Case Name: DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAY SAFETY AND MOTOR VEHICLES, Petitioner, v. David D. ROBERTS, Respondent
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2006-03-24
Citations: 938 So. 2d 513
Docket Number: No. 5D05-3001
Parties: DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAY SAFETY AND MOTOR VEHICLES, Petitioner, v. David D. ROBERTS, Respondent.
Judges: MONACO, J., concurs and concurs specially with opinion.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 938
Pages: 513–525

Head Matter:
DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAY SAFETY AND MOTOR VEHICLES, Petitioner, v. David D. ROBERTS, Respondent.
No. 5D05-3001.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
March 24, 2006.
Enoch J. Whitney and Carlos J. Raurell, Miami, for Petitioner.
William R. Ponall of Kirkconnell, Lindsey, Snure and Yates, P.A., Winter Park, for Respondent.

Opinion:
TORPY, J.
In this administrative driver's license suspension case, Petitioner seeks certiorari review of the final order of the appellate panel of the circuit court. Finding that the lower court did not depart from clearly established legal principles, we decline jurisdiction.
The parties agree that the central issue below was whether Petitioner proved that the Florida Highway Patrol trooper made a "legal" stop of Respondent's vehicle. The stop by police of an occupied automobile for a traffic violation constitutes a "seizure" of "persons" within the Fourth Amendment. Whren v. U.S., 517 U.S. 806, 809-10, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996). Therefore, to justify a warrantless seizure, the government must "point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant" the intrusion. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) (emphasis added). Stated differently, to justify a warrantless stop an officer must have an articulable, reasonable suspicion that a violation of the law has occurred. Brown v. State, 719 So.2d 1243, 1245 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998).
To meet its burden of showing that the stop was legal, Petitioner chose to rely solely on the trooper's charging affidavit, which, in material part, stated: "Observe [sic] the above name [sic] defendant violate F.S.S. 316.187(1) by traveling at 71 mph in a 45 mph speed limit area. When I pulled up behind the defendant and attempted to pull him over he traveled for approximately another tenth of a mile before pulling over." The circuit court determined that these facts were insufficient to establish an objective basis upon which to conclude that the officer's suspicions were reasonable. As it did in the proceeding before the lower court, Petitioner relies upon two precedents as authority for its contention that the lower court departed from clearly established legal principles. We agree with the lower court that these precedents can be distinguished.
In State v. Eady, 538 So.2d 96 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989), the officer testified that he saw a vehicle proceeding at "a high rate of speed" and "heard a tire screeching and like a passing gear kicking in." After the vehicle passed the officer, it continued to speed up before the officer pulled it over. In State v. Joy, 637 So.2d 946 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994), the officer observed a truck cross the intersection in front of him at a high rate of speed. The officer heard the vehicle's engine "revving," heard a "whoosh," and saw dust fly. The officer gave chase and had to accelerate at a high rate of speed to catch the vehicle whereupon he "pace-clocked" the vehicle using his speedometer to confirm it was speeding.
Here, unlike Eady and Joy, the officer's report provides little or no specifics about the officer's vantage point when he reached the conclusion that Respondent was speeding. Although he states that he followed Respondent for one-tenth of a mile while attempting to "pull him over," a fact on which the dissent places great importance, the officer does not assert that Respondent was still speeding at this point or that he "pace-clocked" him during this interval. Absent such an assertion, the duration of the pursuit is not probative of speed. Therefore, based on the limited facts provided in the affidavit, we conclude that reasonable suspicion was lacking. Even if our conclusion as to the application of this nebulous principle is incorrect, however, this is not the proper case for us to exercise certiorari jurisdiction.
In reviewing the final order of the circuit court acting in its review capacity, we are limited to determining whether the circuit court afforded procedural due process and whether it departed from a clearly established legal principle. Ivey v. Allstate Ins. Co., 774 So.2d 679, 682 (Fla.2000). "A decision made according to the form of the law and the rules prescribed for rendering it, although it may be erroneous in its conclusion as to what the law is as applied to the facts, is not an illegal or irregular act or proceeding remediable by certiorari." Haines City Cmty. Dev. v. Heggs, 658 So.2d 523, 525 (Fla.1995) (quoting Basnet v. City of Jacksonville, 18 Fla. 523, 526-27 (1882)). This court cannot review the circuit court's decision and reach a different result simply because we are not satisfied with the result reached by the circuit court. Ivey, 774 So.2d at 682. Rather, we are required to exercise our discretion to avert the possibility that cer-tiorari will be used as a vehicle to obtain a second appeal. Combs v. State, 436 So.2d 93 (Fla.1983).
The lower court identified the correct legal issue and applied the correct legal precedents. As in the instant case, situations involving reasonable suspicion are necessarily resolved on a case-by-case basis. In the absence of precedent involving closely analogous facts, it cannot be said that the lower court departed from a clearly established principle of law. See Ivey, 774 So.2d at 682 (absent controlling precedent, court cannot conclude that lower court violated "clearly established principle of law").
PETITION DENIED.
MONACO, J., concurs and concurs specially with opinion.
SAWAYA, J., dissents with opinion.
. When an officer "pace-clocks" a motorist, the officer follows the motorist for a sufficient distance at the same speed and, using the speedometer on the police vehicle, judges the speed of the motorist. Absent speculation, there is no indication here that this officer employed this methodology.
. Perhaps the Respondent was traveling in the opposite direction in heavy traffic. If this was the vantage point from which the officer claimed to make a capable assessment of speed, he should be working for NASA rather than the highway patrol. The point is that not every "observation" about speed is necessarily one that we should assume is reasonable. Otherwise, the judicial function is rendered nugatory.
.In dissent, Judge Sawaya argues that jurisdiction is appropriate because this is a case where the lower court improperly reweighed the facts. We disagree. Not only were the facts not reweighed, they were never weighed to begin with. The facts here are, literally, black and white. No witnesses testified; no conflicting facts were presented. This is not a situation where deference need be given to the factfinder due to his superior vantage point. This is simply a case where the deci-sional law must be applied to a given set of facts — a pure question of law. Because Fourth Amendment law is derived from decisions interpreting the Amendment in similar situations, and because the most analogous decisions applicable here are factually distin guishable, certiorari is simply not appropriate.