Case Name: STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Anthony FRIERSON, Respondent
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2006-02-09
Citations: 926 So. 2d 1139
Docket Number: No. SC03-1528
Parties: STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Anthony FRIERSON, Respondent.
Judges: LEWIS, CANTERO, and BELL, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 926
Pages: 1139–1156

Head Matter:
STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Anthony FRIERSON, Respondent.
No. SC03-1528.
Supreme Court of Florida.
Feb. 9, 2006.
Rehearing Denied March 31, 2006.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, Celia Terenzio, Bureau Chief and Daniel P. Hyndman, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, FL, for Petitioner.
Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, Marcy K. Allen, Assistant Public Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, FL, for Respondent.

Opinion:
WELLS, J.
We have for review the decision in Frierson v. State, 851 So.2d 293 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003), which certified conflict with the decision in State v. Foust, 262 So.2d 686 (Fla. 3d DCA 1972). We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.
CONFLICT ISSUES
In Foust, the Third District Court of Appeal reversed a trial court's decision to suppress certain evidence that was found after an arrest, holding in relevant part that "the reasonableness of the search after arrest was not affected by the fact that the original stopping of [the defendant] may have been without probable cause." 262 So.2d at 688. In the present case, the Fourth District Court of Appeal recognized that the basis for the holding in Foust was that the warrant was an intervening circumstance which rendered the subsequent search sufficiently attenuated from the illegality of the initial stop. However, the court reached a contrary conclusion, holding that an arrest warrant "does not validate an illegal detention." Frierson, 851 So.2d at 300 (quoting Rollins v. State, 578 So.2d 850, 851 (Fla. 2d DCA 1991)); see also Solino v. State, 763 So.2d 1249 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000); Kimbrough v. State, 539 So.2d 619 (Fla. 4th DCA 1989). The Fourth District stated the conflict issue to be:
Where there is no reasonable cause to justify a traffic stop, may an outstanding arrest warrant constitute an intervening circumstance that dissipates the taint of the illegal action, so that evidence uncovered during a search incident to arrest is admissible in evidence?
Frierson, 851 So.2d at 294.
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW
The Fourth District set forth the following findings of fact by the trial judge:
[0]n July 8, 2001, the defendant was driving an automobile at the intersection of Old Dixie Highway and Northlake Boulevard in Lake Park, Florida. The vehicle in which the defendant was riding was stopped at a traffic light facing north on Old Dixie Highway. Officer Steven Miller was stopped behind the defendant's vehicle. Upon the traffic light turning green, the defendant made a left hand turn onto Northlake Boulevard. Officer Miller testified that the defendant did not use a left turn signal prior to or during the left hand turn. Officer Miller also testified that neither he nor the drivers of other vehicles were affected by the defendant's failure to use a turn signal while making that turn. The officer's testimony also indicated that he observed a white light emanating from a crack in the plastic lens covering the tail light of the left rear of the defendant's vehicle. Officer Miller acknowledged that the plastic lens was cracked, but that the light was operating.
Because the defendant failed to use a turn signal in making his left hand turn and because white light was emanating from a crack in the plastic lens covering the taillight, Officer Miller effected a traffic stop of the defendant's vehicle. Upon being stopped by Officer Miller, the defendant provided the officer with identification. Officer Miller ran a check on the defendant, and learned that there was an outstanding warrant for the defendant's arrest for failure to appear in another proceeding. As a result of the outstanding warrant, the defendant was arrested. A search incident to the defendant's arrest revealed the firearm which formed the basis of the charge against him in this case. A subsequent investigation determined that the warrant which provided the basis for the defendant's arrest was issued due to another person's failure to appear. Someone other than the defendant was issued a notice to appear in the other case and wrongfully gave the issuing-officer the defendant's name and date of birth. A fingerprint was taken of the individual to whom the notice to appear was issued. It is undisputed the print taken did not match that of the defendant's.
Id. at 294-95.
