Case Name: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Tony PRUITT, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2007-11-02
Citations: 967 So. 2d 1021
Docket Number: No. 2D06-4006
Parties: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Tony PRUITT, Appellee.
Judges: DAVIS, J„ and THREADGILL, EDWARD F., Senior Judge, Concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 967
Pages: 1021–1035

Head Matter:
STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Tony PRUITT, Appellee.
No. 2D06-4006.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.
Nov. 2, 2007.
Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Jonathan P. Hurley, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellant.
James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Timothy J. Ferreri, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellee.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
The State challenges the trial court's order granting Tony Pruitt's motion to suppress the evidence obtained in a search of his home. We reverse.
During the course of an ongoing investigation of a large-scale heroin trafficking operation conducted by the St. Petersburg Police Department ("Department") in cooperation with the United States Drug Enforcement Agency ("DEA") and the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), Tony Pruitt was identified as a key participant in that operation and as a distributor of heroin in the St. Petersburg area. After further investigation involving confidential informants, controlled buys of narcotics, and warrant-authorized wiretaps, the Department had enough information to seek a warrant to search Pruitt's home for further evidence of his drug trafficking business. The warrant was issued, and at 5:15 a.m., on January 6, 2004, the St. Petersburg Tactical Apprehension and Control Team (TACT) executed it. In doing so, TACT waited twelve seconds after knocking and an nouncing their purpose before forcibly entering the home. The subsequent search resulted in the seizure of two firearms, marijuana, heroin, electronic scales, currency, and documents.
Pruitt filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized in the search on the basis that the forced entry violated Florida's knock-and-announce statute, section 933.09, Florida Statutes (2003). The trial court agreed, holding that the twelve-second delay between the knock and announce and TACT's entry was insufficient, and granted Pruitt's motion to suppress the evidence.
In its appeal, the State argues that there were exigent circumstances justifying the short delay between announcing and forcing entry, specifically law enforcement's knowledge that Pruitt was a suspect in a murder investigation in which the murder weapon was an AK-47. Alternatively, the State argues that based on the recent United States Supreme Court case, Hudson, v. Michigan, — U.S. -, 126 S.Ct. 2159, 165 L.Ed.2d 56 (2006), suppression of the evidence was error even if the time between knocking and announcing and the actual entry was too short.
Our review of a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress evidence involves a mixed question of law and fact. We accord a presumption of correctness with regard to the trial court's determination of facts where the trial court's factual findings are supported by competent, substantial evidence. However, we review the trial court's application of the law to those facts de novo. Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996); Connor v. State, 803 So.2d 598 (Fla.2001).
Section 933.09 states:
The officer may break open any outer door, inner door or window of a house, or any part of a house or anything therein, to execute the warrant, if after due notice of the officer's authority and purpose he or she is refused admittance to said house or access to anything therein.
Two requirements are imposed by the statute. First, law enforcement must announce them authority and purpose. Richardson v. State, 787 So.2d 906, 908 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001). Second, before law enforcement may forcibly enter the home, they must have been refused admittance. Id. "Refusal can be express or implied, and lack of response is deemed a refusal." Id. Rarely is the first requirement not met. Thus the question typically then arises in conjunction with the second requirement, i.e., how much time should be allowed before the lack of response may be deemed by law enforcement officers at the scene to be a refusal. There is no bright line answer; the only answer found in our case law is that the occupant must have a "reasonable opportunity" to respond. Id. at 908; Holloway v. State, 718 So.2d 1281, 1282 (Fla. 2d DCA 1998). "Time periods less than five seconds are rarely deemed adequate, and periods in excess of fifteen seconds are often adequate." State v. Cassells, 835 So.2d 397, 399 n. 2 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003); see also Richardson, 787 So.2d at 907 (holding that ten-second wait before forcible entry into cocaine dealer's home at 5:30 a.m. and with no indication of exigent circumstances was not long enough); State v. Robinson, 565 So.2d 730, 732 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990) (holding that wait of only "a few seconds" before entering was too short where there were no exigent circumstances); Kellom v. State, 849 So.2d 391, 394 (Fla. 1st DCA 2003) (holding that delay of approximately five seconds was not enough); cf. United States v. Banks, 540 U.S. 31, 38, 124 S.Ct. 521, 157 L.Ed.2d 343 (2003) (holding that delay of fifteen to twenty seconds did not violate the knock- and-announce rule); Braham v. State, 724 So.2d 592, 594 (Fla. 2d DCA 1998) (holding that five to ten seconds between the knock-and-announee and forced entry in early morning execution of search warrant was reasonable where the officers heard movement within, residence was a small trailer, phone was ringing, and no one responded verbally); Hernandez v. State, 863 So.2d 484 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004) (holding that fifteen seconds was reasonable when footsteps were heard within the residence but no one responded to the door).
