his or her] 
vehicle is continually subject to an investigatory stop so long as the color 
inconsistency persists.”  Id. at 670.  The First District stated that it was “hesitant to 
license an investigatory stop” under such circumstances.  Id. 
 
2.  United States v. Uribe, No. 2:10-cr-17-JMS-CMM, 2011 WL 4538407 
(S.D. Ind. Sept. 28, 2011); Commonwealth v. Mason, 78 Va. Cir. 474 (Cir. Ct. 
2009), aff’d, No. 1956-09-2, 2010 WL 768721 (Va. Ct. App. Mar. 9, 2010). 
 
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ANALYSIS 
In reviewing a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress, the trial court’s 
determinations of historical facts are reversed only if not supported by competent, 
substantial evidence.  Connor v. State, 803 So. 2d 598, 608 (Fla. 2001).  However, 
the application of the law to those facts is subject to de novo review.  Id.  Further, 
this Court is required to construe Florida’s constitutional right against 
unreasonable searches and seizures “in conformity with the [Fourth] Amendment 
to the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the United States Supreme 
Court.”  Art. I, § 12, Fla. Const.; Bernie v. State, 524 So. 2d 988, 990-91 (Fla. 
1988) (“[W]e are bound to follow the interpretations of the United States Supreme 
Court with relation to the [F]ourth [A]mendment . . . .”). 
The United States Supreme Court has “held that the police can stop and 
briefly detain a person for investigative purposes if the officer has a reasonable 
suspicion supported by articulable facts that criminal activity ‘may be afoot,’ even 
if the officer lacks probable cause.”  United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 
(1989) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968)); Popple v. State, 626 So. 2d 
185, 186 (Fla. 1993) (“[A] police officer may reasonably detain a citizen 
temporarily if the officer has a reasonable suspicion that a person has committed, is 
committing, or is about to commit a crime.” (citing § 901.151, Fla. Stat. (1991))).  
However, a “police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts 
 
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which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably 
warrant” an investigatory stop.  Terry, 392 U.S. at 21.  The Supreme Court has 
described reasonable suspicion as “a particularized and objective basis for 
suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.”  United States v. 
Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417 (1981).  This standard requires “something more than an 
‘inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch.’ ”  Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 7 
(quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 27) (internal quotation marks omitted). 
“Reasonableness, of course, depends ‘on a balance between the public 
interest and the individual’s right to personal security free from arbitrary 
interference by law officers.’ ”  Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 109 (1977) 
(quoting United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 878 (1975)); State v. 
Diaz, 850 So. 2d 435, 439 (Fla. 2003) (“The real test is one of reasonableness, 
which involves balancing the interests of the State with those of the motorist.”).  
“When a search or seizure is conducted without a warrant, the government bears 
the burden of demonstrating that the search or seizure was reasonable.”  Hilton v. 
State, 961 So. 2d 284, 296 (Fla. 2007) (citing United States v. Johnson, 63 F.3d 
242, 245 (3d Cir. 1995) (“As a general rule, the burden of proof is on the defendant 
who seeks to suppress evidence.  However, once the defendant has established a 
basis for his motion, i.e., the search or seizure was conducted without a warrant, 
 
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the burden shifts to the government to show that the search or seizure was 
reasonable.” (citation omitted))). 
Reasonable suspicion must also be assessed based on “the totality of the 
circumstances—the whole picture,” Cortez, 449 U.S. at 417; United States v. 
Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 277 (2002), and “from the standpoint of an objectively 
reasonable police officer,” Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 696 (1996); 
Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 277.  Thus, a police officer may draw inferences based on his 
own experience.  Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 700; Cortez, 449 U.S. at 418 (“[A] trained 
officer draws inferences and makes deductions—inferences and deductions that 
might well elude an untrained person.”).  However, “the officer’s subjective 
intentions are not involved in the determination of reasonableness.”  Hilton, 961 
So. 2d at 294; Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813 (1996) (recognizing the 
rejection of “any argument that the constitutional reasonableness of traffic stops 
depends on the actual motivations of the individual officers involved”). 
“[I]nnocent behavior will frequently provide the basis” for reasonable 
suspicion.  Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 10; see also Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 
125 (2000) (acknowledging this fact and recognizing that an officer can detain an 
individual to resolve an ambiguity regarding suspicious yet lawful or innocent 
conduct).  “[T]he relevant inquiry is not whether particular conduct is innocent or 
guilty, but the degree of suspicion that attaches to particular types of noncriminal 
 