Respondent was charged in this case with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He sought to suppress the seizure of the firearm, contending that the traffic stop which preceded the arrest was unlawful and that the warrant which provided the basis for his arrest was wrongfully issued. The trial judge agreed with respondent that the traffic stop was unlawful based upon this Court's decisions in State v. Riley, 638 So.2d 507 (Fla.1994) (failure to use turn signal without driver's conduct creating reasonable safety concern does not constitute violation of statute), and Doctor v. State, 596 So.2d 442 (Fla.1992) (cracked taillight was not violation of law).
However, in the instant case, the trial court denied the motion to suppress the firearm. Relying upon Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 115 S.Ct. 1185, 131 L.Ed.2d 34 (1995), and United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), the trial court held that the law enforcement officer justifiably relied upon the arrest warrant, although it was later determined that the arrest warrant had been erroneously issued. The trial court next held that the fact that the respondent was illegally stopped by the arresting officer did not require suppression of the firearm because the firearm was found in a search which was incident to the arrest based upon the outstanding warrant and was sufficiently attenuated from the illegal stop. The trial court rested this portion of its holding upon United States v. Green, 111 F.3d 515 (7th Cir.1997); Wigfall v. State, 323 So.2d 587 (Fla. 3d DCA 1975); State v. Foust, 262 So.2d 686 (Fla. 3d DCA 1972); and Ruffin v. State, 201 Ga.App. 792, 412 S.E.2d 850 (1991). Respondent pled nolo contendere to the felony firearm possession offense, reserving the right to appeal the trial court's order on the motion to suppress.
Respondent appealed to the Fourth District Court of Appeal. The district court agreed with the trial court that the traffic stop was without a legal basis and that the law enforcement officer, in arresting Frier-son, justifiably relied on the outstanding but invalid warrant. However, based on its prior precedent, the district court concluded that because the traffic stop was without reasonable cause, the firearm seized in the search of respondent incident to the arrest on the outstanding warrant was subject to suppression as fruit of-the poisonous tree, notwithstanding the outstanding warrant. As earlier stated, the district court acknowledged conflict on this last issue and stated the conflict issue.
ANALYSIS
The State contends that the district court erred in respect to whether there was a lawful basis for the traffic stop. Respondent contends that the district court erred in determining that there was a lawful arrest based upon reliance on an invalid arrest warrant. We decline to review these issues and limit our review to the issue upon which the district court has certified conflict.
Decision on Jurisdiction
Although we clearly have jurisdiction based upon the Fourth District's certification, see art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const., we also have the discretion to determine that we should not exercise our jurisdiction in this case. Respondent initially asserts that we should exercise our discretion and discharge jurisdiction because Foust does not conflict expressly and directly with this case. Specifically, respondent maintains that the traffic stop of respondent in this case only required "founded suspicion," which is a different issue than that in Foust. See Foust, 262 So.2d at 688 ("[T]he reasonableness of the search after arrest was not affected by the fact that the original stopping . may have been without probable cause."). Thus, according to respondent, Foust should be read simply as rejecting the requirement of probable cause, as opposed to founded suspicion, which was the apparent standard for the stop in the Foust case. We agree with respondent that a stop for the violation of motor vehicle laws is similar to the investigative detention in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), and may be made when there is founded suspicion. However, respondent gives Foust too narrow a reading. We read Foust to mean that the search incident to the outstanding warrant was sufficiently attenuated from the illegality of the original stop so as not to be sufficiently tainted by it to be the fruit of the poisonous tree, regardless of whether the standard for the original stop was probable cause or founded suspicion.
We likewise do not agree with respondent's assertion that even if the Foust decision conflicted with the Fourth District's decision in this case, the Third District's later case of Rozier v. State, 368 So.2d 379 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979), changed the law in the Third District from Foust See Rozier, 368 So.2d at 380 ("[T]he motion to suppress should have been granted because the police officers' initial stop of the defendant, which resulted in the arrest, was based on no more than a 'bare suspicion of illegal activity' rather than the 'founded' or 'reasonable' suspicion constitutionally required to support it."). First, Rozier was a decision by another panel of the Third District which does not mention Foust and therefore could not and did not recede from Foust. Additionally, not only does the Fourth District certify that there is a present conflict with Foust, we note that the Second District in Mays v. State, 887 So.2d 402, 404 n. 3 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004), held that there is a present conflict on the issue.