In this case, the TACT commander testified that he waited "about" twelve seconds after his initial knock and announce before calling for a breach of the door of the residence and that, based on his training and experience, twelve seconds was a reasonable amount of time for a person inside the home to respond to his knock and announcement of authority. The State also argues that the twelve-second delay was reasonable given the small size of the house and the fact that Pruitt could have easily answered the door in that amount of time. However, the trial court likened the delay in this case to the ten-second delay in Richardson, 787 So.2d 906, concluding that there was insufficient time to respond at an hour when the occupants were most likely asleep and no sounds were heard coming from within the house.
The problem with attempting to analyze whether the time delay was long enough so as to be in compliance with section 933.09 is that there is insufficient case law covering the plethora of factual permutations, such as the fact pattern in this appeal, that might occur in any given case. In Hudson, 126 S.Ct. at 2163, the Court noted that "[w]hen the knoek-and-announce rule does apply, it is not easy to determine precisely what officers must do. How many seconds' wait are too few? Our 'reasonable wait time' standard is necessarily vague." (Citation omitted.) For the most part, Florida opinions either hold that the time delay is too short and conclude that the police violated the knoek- and-announce rule or find that exigent circumstances were present excusing compliance with the rule. Hernandez, 863 So.2d 484, and Braham, 724 So.2d 592, appear to be exceptions, but in both cases the finding that the rule was not violated was nevertheless heavily influenced by the circumstances. In the instant case, the trial court found it "unreasonable to expect a sleeping occupant of even a small home to open the front door within twelve seconds." Giving deference to the trial court's factual finding that twelve seconds was insufficient time to allow Pruitt a reasonable oppoi'tunity to respond, we turn to the question of whether the premature entry was nevertheless justified by exigent circumstances.
There are four exceptions to the reasonable time requirement of the knock- and-announce rule: (1) the occupant already knows of the officers' authority and purpose, (2) there is a reasonable belief that persons within are in peril of bodily harm, (3) the officers' peril would increase, and (4) the occupants might attempt to escape or to destroy the evidence. Kellom, 849 So.2d at 395 (citing Benefield v. State, 160 So.2d 706, 710 (Fla.1964)). The pertinent exception in this case is the officer peril exception, based on the information that Pruitt was suspected of using an AK-47 in a murder six months earlier and on his history of criminal violence. The State's claim of exigent circumstances based on officer safety is summed up in its response to Pruitt's motion to suppress:
At 5:15 a.m. on January 6th, 2004, the Tactical Apprehension and Control Team (TACT) executed a high risk search warrant at 1000 13th Street North in St. Petersburg after knocking and announcing and then delaying 12 seconds before entering by breaching the door with a battering ram while simultaneously detonating a distraction device in the kitchen. This was done pursuant to a lawfully executed search warrant....
The TACT team is St. Petersburg's version of a SWAT team and they are utilized to execute search warrants only "with high-risk situations, barricaded subjects, hostage rescue, things of that nature" according to the testimony of Damian Schmidt.[ ] According to Schmidt this was a "high risk situation in which information was given fitting the criteria where firearms or the subject involved is known to use violence."
At the time that the TACT team entered, they were aware that the subject known to live in the residence was a violent felon and the suspect in a homicide involving the use of an AK-47 in the past 6 months. The TACT team's body armor was not capable of stopping-rounds from an AK-47.
Although the TACT team did not have an exact diagram of the residence, they knew from surveillance that the residence was a small single story house. Based on the time given after the initial knock-and-announce, it was the opinion of the knocking officer that the residence had been given sufficient time to answer the door in this small house. It was his further stated opinion based on the circumstances presented that the TACT team was exposed to danger at the front of the house after 12 seconds, which is why he called for the breach of the front door. Upon entering the residence a woman was located on the couch within 10 feet of the front door where the officers were knocking.
During the suppression hearing, the TACT commander described the situation he was faced with on the scene:
And now as time expanded, when I got up to 10 and I'm counting 11, 12, now the team has been compromised to a degree that they know we are out here, so now the risk definitely increases where we may return fire, or the people inside are either barricading themselves or possibly destroying evidence.