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acts.”  Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 10 (internal quotation marks omitted).  In the instant 
case, the State concedes that “the failure to update a vehicle registration to reflect a 
new color is not in specific violation of a Florida law.”  Thus, what degree of 
suspicion attaches to this noncriminal act? 
To warrant an investigatory stop, the law requires not just a mere suspicion 
of criminal activity, but a reasonable, well-founded one.  Popple, 626 So. 2d at 186 
(“[A]n investigatory stop requires a well-founded, articulable suspicion of criminal 
activity.”).  In Terry, the stop was found appropriate because the officer “had 
observed [three men] go [t]hrough a series of acts, each of them perhaps innocent 
in itself, but which taken together warranted further investigation.”  Terry, 392 
U.S. at 22.  The U.S. Supreme Court described the scenario as follows: 
There is nothing unusual in two men standing together on a street 
corner, perhaps waiting for someone.  Nor is there anything suspicious 
about people in such circumstances strolling up and down the street, 
singly or in pairs.  Store windows, moreover, are made to be looked 
in.  But the story is quite different where, as here, two men hover 
about a street corner for an extended period of time, at the end of 
which it becomes apparent that they are not waiting for anyone or 
anything; where these men pace alternately along an identical route, 
pausing to stare in the same store window roughly 24 times; where 
each completion of this route is followed immediately by a conference 
between the two men on the corner; where they are joined in one of 
these conferences by a third man who leaves swiftly; and where the 
two men finally follow the third and rejoin him a couple of blocks 
away. 
   
Id. at 22-23.  The Supreme Court found that “[i]t would have been poor police 
work indeed for an officer of 30 years’ experience in the detection of thievery from 
 
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stores in this same neighborhood to have failed to investigate this behavior 
further.”  Id. at 23.  Thus each seemingly innocent activity in Terry had a 
cumulative effect of providing an officer with a reasonable suspicion. 
Conversely, in State v. Johnson, 561 So. 2d 1139, 1142 (Fla. 1990), this 
Court rejected an officer’s use of a self-created drug courier profile because 
“Florida law does not permit a profile based on factors that are little more than 
mundane or unremarkable descriptions of everyday law-abiding activities.”  We 
noted that a drug courier profile in a Supreme Court case3 was upheld “precisely 
because it described unusual conduct that set the defendant apart from other 
travelers and that strongly suggested concealed criminal conduct.”  Id.  We 
invalidated the profile used in Johnson because “there was nothing at all unusual or 
out of the ordinary about the conduct that” fit within the profile.  Id. at 1142-43.  In 
so holding, we stated that individuals fitting within the officer’s profile “simply 
cannot be described as an inherently ‘suspicious’ bunch.”  Id. at 1143.  The 
innocent factors within the profile failed to create a reasonable suspicion. 
Turning to the instant case, the sole basis here for the investigatory stop is an 
observation of one completely noncriminal factor, not several incidents of innocent 
activity combining under a totality of the circumstances to arouse a reasonable 
suspicion—as was the case in Terry.  The discrepancy between the vehicle 
3. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1. 
 
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registration and the color the deputy observed does present an ambiguous situation, 
and the Supreme Court has recognized that an officer can detain an individual to 
resolve an ambiguity regarding suspicious yet lawful or innocent conduct.  
Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 125.  However, the suspicion still must be a reasonable one.  
Popple, 626 So. 2d at 186 (“Mere suspicion is not enough to support a stop.”).  In 
this case, there simply are not enough facts to demonstrate reasonableness.  Like 
the factors in Johnson, the color discrepancy here is not “inherently suspicious” or 
“unusual” enough or so “out of the ordinary” as to provide an officer with a 
reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, especially given the fact that it is not 
against the law in Florida to change the color of your vehicle without notifying the 
DHSMV. 
The law allows officers to draw rational inferences, but to find reasonable 
suspicion based on this single noncriminal factor would be to license investigatory 
stops on nothing more than an officer’s hunch.  Doing so would be akin to finding 
reasonable suspicion for an officer to stop an individual for walking in a sparsely 
occupied area after midnight simply because that officer testified that, in his 
experience, people who walk in such areas after midnight tend to commit 
robberies.  Without more, this one fact may provide a “mere suspicion,” but it does 
 
