Case Name: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Sterling STRONG, Sr., Albert Lee Turner, Maeola Strong and Herman Callins, Jr., Appellees
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1992-01-08
Citations: 593 So. 2d 1065
Docket Number: No. 89-3111
Parties: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Sterling STRONG, Sr., Albert Lee Turner, Maeola Strong and Herman Callins, Jr., Appellees.
Judges: GARRETT, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 593
Pages: 1065–1069

Head Matter:
STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Sterling STRONG, Sr., Albert Lee Turner, Maeola Strong and Herman Callins, Jr., Appellees.
No. 89-3111.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
Jan. 8, 1992.
Rehearing Denied March 27, 1992.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Carol Cobourn Asbury, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Harry G. Robbins, North Miami Beach, for appellee-Callins.
Theota McClaine, Jr., Fort Lauderdale, for appellees-Strong, Turner and Strong.

Opinion:
DOWNEY, Judge.
Appellant, State of Florida, perfected this non-final appeal from an order in a criminal case granting appellee's motion to suppress evidence.
It appears from the record that appellees had been under surveillance by the Bro-ward County Sheriffs Department, which led to a stop and search of their automobile that was allegedly transporting cocaine from Fort Lauderdale to Hillsborough County. They were informed against in both counties, specifically for racketeering (RICO) and conspiracy to traffic in cocaine in Hillsborough County and with armed trafficking in cocaine in Broward County. During the trial of the charges in Hillsbor-ough County, the trial court granted a motion to suppress the cocaine seized in the automobile stop in Broward County. Nevertheless, the trial proceeded in Hills-borough and, although the court granted a judgment of acquittal on the conspiracy count, appellees were ultimately convicted of racketeering.
In the present case, appellees filed a motion to suppress on various grounds, including res judicata and collateral estop-pel vis-a-vis the evidence suppressed by the trial court in the Hillsborough prosecution. From an order granting that motion, the state appeals.
The appellate issue presented here is the applicability of the doctrine of collateral estoppel as that rule of law was explicated in Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970). Appellees contend that the state is estopped to litigate once again the propriety of the search and seizure of the contraband seized in Bro-ward County, which the Hillsborough County Circuit Court suppressed. The state responds that appellees cannot rely upon collateral estoppel in the defense of the present case because, simply put, the evidence suppressed in the Hillsborough County proceeding was not essential to a determination of the appellees' guilt in that case. We have concluded that the state is correct in its analysis of the correct application of the legal principle involved, thus mandating a reversal of the order appealed from.
From the fifth amendment guarantee against double jeopardy in the United States Constitution there has evolved the doctrine of collateral estoppel, which means that, when an issue of ultimate fact has been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot be relitigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit. Ashe. The principle precludes the government from relitigating certain facts in order to establish the fact of the crime, which includes a redetermination of eviden-tiary facts as well as ultimate facts. United States v. Lee, 622 F.2d 787 (5th Cir. 1980). Collateral estoppel may be employed to bar prosecution or argumentation of facts necessarily established in a prior proceeding, or it may be utilized to bar subsequent prosecution where one of the facts necessarily determined in the former trial is an essential element of the crime presently charged. United States v. De-Marco, 791 F.2d 833 (11th Cir.1986). A necessarily established fact has been held to be one which has been resolved in favor of the defendant at the prior trial and was essential to the conviction in said case. However, as the court said in Ashe, collateral estoppel does not apply if the verdict could be grounded upon an issue other than that which the defendant seeks to foreclose from consideration.
Adverting to the present case, an analysis of the charges and trial proceeding in the Hillsborough County case leads us to the conclusion that the evidence that appel-lees seek to suppress here, and which was suppressed there, was not an essential part of the crime charged. Indeed, the evidence was suppressed but the appellees were convicted.
Interestingly enough, in the Hillsbor-ough proceedings, the trial court twice declined to suppress the evidence in question. It was, in due course, admitted into evidence, after which the state rested. Then only did the court decide to grant the motion to suppress. At that point, as the state contends, if the court had felt the suppressed evidence was essential to a determination of the guilt or innocence of the appellees, he would have dismissed the case or granted a mistrial. Furthermore, after the state rested and the court ordered suppression of the subject evidence, the state moved for a mistrial, which the appel-lees opposed. So it is apparent that neither the court nor appellees, at that time, felt the subject evidence was essential to a conviction of racketeering charges in Hills-borough County.
In view of the foregoing, we agree with the state that the requisite elements of collateral estoppel are not existent under the peculiar facts of this case and that the evidence in question was erroneously suppressed.
GARRETT, J., concurs.
POLEN, J.; dissents, with opinion.