Case Name: William Woodrow HORTON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1979-09-25
Citations: 375 So. 2d 1112
Docket Number: No. 78-2184
Parties: William Woodrow HORTON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: Before PEARSON, BARKDULL and SCHWARTZ, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 375
Pages: 1112–1114

Head Matter:
William Woodrow HORTON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 78-2184.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
Sept. 25, 1979.
Rehearing Denied Nov. 9, 1979.
Alvin Entin and Ronald A. Dion, Miami, Manuel W. James, Key West, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen. and Joel D. Rosen-blatt, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
Before PEARSON, BARKDULL and SCHWARTZ, JJ.

Opinion:
PEARSON, Judge.
The appellant was charged with possession of more than 100 pounds of marijuana. He filed a motion to suppress the physical evidence, which was denied. Thereupon, he changed his plea to nolo contendere, reserving the right to appeal. The controlling question is whether the facts developed by the State at the hearing on the motion to suppress, when viewed in the light most favorable to the decision of the finder of fact, support the decision of the trial court that the officers, who stopped a truck the appellant was driving, had an "articulable basis for suspicion" that a crime had been committed, or was in the process of being committed, or would be committed in the imminent future. See Parker v. State, 363 So.2d 383 (Fla. 3d DCA 1978); and State v. Payton, 344 So.2d 648 (Fla. 2d DCA 1977).
We hold that the following facts which may have been found by the trial court from the testimony before it constituted a sufficient basis for its decision. A truck ordinarily used for the local delivery of beer was observed by police officers going north on U.S. 1 through Marathon, Florida, at about 12:00 midnight. The officers had been informed by inter-office communication that beer delivery trucks were being used for the transportation of marijuana from Key West to the northern part of the United States. One of the police officers concluded that the truck was so suspicious at this time and place that it might well be stolen or might be one of the trucks referred to in the inter-office communication as transporting marijuana. We believe that this was based on a well-founded suspicion. See State v. Stevens, 354 So.2d 1244 (Fla. 4th DCA 1978). Immediately upon stopping the truck, the officers saw bales of marijuana and smelled marijuana. Thereupon, the appellant was arrested. A complete search was then made, and the evidence sought to be suppressed was secured.
Based upon the holdings in Porter v. State, 302 So.2d 481 (Fla. 3d DCA 1974); United States v. Harris, 421 F.Supp. 121 (E.D.Pa.1976), aff'd 565 F.2d 153 (3d Cir. 1977); United States v. Harris, 404 F.Supp. 1116 (E.D.Pa.1975); and cf. United States v. Roeha-Lopez, 527 F.2d 476 (9th Cir. 1975), we affirm the decision of the trial judge on the motion to quash and, accordingly, the judgment and sentence are affirmed.
Affirmed.
. The deposition testimony of Deputy Sheriff Bailey included the following:
"A And I got, first saw him after I had been called by Officer Jack Sweeting, who had asked me about, if I had seen any beer trucks out this late at night, you know.
"Q All right.
"A And I told him I had not had an occasion to see an Old Milwaukee truck out this late at night. I had never seen it down in the city. And he told me, "Well, if you do see it, it's coming your way, would you mind pulling it over," you know, check it out, see what's going on.
"Q Okay. What happened then?
"A I stopped the truck.
"Q Why did you stop the truck?
"A Well, because of the reason that we hadn't seen one out that late at night, and we would check it out; see who the driver was.
"Q For what purpose?
"A Well, Jack, from what I understand, something was going, you know. Well, Jack had asked me to pull him over. So I went ahead and pulled him over.
"Q So you pulled him over based solely and strictly on Jack's request to you to pull him over?
"A And the fact that I hadn't seen that kind of truck out that late at night. Plus the fact I had never seen that small of a truck going up the Keys. It's a local delivery truck."