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not rise to the level of a reasonable suspicion.4  Neither does the sole innocent 
factor here—a color discrepancy—rise to such level.  The deputy may have had a 
suspicion, but it was not a reasonable or well-founded one, especially given the 
fact that the driver of the vehicle was not engaged in any suspicious activity.  
Moreover, “the government provided no evidence to tip the scales from a mere 
hunch to something even approaching reasonable and articulable suspicion, despite 
attempting to justify a detention based on one observed incident of completely 
innocent behavior in a non-suspicious context.”  United States v. Uribe, 709 F.3d 
646, 652 (7th Cir. 2013). 
Reasonableness also “depends ‘on a balance between the public interest and 
the individual’s right to personal security free from arbitrary interference by law 
officers.’ ”  Mimms, 434 U.S. at 109 (quoting Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. at 878); 
Diaz, 850 So. 2d at 439 (“The real test is one of reasonableness, which involves 
balancing the interests of the State with those of the motorist.”).  In order to 
determine reasonableness, courts “must balance the nature and quality of the 
intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against the importance of 
the governmental interests alleged to justify the intrusion.”  United States v. Place, 
462 U.S. 696, 703 (1983); Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 654 (1979) (“[T]he 
 
4.  The State conceded as much during oral argument in this case.  When 
asked whether that scenario provided enough reasonable suspicion for a stop, the 
prosecutor responded, “It would depend on what else they were doing . . . .” 
 
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permissibility of a particular law enforcement practice is judged by balancing its 
intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of 
legitimate governmental interests.”).  Thus we must balance the nature and quality 
of the intrusion required to stop an individual and investigate a color discrepancy 
against the government’s interest in finding stolen vehicles or enforcing vehicle 
registration laws.5 
In Brignoni-Ponce, the Supreme Court invalidated a roving patrol stop by 
Border Patrol agents near a closed checkpoint operation at the Mexican border.  
422 U.S. at 886.  In stopping the vehicle, the agents had relied on a single factor—
“the apparent Mexican ancestry of the occupants.”  Id. at 885-86.  As part of 
balancing the public interest with the motorist’s rights, the Supreme Court outlined 
as the governmental interest preventing illegal aliens from entering this country.  
Id. at 878-80.  However, despite the importance of that interest, the “modest” 
intrusion of a brief stop, and the absence of practical alternatives for policing the 
border, the Court found that the apparent Mexican heritage of the occupants did 
not provide reasonable suspicion for a stop.  Id. at 881, 886.  The Court stated, 
5.  See § 320.02(6), Fla. Stat. (2010) (“Any person who registers his or her 
motor vehicle by means of false or fraudulent representations made in any 
application for registration is guilty of a misdemeanor of the second degree . . . .”); 
§ 320.261 (making it illegal to “knowingly attach[] to any motor vehicle” a license 
plate that was not “lawfully transferred to such vehicle”); § 320.0609(2)(a) 
(making it unlawful to transfer license plates to a different vehicle without 
notifying DHSMV). 
 