Resolution of Conflict
We conclude that we should resolve the conflict. We frame the conflict issue to be:
Whether evidence seized in a search incident to an arrest based upon an outstanding arrest warrant should be suppressed because of the illegality of the stop which led to the discovery of the outstanding arrest warrant.
In a specially concurring opinion in the present case, Judge Gross set forth an in-depth analysis of the issue. Judge Gross concurred in the majority opinion because of the Fourth District's precedent but wrote: "[WJere we writing on a clean slate, I would affirm the ruling of the trial court that 'the existence of a valid outstanding warrant discovered in the course of an illegal traffic stop' sufficiently attenuated the connection between the illegal stop and the search incident to the arrest so as to render the firearm found during the search admissible in evidence." Frierson, 851 So.2d at 300-01 (Gross, J., concurring specially). The analysis by Judge Gross stated that while the proper decision on the conflict issue was rooted in Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), the structure for the proper application of Wong Sun is found in Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975), and that a proper application of Wong Sun using the Brown analysis structure is in United States v. Green, 111 F.3d 515 (7th Cir.1997). We agree with Judge Gross.
Wong Sun is, of course, the seminal case from the Supreme Court in respect to the issue of whether statements and other evidence obtained after an illegal arrest or search should be excluded. The Court in Wong Sun ruled that a defendant's statement and contraband taken from another defendant were the fruits of a law enforcement officer's illegal action and should have been excluded. The Court, however, declined to adopt a "but for" or "per se" rule, holding:
We need not hold that all evidence is "fruit of the poisonous tree" simply because it would not have come to light but for the illegal actions of the police. Rather, the more apt question in such a case is "whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint." Maguire, Evidence of Guilt, 221 (1959).
Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 487-88, 83 S.Ct. 407 (emphasis added). It is this question which must be answered in this case to resolve the conflict issue.
To properly undertake the inquiry mandated by Wong Sun, we must consider three factors: "(1) the time elapsed between the illegality and the acquisition of the evidence; (2) the presence of intervening circumstances; and (3) the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct." Green, 111 F.3d at 521 (relying on the factors explicitly set forth in Brown, 422 U.S. at 603-04, 95 S.Ct. 2254).
In Green, police officers stopped a vehicle without legal justification and, during the stop, discovered that there was an outstanding warrant for the passenger, Avery Green. 111 F.3d at 517. After they arrested Avery, the officers obtained permission from the driver, David Green, to search the car, whereby they found drugs and a gun, which in turn led to criminal charges against David Green. The trial court denied David Green's motion to suppress, and after he was convicted, he appealed this ruling. The Seventh Circuit accepted, as we do in the present case, that the initial stop was not justified. Id. at 520. To determine whether the causal chain of events was sufficiently attenuated to dissipate the taint of the illegal stop, the court then applied the above three factors. First, the Green court found that only about five minutes had elapsed between the illegal stop of the Greens and the search of the car. Id. at 521. Thus, the court held that the first of the Brown factors weighed against finding the search attenuated but that this factor was not dispositive.
The court next considered the presence of intervening circumstances, which, as in the present case, included an outstanding arrest warrant.
The intervening circumstances of this case, because they are not outweighed by flagrant official misconduct, dissipate any taint caused by the illegal stop of the Greens. Specifically, after stopping the Green brothers, the officers discovered there was a warrant for Avery [Green]. Accordingly, the officers arrested Avery. With the right to arrest Avery came the right to conduct a search incident to an arrest....
. Because the arrest is lawful, a search incident to the arrest is also lawful. The lawful arrest of Avery constituted an intervening circumstance sufficient to dissipate any taint caused by the illegal automobile stop.
Green, 111 F.3d at 521.