In its order, the trial court did not question the veracity or credibility of the information pertaining to Pruitt's alleged use of an AK-47 in a murder but concluded only that this information was stale as a matter of law. The trial court also noted that "neither the warrant nor the supporting affidavit make mention of firearms being located in the residence or the fact that the defendant has a history of violence." The trial court noted further that Pruitt had not yet been charged with the homicide at the time of the raid, and that although TACT may have been informed that Pruitt had a record of violent crimes, "no specific information regarding the defendant's alleged violent history was brought out at the hearing...." (Emphasis added.) The trial court ultimately concluded (1) that twelve seconds was insufficient time to allow for a response "even in a small home," (2) that the information regarding the suspected murder using the AK-47 was stale, and (3) that the information regarding Pruitt's prior violent crimes was unsupported by the affidavit or warrant. Based on this, the trial court concluded that there were "no particularized facts giving rise to a reasonable belief that the officers would be in greater peril had they complied with section 933.09."
As the trial court correctly stated in its order, in order to invoke the officer peril exception to the knock-and-announce requirement, the police must have a reasonable basis to believe that they would face greater peril by complying with the requirement, see Holloway, 718 So.2d at 1282, and this belief should be based on particularized facts, State v. Bamber, 630 So.2d 1048, 1054 (Fla.1994). In this case, the TACT commander counted to twelve but, as his testimony indicated, felt that since no response was forthcoming from within, his team was now at greater risk and the occupants might be preparing to resist or to destroy evidence. However, if the commander truly felt that the circumstances required the type of overwhelming surprise which might be necessary when entering a dangerous situation, one might question why he chose to count to twelve in the first place. We can only surmise that he thought that by doing so he would be in compliance with the knock-and-announce rule. This is a dilemma created by the courts. Discussing this dilemma, the Supreme Court in Hudson, 126 S.Ct. at 2163, noted that in Banks, 540 U.S. 31, 124 S.Ct. 521, it had held that:
The proper measure was not how long it would take the resident to reach the door, but how long it would take to dispose of the suspected drugs-but that such a time (15 to 20 seconds in that case) would necessarily be extended when, for instance, the suspected contraband was not easily concealed. [Banks, 540 U.S.] at 40-41, 124 S.Ct. 521. If our ex post evaluation is subject to such calculations, it is unsurprising that, ex ante, police officers about to encounter someone who may try to harm them will be uncertain how long to wait
(Emphasis added.) In a recent opinion of this court, Judge Villanti noted:
Because Florida does not authorize the issuance of no-knock warrants, Bamber, 630 So.2d 1048, the decision to enter on this basis can be made only after arrival at the scene.... The supervisor directing the execution of the warrant must have almost swami-like powers to get it right, and the supervisor's decision is only as good as the information he is provided....
Under current case law, the time frame separating a "good" knock-and-announce case from a "bad" one, as this case demonstrates, can be as little as a few seconds.
Simmons v. State, 913 So.2d 19, 24 (Fla. 2d DCA 2005) (Villanti, J., concurring). One can only imagine the dilemma officers find themselves in when they feel compelled, in view of the imprecise case law employing a case-by-case totality analysis, to count seconds before entering while simultaneously being- aware of the occupant's violent propensity. We are not aware of any Florida case that thoroughly discusses whether, in the presence of some exigency, some period of time is nevertheless necessary to wait prior to forcing entry. Therefore, it appears to us that when exigent circumstances are present, the amount of time preceding entry is less imperative. Here, it is difficult to believe that a known hard core drug dealer, suspected of possessing an AK-47 used by him to commit a murder, even if given an extra second or two, would gracefully respond by allowing police entry and access to evidence that could be used to imprison him.
The trial court correctly noted that if law enforcement fails to comply with section 933.09 on the basis of officer peril or any other exception, the information upon which the exception is claimed must have some temporal proximity to the execution of the warrant. See Holloway, 718 So.2d at 1282; Craft v. State, 638 So.2d 1011, 1014 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994). During the suppression hearing in Holloway, the officers testified that a confidential informant had implied that a firearm was present in the defendant's house and that in 1986, Holloway had been convicted of armed robbery and battery on a law enforcement officer. 718 So.2d at 1282. However, the warrant leading to Holloway's arrest was executed nearly ten years after Holloway's armed robbery and battery convictions. Id. This court concluded that the ten-year-old convictions lacked temporal proximity and that a confidential informant's mere implication that a firearm was present was insufficient to support the officer peril exception. Id. Similarly, in Craft, the information that Craft possessed a weapon was over two years old at the time of the execution of the warrant. 638 So.2d at 1013-14. This court held that this evidence "was too stale to provide a reasonable belief that there would be officer peril two years later." Id. at 1014.