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“The likelihood that any given person of Mexican ancestry is an alien is high 
enough to make Mexican appearance a relevant factor, but standing alone it does 
not justify stopping all Mexican-Americans to ask if they are aliens.”  Id. at 886-
87; cf. United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 545, 557-59 (1976) 
(upholding stops for brief questioning at fixed checkpoints even with no reasonable 
suspicion of illegal aliens because although the need for such stops is as great as 
that in Brignoni-Ponce, a checkpoint stop is much less intrusive since “the 
generating of concern or even fright on the part of lawful travelers is appreciably 
less”). 
Similarly, in Prouse, the Supreme Court invalidated a random vehicle stop 
by roving patrol officers solely to confirm a driver’s compliance with licensure and 
registration requirements.  440 U.S. at 659.  The Court described the intrusion on 
the motorist’s interests as follows: 
We cannot assume that the physical and psychological intrusion 
visited upon the occupants of a vehicle by a random stop to check 
documents is of any less moment than that occasioned by a stop by 
border agents on roving patrol.  Both of these stops generally entail 
law enforcement officers signaling a moving automobile to pull over 
to the side of the roadway, by means of a possibly unsettling show of 
authority.  Both interfere with freedom of movement, are 
inconvenient, and consume time.  Both may create substantial anxiety.  
For Fourth Amendment purposes, we also see insufficient 
resemblance between sporadic and random stops of individual 
vehicles making their way through city traffic and those stops 
occasioned by roadblocks where all vehicles are brought to a halt or to 
a near halt, and all are subjected to a show of the police power of the 
community.  At traffic checkpoints the motorist can see that other 
 
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vehicles are being stopped, he can see visible signs of the officers’ 
authority, and he is much less likely to be frightened or annoyed by 
the intrusion. 
 
Id. at 657 (internal quotation marks omitted).  The Court balanced that intrusion 
with the state’s interests in apprehending stolen vehicles—which the Court 
characterized as indistinguishable from a “general interest in crime control”—and 
promoting roadway safety.  Id. at 658-59 & n.18.  The Supreme Court held that 
given the alternative mechanisms available for enforcing traffic and vehicle safety 
regulations—the foremost of which being to act only upon observed violations—
the incremental contribution to highway safety of the random stops in that case did 
not justify their intrusion on Fourth Amendment rights.  Id. at 659. 
The intrusion involved in the instant case is similar to that described in 
Prouse, especially considering that anyone who chooses to paint his or her vehicle 
a different color could be pulled over by law enforcement every time he or she 
drives it.  Prouse, 440 U.S. at 662-63 (“Were the individual subject to unfettered 
governmental intrusion every time he entered an automobile, the security 
guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment would be seriously circumscribed.”).  
Furthermore, the governmental interest here is not nearly as strong as that in 
Brignoni-Ponce of developing “effective measures to prevent the illegal entry of 
aliens at the Mexican border,” 422 U.S. at 878-79, but is more like that in Prouse—
“ensuring that . . . licensing, registration, and vehicle inspection requirements are 
 
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being observed,” 440 U.S. at 658.  In fact, the Supreme Court described part of the 
interest at stake here—the apprehension of stolen vehicles—as indistinguishable 
“from the general interest in crime control.”  Id. at 659 n.18.   
Even more relevant is the Supreme Court’s finding in Brignoni-Ponce that a 
single factor—the apparent Mexican ancestry of the vehicle’s occupants—was not 
enough to furnish a reasonable suspicion that the occupants were illegal aliens.  
422 U.S. at 885-86.  Likewise, the likelihood that a color discrepancy such as that 
at issue here indicates a stolen vehicle may be high enough to make it a relevant 
factor, but standing alone, it does not justify initiating a stop to determine if the law 
has been violated.  The deputy here needed more indicia of a violation to 
distinguish between an illegal transfer of license plates, for example, and a legal 
decision to paint one’s vehicle.  Conducting an investigatory stop based on a color 
discrepancy only when that discrepancy exists in conjunction with additional 
factors indicating potential criminal activity still protects the government’s 
interests, while also preserving a motorist’s right of freedom from arbitrary 
interference by law enforcement.  We find that the governmental interest in this 
case is outweighed by Teamer’s constitutional rights, and the investigatory stop 
was not warranted. 
“Under the exclusionary rule announced by the United States Supreme 
Court, ‘the Fourth Amendment bar[s] the use of evidence secured through an 
 
