DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA

FOURTH DISTRICT

RONNIE WILLIAMS,

Appellant,

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

Appellee.

No. 4D12-3723

[April 1, 2015]

Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, 

Broward County; Jeffrey R. Levenson, Judge; L.T. Case No. 06-016838 

CF10A.

Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Jonathan Dodson, Assistant 

Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Allen R. Geesey, 

Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

CIKLIN, J.

Ronnie Williams challenges the trial judge’s order vacating a 

predecessor judge’s order suppressing evidence, eventually leading to his 

conviction for, among other charges, possession of cocaine. Williams 

argues that the trial court strayed from its role as a neutral arbiter in 

sua sponte reconsidering the predecessor judge’s suppression order. We

must agree and reverse. 

In the events leading up to the charges, law enforcement officers 

approached Williams outside of a market where they were authorized to 

issue trespass warnings. A detective asked Williams for identification, 

ran a check for warrants, and found none. The encounter ultimately led 

to a pat down of Williams. The precise facts beyond that point are in 

dispute, but the state presented evidence that the detective felt an object 

in Williams’ pocket, at which point Williams took a swing at him and ran. 

When the officers caught him, Williams was pushed to the ground. The 

detective looked down and saw a container falling out of Williams’ pocket, 

partially open and with pieces of crack cocaine coming out of his pocket 
2

and onto the ground. In a search incident to arrest, the detective found 

another container of crack in Williams’ pocket. 

Williams moved to suppress evidence of the two containers of crack 

cocaine. The predecessor trial judge granted Williams’ motion as to the 

container in Williams’ pocket, but denied it as to the container on the 

ground. Four years later, Williams was called to trial before a successor 

judge. A jury was empanelled, sworn and instructed to report back to 

court on the following day. 

At the beginning of the trial proceedings the next morning, the state 

informed the court that an issue had arisen with the evidence: “During 

storage it appears that the tops of the containers have opened. Now both 

containers are open and there’s just pieces of crack cocaine throughout 

the bag. Obviously [based on the predecessor judge’s suppression order]

we can only introduce one container and one set of cocaine.” The court 

inquired into how that would be done without breaking the chain of 

custody. In a colloquy between the court and defense counsel—with very 

little input from the state—the parties discussed a resolution of the issue 

and the soundness of the predecessor judge’s ruling on the motion to 

suppress. 

During this discussion, the court learned Williams was disclaiming 

possession of all of the cocaine, and therefore suggested that Williams did 

not have standing1 to challenge the admission of the cocaine, and, 

without any prompting from the litigants, asked the state if it was 

moving to reconsider the prior judge’s suppression order:

DEFENSE: My client is saying none of it. In other words, 

he didn’t own any of this cocaine.

. . . .

THE COURT: Then he has no standing to object to either 

one if he doesn’t own it, if it’s not his.

DEFENSE: But Judge Gold already suppressed the one 

that was supposedly in his pocket.

1 See generally Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 148 (1978) (holding that 

petitioners, who asserted neither a property interest nor a possessory interest 

in property searched or seized, were not entitled to assert a constitutional

challenge to the search).
3

THE COURT: [Directing a question to the state] Are you 

moving for the Court to reconsider at this 

time?

STATE: Yes, your Honor.

THE COURT: [Directing a question to defense counsel] 

What evidence do you have of standing to 

object to that cocaine?

DEFENSE: The fact that it was suppressed and now it’s 

been commingled.

THE COURT: I am vacating the [predecessor judge’s] order 

of suppression.2

The jury returned a guilty verdict.

‘“Every litigant, including the State in criminal cases, is entitled to 

nothing less than the cold neutrality of an impartial judge.’” Livingston v. 

State, 441 So. 2d 1083, 1086 (Fla. 1983) (quoting State ex rel. Mickle v. 

Rowe, 131 So. 331, 332 (Fla. 1930)). Although “it is permissible for a 

trial judge to ask questions deemed necessary to clear up uncertainties 

as to issues in cases that appear to require it,” J.F. v. State, 718 So. 2d 

251, 252 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998), “the trial judge serves as the neutral 

arbiter in the proceedings and must not enter the fray by giving ‘tips’ to 

either side,” Chastine v. Broome, 629 So. 2d 293, 295 (Fla. 4th DCA 

1993).

The evaluation of whether a trial judge has departed from his or her 

role as neutral arbiter focuses on actions ‘“from which a litigant may 

reasonably question a judge’s impartiality rather than the judge’s 

perception of his [or her] ability to act fairly and impartially.’” Id. at 294 

(alteration in original) (quoting Livingston, 441 So. 2d at 1086). There is 

no shortage of authority from Florida courts that have considered this 

issue and then reversed where the trial court improvidently assisted the 

state: 

In Chastine, this court disqualified a trial judge who passed 

a note to the prosecutor giving the attorney strategy tips. 

629 So. 2d at 295. Similarly, in J.F., this court reversed 

2 The trial court solicited testimony from Williams as to the issue of standing, 

but Williams, through his attorney, declined to testify. 
4

where a trial judge “assumed the role of the prosecutor by 

directing a witness for the state to obtain additional 

evidence” and sua sponte continued a hearing pending 

results of a fingerprint examination. 718 So. 2d at 252. In 

Asbury v. State, 765 So. 2d 965 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000), this 

court, citing J.F. and Chastine, determined that a trial court 

judge became “an active participant by prompting the State 

to present evidence and by sua sponte recalling witnesses 

and then asking them questions.” 765 So. 2d at 965. See 

also Lyles v. State, 742 So. 2d 842 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999)

(finding that the trial court committed fundamental error by 

sua sponte ordering defendant’s fingerprints and bifurcating 

hearing to allow additional testimony). In McFadden v. State, 

732 So. 2d 1180, 1183 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999), this court found 

reversible error where the trial court assisted “an 

unprepared state attorney” by inviting the state to reopen its 

case after the defendant had moved to dismiss because there

had not been any identification of the defendant and the 

state had not established that the defendant had been 

informed of the conditions of probation.

Lee v. State, 789 So. 2d 1105, 1106-07 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001) (reversing 

where judge suggested to prosecutor, after he finished questioning 

witness, to have witness identify defendant’s scars and tattoos on his 

forearm for the jury).

Here, the state was facing an evidentiary dilemma with what became 

commingled crack cocaine and its need to somehow separate the

previously suppressed evidence from the admissible evidence. When the 

trial court sought to prompt the state to move for reconsideration of the 

suppression order, it was reasonable for Williams to question the trial 

court’s neutrality. And given the fact that a jury had been seated and 

proceedings were underway, the trial court’s sua sponte intervention may 

have derailed Williams’ defense strategy. Because the trial court erred in 

entering the fray, we reverse and remand for a new trial.

In so holding, we do not suggest that a trial judge may never 

reconsider a predecessor judge’s ruling. To the contrary, “[i]t is settled 

law that while a trial court has jurisdiction of a case, and upon 

appropriate motion or objection made by either counsel, it has the 

inherent power to reconsider a previous ruling made on a motion to 

suppress.” State v. Graham, 721 So. 2d 361, 362 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998) 

(citing Savoie v. State, 422 So. 2d 308, 312 (Fla. 1982); Obregon v. State, 

601 So. 2d 616, 616 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992)). It is critical, however, that the
5

“appropriate motion or objection” originate from one of the parties, lest 

the trial court torpedo its role as an impartial arbiter. 

Reversed and remanded for a new trial.

WARNER and GROSS, JJ., concur.

* * *

Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.