This case is distinguishable from Holloway and Craft. The information regarding the potential presence of the firearm here was not the product of stale information, a vague reference, or generalized knowledge; the knowledge was particularized and recent. Pruitt was under an ongoing active investigation for a murder committed with an AK-47. A six-month investigation prior to a felony arrest is not unusual when one considers that potential witnesses are likely either undercover or reluctant to testify because they are involved in the drug trade or know that their lives may be in danger if they do testify. We conclude that under the facts of this case, the information relating to an active investigation regarding Pruitt's alleged involvement in a murder using an AK-47 six months before the execution of the warrant did not render that information stale.
We further note that the Department had been investigating Pruitt's heroin distribution operation for several months. He had contacts throughout the state, had completed over 150 sales of narcotics within a single month, and had prior convictions for possession and sale of narcotics, robbery, and aggravated battery.
[I]t is common sense for officers to believe that a person reasonably suspected to be in possession of both firearms and substantial quantities of illegal drugs will use his firearms to protect himself and his holdings and, thus, poses a threat to the safety of police officers attempting to seize the drugs. State v. Williams, 168 Wis.2d 970, 485 N.W.2d 42, 47 (1992); U.S. v. Singer, 943 F.2d 758 (7th Cir.1991). As the court in U.S. v. Singer, 943 F.2d at 762-63, succinctly put it:
It is a reasonable beliéf that a person in possession of both firearms and large quantities of drugs poses a threat to the safety of police officers attempting to seize the drugs. Indeed, the courts have recognized that a suspect's propensity for violence can be inferred from the quantity of drugs involved. See U.S. v. Bonner, 874 F.2d 822, 824-25 (D.C.Cir.1989) ("common sense and bitter experience . suggests [that] dealers in narcotics possess firearms and that such weapons are as much tools of the trade as more commonly recognized drug paraphernalia"); United States v. Kane, 637 F.2d 974, 980 (3d Cir.1981) (reasonable to deduce that weapons are necessary to protect large quantities of drugs); c.f. United States v. Buchanan, 910 F.2d 1571, 1573 (7th Cir.1990) (recognizing that guns are tools of the drug trade); United States v. Alvarez, 860 F.2d 801, 829 (7th Cir.1988) (same), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1051, 109 S.Ct. 1966, 104 L.Ed.2d 434 (1989). With these considerations in mind, we believe the gun reputedly in Singer's possession posed a quantifiable risk to the safety of the officers executing the warrant; therefore, this exigent circumstance permitted the police to enter Singer's home, without first knocking and announcing their presence.
Wilson v. State, 673 So.2d 505, 512 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996).
In its order, the trial court likened the freshness of the information regarding Pruitt's suspected use of an AK-47 in a homicide to the requirement of temporal proximity of information necessary for issuance of a search warrant. This analogy is misplaced because the standards are vastly different. In the case of a search warrant, the affidavit must show that the suspect has committed a crime and that evidence of criminal activity will be found at a particular location. The exigent circumstances exception to the knock-and-announce requirement asks only if the officers on the scene have a reasonable belief, under the totality of the circumstances, that one of the exceptions exists. Bamber, 630 So.2d at 1050 ("Conditions must be assessed at the scene at the time of entry."). Thus the determination of the existence of exigent circumstances is a judgment call made by the operational commander at the scene and has no direct relationship to the level of proof necessary for probable cause issuance of a search warrant.
The trial court's attribution of the fact that neither the affidavit nor the warrant indicated Pruitt's potential for violence or the fact that he was a suspect in a recent murder also misses the mark. The affidavit was prepared to fulfill the probable cause requirement for searching for narcotics and evidence of Pruitt's heroin business operation, specifically business and phone records. See Art. I, § 12; Amend. IV., U.S. Const.
The task of the issuing magistrate is simply to make a practical, commonsense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him, including the "veracity" and "basis of knowledge" of persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.
Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983). Thus it was unnecessary to include in the warrant information regarding Pruitt's violent crimes or the murder investigation because this information had nothing to do with establishing probable cause that Pruitt's home would contain drugs or other evidence relating to his heroin trafficking business. The only possible use an issuing magistrate or judge might have for such information would be if he/she intended to issue a no-knoek warrant. As noted, this is not permitted in Florida. See Bamber, 630 So.2d at 1050. The information regarding the murder investigation was only necessary for TACT's planning purposes, i.e., to enable TACT to make on-the-spot decisions as to the best way to execute the warrant at the scene, and was immaterial to the purpose of the warrant. Even if that information could be considered to be material, this court has held:
[Wjhen a question is raised as to material omissions from the search warrant affidavit, the court reviewing the matter should consider the affidavit as though the omitted facts were included and then evaluate the presence of probable cause in light of the added facts. This is true whether the facts were intentionally omitted or omitted in good faith. The rule should be applied if the omitted facts were nevertheless relevant and should have been included.
Sotolongo v. State, 530 So.2d 514, 516 (Fla. 2d DCA 1988).
The trial court also likened the instant case to Richardson, 787 So.2d 906, in which this court held that ten seconds was an insufficient amount of time, in the absence of exigent circumstances, to allow for a response after knocking where the warrant was executed at 5:30 a.m. However, in Richardson, there was no mention of firearms or threat of violence; the court engaged in a straightforward analysis of what should be a reasonable time vis-a-vis section 933.09 under the facts of that case. In contrast, the instant case involved specific information regarding the probability of the presence of firearms and the potential for violence. "In consideration of the violence which surrounds illegal drug trafficking, it is not reasonable to expect law enforcement officers to risk their lives and the lives of others when possessed of information as was present in this case." State v. Avendano, 540 So.2d 920, 920-21 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989).
In the instant case, the officers knew they were not dealing with a minor league crack or marijuana dealer. The affidavit for search warrant described a person who ran a large or growing heroin distribution operation, who used semi-sophisticated techniques to elude law enforcement, such as the use of female "mules" or hiding heroin in the dashboard or body of a vehicle, and who was a participant in a larger heroin distribution network. Additional information provided to TACT supported their reasonable belief that they were dealing with a violent career criminal. See Power v. State, 605 So.2d 856 (Fla.1992) (holding that police officers were not required to knock and announce when executing a search warrant where they had been informed that the defendant used a gun or knife to rape, had committed armed robbery, had a black belt in karate, had a gun, and had a violent background). In Poiver, there was no indication that the "specific" information that Power had used a gun or knife in the rape was also included in the warrant; it was simply information provided to the police officers prior to their execution of the warrant. See also Poole v. United States, 630 A.2d 1109, 1124 (D.C.App.1993) (holding that where officers entered after ten seconds in the reasonable belief that defendant was on premises and had a gun and would use it if confronted provided exigent circumstances excusing full compliance with the knock-and-announce statute). Significantly, during the hearing, the TACT commander testified that he had not even read the warrant itself. Thus inclusion of information in the warrant regarding Pruitt's potential for violence and the murder investigation would not have assisted his exigency assessment regarding officer peril.
We also note that TACT was concerned about the fact that gunfire from an AK-47 can pierce the body armor worn by its members. This knowledge made the exigency of the situation that much more critical. Finally, we note that the decision to use TACT in the first place indicates the degree of concern the Department had that Pruitt might respond to the execution of the warrant violently.
Based on the foregoing, we conclude that the trial court erred as a matter of law in concluding that exigent circumstances did not exist justifying TACT's entry into Pruitt's house after waiting twelve seconds. Because the trial court's order must be reversed for the reasons stated herein, we decline to address whether Hudson would have precluded suppression of the evidence in this case regardless of any knock-and-announce violation.
Accordingly, we reverse the trial court's order granting Pruitt's motion to suppress the evidence and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
DAVIS, J" and THREADGILL, EDWARD F., Senior Judge, Concur.
VILLANTI, J., Concurs specially.
. Damian Schmitt was described as a veteran who had executed fifty to seventy-five search warrants.
. This testimony supports the additional concern that Pruitt might attempt to dispose of the drugs, but this factor was not discussed in the State's appellate brief. Presumably this was because there was no noise emanating from within from which TACT could conclude that drugs were being destroyed.
. Information developed during the investigation was described in the affidavit.
. A situation made necessary as result of the fact that Florida does not recognize a "no-knock" search warrant.
. In Avendano, a confidential informant told police that Avendano told him that he would be armed on the morning of the execution of the warrant. 540 So.2d at 920. Although the information in Avendano was more direct than in the instant case, we believe the conclusion is equally valid under the circumstances of the present case.