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illegal search and seizure.’ ”  Hilton, 961 So. 2d at 293 (alteration in original) 
(quoting Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 648 (1961) (holding that the federal 
exclusionary rule applies to the states as well)).  “Whether the exclusionary 
sanction is appropriately imposed in a particular case . . . is ‘an issue separate from 
the question whether the Fourth Amendment rights of the party seeking to invoke 
the rule were violated by police conduct.’ ”  United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 
906 (1984) (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 223 (1983)). 
The primary rationale behind the exclusionary rule is to deter law 
enforcement from violating constitutional rights.  Terry, 392 U.S. at 12; see also 
United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348 (1974) (“[T]he rule is a judicially 
created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through 
its deterrent effect.”).  The instant case is not one in which the exclusionary rule “is 
powerless to deter invasions of constitutionally guaranteed rights [because] the 
police either have no interest in prosecuting or are willing to forgo successful 
prosecution in the interest of serving some other goal.”  Terry, 392 U.S. at 14.  
Applying the exclusionary rule here would have the required deterrent effect.  See, 
e.g., Prouse, 440 U.S. at 651, 663 (affirming the trial court’s judgment granting the 
defendant’s motion to suppress).   
Further, the State has not demonstrated that any exceptions apply.  Brown v. 
Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 604 (1975) (discussing whether to apply an exception to the 
 
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exclusionary rule and stating that “the burden of showing admissibility rests, of 
course, on the prosecution”).  The State argues a variation of the good faith 
exception to the exclusionary rule.  This exception was first found to apply 
whenever a law enforcement officer conducts a search while relying, in good faith, 
upon a defective search warrant.  Leon, 468 U.S. at 922; Massachusetts v. 
Sheppard, 468 U.S. 981, 987-89 (1984).  Over time, however, the Supreme Court 
extended this exception to other factual scenarios, including searches where police 
acted in objectively reasonable reliance on binding judicial precedent.  Davis v. 
United States, 131 S. Ct. 2419, 2428 (2011).  However, the rule of Davis has no 
application to the present case because the Aders decision was issued on July 27, 
2011—more than one year after the stop of Teamer’s vehicle.  Thus Aders was not 
binding precedent on which the deputy could have relied. 
Despite this fact, the State argues that the good faith exception should still 
apply because the deputy here “arrived at a conclusion shared by non-binding 
courts in other jurisdictions,6 and later shared by the Fourth District” in Aders.  
However, there are also nonbinding courts in other jurisdictions that have arrived 
at the exact opposite conclusion.  United States v. Uribe, No. 2:10-cr-17-JMS-
CMM, 2011 WL 4538407 (S.D. Ind. Sept. 28, 2011); Commonwealth v. Mason, 
 
6.  Smith v. State, 713 N.E.2d 338, 341 (Ind. Ct. App. 1999); Andrews v. 
State, 658 S.E.2d 126, 127-28 (Ga. Ct. App. 2008). 
 
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78 Va. Cir. 474 (Cir. Ct. 2009), aff’d, No. 1956-09-2, 2010 WL 768721 (Va. Ct. 
App. Mar. 9, 2010).  We are satisfied that the exclusionary rule will have an 
appropriate deterrent effect in this case and that none of the exceptions to the rule 
apply. 
CONCLUSION 
Based on the foregoing, we disapprove the decision of the Fourth District in 
Aders v. State, 67 So. 3d 368 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011), and approve the First District’s 
decision in Teamer v. State, 108 So. 3d 664 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013), reversing the 
trial court’s judgment and sentence and ordering that Teamer be discharged. 
It is so ordered. 
LABARGA, C.J., and PARIENTE, LEWIS, and PERRY, JJ., concur. 
CANADY, J., dissents with an opinion in which POLSTON, J., concurs. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION, AND 
IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
 
CANADY, J., dissenting. 
Because I conclude that the traffic stop of Kerrick Van Teamer’s vehicle 
was based on a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and that the trial court 
therefore correctly denied the motion to suppress, I dissent from the majority’s 
approval of the First District Court of Appeal’s decision reversing Teamer’s 
judgment and sentence and ordering that he be discharged.  I would quash the 
 