As stated, the Green court weighed the third factor, "the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct," against the intervening circumstance. The court found that while the stop of the Green vehicle did not meet constitutional standards, there was no bad faith on the part of the police, and the police action was not flagrant. The court found important that the police did not "exploit the stop in order to search the automobile. Rather the search came only after they learned that Avery was wanted on a warrant and arrested him." Id. at 523.
Applying the Brown factors in the present case, we reach the same result that the court reached in Green. The brief amount of time that elapsed between the illegal stop and the arrest of respondent weighs against finding the search attenuated, but this factor is not dispositive. In turning to the next factor, the outstanding arrest warrant was an intervening circumstance that weighs in favor of the firearm found in a search incident to the outstanding arrest warrant being sufficiently distinguishable from the illegal stop to be purged of the "primary taint" of the illegal stop. Crucially, the search was incident to the outstanding warrant and not incident to the illegal stop. The outstanding arrest warrant was a judicial order directing the arrest of respondent whenever the respondent was located. As Judge Gross noted, "A warrant indicates the existence of criminal conduct separate from the conduct that occurred at the time of the illegal traffic stop." Frierson, 851 So.2d at 302 (Gross, J., concurring specially). The illegality of the stop does not affect the continuing required enforcement of the court's order that respondent be arrested.
We believe to be very significant the third factor in the Brown analysis, which is whether the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct in making the illegal stop outweighs the intervening cause of the outstanding arrest warrant so that the taint of the illegal stop is so onerous that any evidence discovered following the stop must be suppressed. In this case, we do not find that the purpose and flagrancy of misconduct in illegally stopping respondent was such that the taint of the illegal stop required that the evidence seized incident to the outstanding arrest warrant should be suppressed. The law enforcement officer made a mistake in respect to the en forcement of the traffic law, but there was no evidence that the stop was pretextual or in bad faith.
Our decision is further supported by numerous other state supreme court decisions which have reached similar holdings in similar circumstances. For example, in State v. Hill, 725 So.2d 1282 (La.1998), after an arguably unjustified stop, a computer search returned reliable information that the defendant was wanted on an outstanding arrest warrant. In a search incident to the arrest, the officers discovered on the defendant a crack pipe that tested positive for cocaine residue. The court concluded that "the discovery of the existence of outstanding arrest warrants gives an officer probable cause to arrest, and may constitute an intervening circumstance within the meaning of Brown,.which may dissipate the taint caused by prior police misconduct." Id. at 1286. The Kansas Supreme Court reached a similar result in State v. Jones, 270 Kan. 526, 17 P.3d 359, 361 (2001) (relying on Green and holding that in light of the fact that there was no evidence of bad faith on the part of the officer, once the officer "learned of the outstanding warrant, he had a right and duty to arrest Jones. Subsequent to the arrest, [the officer] had the right to search Jones"). See also State v. Page, 140 Idaho 841, 103 P.3d 454, 455 (2004) (adopting Green and holding that based on facts presented, the "discovery of an outstanding warrant for Page's arrest constituted an intervening event, dissipating any possible taint of unlawful law enforcement conduct").
Respondent contends that our decisions in Moody v. State, 842 So.2d 754 (Fla.2003), and State v. Diaz, 850 So.2d 435 (Fla.2003), should control this decision. We do not agree. In neither case were we dealing with the suppression of evidence seized in a search incident to an outstanding arrest warrant.
CONCLUSION
We resolve the conflict among the district courts by holding that whether evidence seized in a search incident to an arrest based upon an outstanding warrant discovered following an illegal stop is to be suppressed is to be answered by analyzing the three factors set forth in Brown for application of the rule of Wong Sun.
We therefore quash the decision of the Fourth District in this case and direct that the conviction and sentence of the trial court be reinstated.
It is so ordered.
LEWIS, CANTERO, and BELL, JJ., concur.
ANSTEAD, J., concurs in result only with an opinion.
PARIENTE, C.J., dissents with an opinion.
QUINCE, J., dissents with an opinion.