Case Name: William James KEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1989-11-30
Citations: 553 So. 2d 301
Docket Number: No. 88-3218
Parties: William James KEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: ERVIN, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 553
Pages: 301–304

Head Matter:
William James KEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 88-3218.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
Nov. 30, 1989.
Rehearing Denied Jan. 8, 1990.
Michael E. Allen, Public Defender, and Carl S. McGinnes, Asst. Public Defender, Tallahassee, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen. and John M. Koenig, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellee.

Opinion:
ZEHMER, Judge.
We review the denial of appellant Key's motion to suppress the cocaine seized from him and reverse because the officer did not have probable cause to conduct the search.
The motion alleged that Key was illegally searched by Officer Litton as a result of information telephoned to the Havana Police Department by an unknown black female, and that defendant's arrest was the result of the illegal search. At the hearing on the motion, Sergeant Litton of the Havana Police Department testified that he was present at the station when a call came in from a black female whose voice he did not recognize, that the black female stated that she had just come through the dirt part of East Eleventh Avenue, where a Willie James Key, known personally to her, and two unknown black males tried to sell her some crack cocaine. Describing her conversation with him, Litton testified that the caller said the attempted sale had occurred about 3 minutes prior to her call, that the three men had stopped her and tried to make the sale, that she was scared, that she knew Willie James Key personally, and that she could not describe the other two men. Then she immediately hung up on him (R. 6).
Litton testified that he then went directly to the location described and "upon turning on Eleventh Avenue off of River Road and going down it, about half way through it, I spotted Mr. Key, who I know also." Litton stated it took him about a minute and a half from the time he hung up the telephone to reach the location of the defendant. Litton testified that when he arrived he told Key about the tip that Key was there trying to sell cocaine, that he was going to search Key, and that Key made no remark that he didn't want to be searched. Litton further stated that he did not ask for consent to search, and that he searched Key and found one gram of crack cocaine wrapped in a paper towel. He also found a box cutter blade in Key's left front shirt pocket and one crack pipe in his left back pants pocket. Litton testified that approximately six months earlier he had arrested Key for possession of cocaine and that Key had three grams on him at that time. On cross-examination, Litton confirmed that the only reason he stopped and searched Key was the information he had received from the anonymous phone call. The court denied the motion to suppress and subsequently entered a judgment of conviction upon Key's nolo contendere plea reserving the right to appeal that denial. The court found the ruling on the motion to suppress was dispositive of the case.
This was clearly not a consensual search, and the state agrees that this was not a temporary detention and pat-down search pursuant to a Terry stop. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). The state argues that the officer had probable cause to search Key under the totality of circumstances test set forth in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983), pointing only to the uncorroborated tip from the anonymous informer and the officer's prior arrest of Key for possessing cocaine some five months before.
We cannot agree that these circumstances rise to the level of probable cause to believe that Key personally possessed cocaine on this occasion under the Gates test because there was insufficient corroboration of the details of the unidentified informant's tip. The adoption of the totality of circumstances test in Gates did not obviate the need for corroboration of the details stated in the anonymous tip. Key's arrest by officer Litton for possession of cocaine some five months earlier did not corroborate any of the details stated by the informant. Moreover, that occurrence was too remote in time to supply the officer with probable cause that Key possessed cocaine or was perpetrating any criminal act on this particular occasion. Sheppard v. State, 521 So.2d 288 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988) (and cases cited therein). There simply was no corroboration of the details of the anonymous tip in any respect other than the fact that the officer found Key at the place indicated by the informant; but the officer did not personally observe any criminal activity on Key's part at that time, and thus did not have any personal knowledge that would corroborate the details of the tip that defendant was possessing illicit drugs or attempting to sell illicit drugs on this occasion. Since the state points to no other circumstances giving rise to probable cause to believe that Key was committing a criminal offense at the time, the state has failed to prove that the arresting officer had the requisite probable cause to conduct the search. Sheppard v. State, 521 So.2d 288 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988). It was, therefore, error for the court below to deny the motion to suppress because the search violated Key's rights under the Florida Constitution and the U.S. Constitution.
The judgment of conviction is REVERSED and the cause is REMANDED with directions to discharge the appellant.
ERVIN, J., concurs.
NIMMONS, J., dissents with written opinion.
. In Gates the Court stated:
Our decisions applying the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis outlined above have consistently recognized the value of corroboration of details of an informant's tip by independent police work. In Jones v. United States, 362 US, [257] at 269, [80 S.Ct. 725, at 735, 4 L.Ed.2d 697] we held that an affidavit relying on hearsay "is not to be deemed insufficient on that score, so long as a substantial basis for crediting the hearsay is presented." We went on to say that even in making a warrantless arrest an officer "may rely upon information received through an informant, rather than upon his direct observations, so long as the informant's statement is reasonably corroborated by other matters within the officer's knowledge." Ibid. Likewise, we recognized the probative value of corroborative efforts of police officials in Aguilar — the source of the "two-pronged test" — by observing that if the police had made some effort to corroborate the informant's report at issue, "an entirely different case" would have been presented. Aguilar [v. State of Texas], 378 US, [108] at 109, n. 1 [, 84 S.Ct. 1509-1511 n. 1, 12 L.Ed.2d 723].
462 U.S. at 241-42, 103 S.Ct. at 2333-34.