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decision of the First District on review and approve the decision of the Fourth 
District in Aders v. State, 67 So. 3d 368 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011). 
I. 
“The Fourth Amendment permits brief investigative stops—such as the 
traffic stop in this case—when a law enforcement officer has ‘a particularized and 
objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.’ ”  
Navarette v. California, 134 S. Ct. 1683, 1687 (2014) (quoting United States v. 
Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417-18 (1981)).  This rule is rooted in Terry v. Ohio, 392 
U.S. 1 (1968), where “the [Supreme] Court implicitly acknowledged the authority 
of the police to make a forcible stop of a person when the officer has reasonable, 
articulable suspicion that the person has been, is, or is about to be engaged in 
criminal activity.”  United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 702 (1983). 
The Terry rule recognizes that “[t]he Fourth Amendment requires ‘some 
minimal level of objective justification’ for making the stop.”  United States v. 
Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 7 (1989) (quoting Immigration & Naturalization Serv. v. 
Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 217 (1984)).  Reasonable suspicion thus requires 
“something more than an ‘inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or “hunch.” ’ ”  
Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 7 (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 27).  “A determination that 
reasonable suspicion exists, however, need not rule out the possibility of innocent 
conduct.”  United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 277 (2002).  In permitting 
 
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detentions based on reasonable suspicion, “Terry accepts the risk that officers may 
stop innocent people.”  Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 126 (2000).  But when a 
stop lacks an objective basis, “the risk of arbitrary and abusive police practices 
exceeds tolerable limits.”  Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 52 (1979).  Courts making 
“reasonable-suspicion determinations . . . must look at the ‘totality of the 
circumstances’ of each case.”  Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273. 
The rule authorizing stops based on reasonable suspicion—which embodies 
an “exception to the probable-cause requirement”—rests on the Supreme Court’s 
“balancing of the competing interests to determine the reasonableness of the type 
of seizure involved within the meaning of ‘the Fourth Amendment’s general 
proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures.’ ”  Place, 462 U.S. at 703 
(quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 20).  This balancing process involves weighing “the 
nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests 
against the importance of the governmental interests alleged to justify the 
intrusion.”  Id.  “A central concern in balancing these competing considerations in 
a variety of settings has been to assure that an individual’s reasonable expectation 
of privacy is not subject to arbitrary invasions solely at the unfettered discretion of 
officers in the field.”  Brown, 443 U.S. at 51.  The Supreme Court’s categorical 
authorization of brief investigative detentions based on a reasonable suspicion of 
criminal activity flows from the conclusion that “[w]hen the nature and extent of 
 
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the detention are minimally intrusive of the individual’s Fourth Amendment 
interests, the opposing law enforcement interests can support a seizure based on 
less than probable cause.”  Place, 462 U.S. at 703. 
II. 
Here, the officer’s suspicion was aroused by the discrepancy between the 
color of the vehicle driven by Teamer and the color that was indicated in the 
registration information for the vehicle associated with the license tag on Teamer’s 
vehicle.  Because of this discrepancy, a reasonable officer could suspect that the 
license tag may have been illegally transferred from the vehicle to which it was 
assigned.  Although the color discrepancy was not necessarily indicative of 
illegality, it constituted “a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the 
particular person stopped of criminal activity.”  Navarette, 134 S. Ct. at 1687 
(quoting Cortez, 449 U.S. at 417-18).  The color discrepancy was “something more 
than an ‘inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or “hunch.” ’ ”  Sokolow, 490 
U.S. at 7 (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 27).  I would therefore conclude that the 
officer had the “minimal level of objective justification” necessary to conduct a 
stop for the purpose of further investigating the discrepancy.  Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 
7 (quoting Delgado, 466 U.S. at 217). 
“It is not uncommon for members of the same court to disagree as to 
whether the proper threshold for reasonable suspicion has been reached.”  William 
 
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E. Ringel, Searches & Seizures Arrests & Confessions § 11:12 (Westlaw database 
updated March 2014).  On the issue presented by this case, different courts have 
disagreed regarding whether the color discrepancy was sufficient to establish 
reasonable suspicion.  Compare Aders, 67 So. 3d at 371 (holding that “[a] color 
discrepancy is enough to create a reasonable suspicion in the mind of a law 
enforcement officer of the violation of . . . criminal law”); United States v. Uribe, 
709 F.3d 646 (7th Cir. 2013) (same); Andrews v. State, 658 S.E. 2d 126 (Ga. Ct. 
App. 2008) (same); Smith v. State, 713 N.E. 2d 338 (Ind. Ct. App. 1999) (same); 
with Van Teamer, 108 So. 3d 664 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013) (holding that color 
discrepancy alone does not warrant an investigatory stop); United States v. Uribe, 
2:10-cr-17-JMS-CMM, 2011 WL 4538407 (S.D. Ind. Sept. 28, 2011) (same); 
Commonwealth v. Mason, No. 1956-09-2, 2010 WL 768721 (Va. Ct. App. Mar. 9, 
2010) (same).  Different views on this question are no doubt influenced by 
divergent judgments regarding the likelihood that the color discrepancy had an 
innocent explanation—namely, the repainting of the vehicle after it was 
registered—and was not indicative of illegality.  The courts in fact have no 
empirical basis for reaching a conclusion about that likelihood.  But a stop 
predicated on such a color discrepancy unquestionably falls outside the category of 
“arbitrary invasions solely at the unfettered discretion of officers in the field.” 
 
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Brown, 443 U.S. at 51.  A stop in such circumstances cannot fairly be called an 
“arbitrary and abusive” police practice.  Id. at 52. 
The crux of the majority’s decision in this case is its conclusion that finding 
“reasonable suspicion based on this single noncriminal factor would be to license 
investigatory stops on nothing more than an officer’s hunch.”  Majority op. at 10.  
This conclusion suggests a categorical rule that is not consistent with the 
framework established in the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.  
Although the totality of the circumstances must be taken into account in every 
case, that does not mean that an officer’s reliance on a “single noncriminal factor” 
—such as the vehicle color discrepancy here—is the equivalent of a “hunch.”  The 
majority is wholly unjustified in categorizing an undeniably objective factor as a 
hunch.  The majority’s “effort to refine and elaborate the requirements of 
‘reasonable suspicion’ in this case creates unnecessary difficulty in dealing with 
one of the relatively simple concepts embodied in the Fourth Amendment.”  
Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 7-8. 
The two cases on which the majority places primary reliance do not support 
the majority’s line of analysis.  In United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 
876 (1975), the Supreme Court considered “whether a roving patrol may stop a 
vehicle in an area near the border and question its occupants when the only ground 
for suspicion is that the occupants appear to be of Mexican ancestry.”  The 
 
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Supreme Court concluded that “Mexican appearance” “standing alone . . . does not 
justify stopping all Mexican-Americans to ask if they are aliens.”  Id. at 887.  The 
Supreme Court’s rejection of stops based purely on ethnic classification does not 
support the conclusion that all stops where the officer relies on “a single 
noncriminal factor” are unconstitutional.  Nor does Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 
648, 655 (1979), where the Supreme Court rejected Delaware’s argument “that 
patrol officers be subject to no constraints in deciding which automobiles shall be 
stopped for a license and registration check because the State’s interest in 
discretionary spot checks as a means of ensuring the safety of its roadways 
outweighs the resulting intrusion on the privacy and security of the persons 
detained.”  Prouse thus does not address the issue of reasonable suspicion, and it 
sheds no light on whether reasonable suspicion existed in the case on review here. 
III. 
The officer’s stop of Teamer did not transgress the requirements of the 
Fourth Amendment.  The decision of the First District should be quashed, and 
Teamer’s conviction and sentence should remain undisturbed. 
POLSTON, J., concurs. 
 
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal – Direct 
Conflict of Decisions  
 
First District – Case No. 1D11-3491 
 
(Escambia County)  
 
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Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Trisha Meggs Pate, Tallahassee Bureau Chief, 
Criminal Appeals, and Jay Kubica, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, 
Florida,  
 
for Petitioner 
  
Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender, and Richard M. Summa, Assistant Public 
Defender, Tallahassee, Florida,  
 
for Respondent  
 
 
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