Case Name: Daniel Elias JOHNSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1986-07-03
Citations: 492 So. 2d 693
Docket Number: No. 85-172
Parties: Daniel Elias JOHNSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: COBB, C.J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 492
Pages: 693–696

Head Matter:
Daniel Elias JOHNSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 85-172.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
July 3, 1986.
Rehearing Denied Aug. 11, 1986.
William N. DeCarlis, Gainesville, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Belle B. Turner, Asst. Atty. Gen., Daytona Beach, for appellee.

Opinion:
ORFINGER, Judge.
The defendant appeals from an order denying his motion to suppress evidence, following the entry of a plea of nolo conten-dere to a charge of trafficking in cannabis, specifically reserving his right to appeal the dispositive order. The narrow issue in the case is whether an electronic beeper, by means of which the police tracked defendant's airplane, was legally installed inside the airplane. We hold that the beeper was installed in violation of defendant's Fourth Amendment rights and reverse.
Having learned from a confidential informant that defendant was planning to fly his Cessna 310 airplane to Jamaica to bring in a load of marijuana, an Ocala police officer applied to the circuit judge for an order "for climbing upon or crawling under the aircraft and attaching a Transponder Radar Tracking Device to it . for the limited purpose of tracking said aircraft." Finding probable cause, the court issued its order authorizing any Ocala police officer or United States Customs officer "to enter upon or under said . Cessna . aircraft . for the purpose of installing a Transponder Radar Tracking Device on or under said described aircraft."
Relying on this order, the officers entered the airplane, removed the transponder with which the airplane was equipped (which was pilot-activated), and replaced it with one which would activate itself automatically while the plane was in flight. In addition, one of the officers crawled to the rear of the airplane interior, removed a panel, installed an electronic beeper and then replaced the panel so that the beeper was concealed. The beeper was an electronic device that emitted a radio signal when the plane was in flight. As fate would have it, when the airplane departed, the newly installed transponder failed to operate, but the officers were able to monitor the movement and return of the aircraft by means of the electronic beeper. The State and the defendant have stipulated
that if the beeper in the tail of the aircraft was illegally installed, contrary to the provisions of the Florida Constitution and the Constitution of the United States of America, then the surveillance and seizure of the aircraft, its occupants and contraband was illegal. Further, the STATE would stipulate that absent the aforesaid surveillance and seizure, the STATE has no case whatsoever to present against the Defendant.
We conclude that the removal of the panel and the placing of the beeper in the tail section of the interior of the aircraft was tantamount to an illegal entry and beyond the scope of the warrant, so that any evidence secured as a result thereof must be suppressed. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects individuals from violation of their legitimate or reasonable expectation of privacy. Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978); Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). Although there is a diminished right of privacy in a motor vehicle, United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977), and by analogy, in an airplane, United States v. Reyes, 595 F.2d 275 (5th Cir.1979), nevertheless, a search even of an automobile [and thus of an airplane] is a substantive intrusion into the privacy rights of its owner. See Raettig v. State, 406 So.2d 1273 (Fla. 1st DCA 1981).
The State concedes appellant's standing to assert his Fourth Amendment claim and further concedes that appellant exhibited a reasonable expectation of privacy by tying down the aircraft in an area not accessible to the general public. The State attempts to justify the placement of the beeper on two grounds: 1) the good faith exception to the warrant requirement espoused in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984); and 2) that the order which, although specifically authorizing the installation of a "a Transponder Radar Tracking Device," actually authorized the installation of several devices. Neither argument has merit. In Leon, the officers complied with the terms of the warrant, which was later determined to be improperly issued. The Supreme Court refused to invalidate the search because the officers relied upon and complied with a warrant which they, in good faith, believed was valid. Here, by installing a device not authorized by the warrant, the officers went beyond the terms of the warrant. As to the State's second argument, that authorizing the installation of one spe cifically designated device authorizes the installation of two or more, is so obviously devoid of merit as to require no discussion.
The federal case which comes closest to supporting the State's position is United States v. Butts, 729 F.2d 1514 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 855, 105 S.Ct. 181, 83 L.Ed.2d 115 (1984) (Butts II). In Butts I, 710 F.2d 1139 (5th Cir.1983), a panel of the court suppressed evidence found in defendant's airplane which had been tracked by an electronic beeper, installed pursuant to a warrant, but which had been allowed to remain in the airplane beyond the time specified in the warrant. In Butts II, the en banc majority of the court reversed the panel decision and held that the failure to remove the beeper for two days past the time limit specified in the warrant was a minimal intrusion which society was not prepared to recognize as unreasonable. Butts II is distinguishable from the case before us, because there, the beeper was legally installed in the first instance and the court focused on the act of monitoring the beeper, which it held not to be a search or a seizure. The dissent astutely points out that the physical presence of the device in the zone of privacy required the court's attention. 729 F.2d at 1521 (Goldberg, J., dissenting).
Sub judice, we focus not on the act of monitoring, but on the illegal and unjustified intrusion into what even the State concedes is the defendant's reasonable expectation of privacy in the interior of his aircraft. The warrant did not authorize the officers to remove a panel in the tail section of the airplane and conceal a beeper there. This fact alone distinguishes this case from United States v. Michael, 645 F.2d 252 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 950, 102 S.Ct. 489, 70 L.Ed.2d 257 (1981) where the court approved the monitoring of the movement of defendant's van through a warrantless beeper installed on the outside of defendant's van.
The order denying appellant's motion to suppress is reversed. Because the State has stipulated that it has no case if the evidence is suppressed, the cause is remanded to the trial court with directions to discharge the defendant.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
COBB, C.J., concurs.
SHARP, J., dissents with opinion.
. A Transponder is an electronic device which responds to a signal from a radar station so that the radar station can locate and identify the aircraft.
. The defendant argues that the affidavit did not request nor did the order authorize the entry by the officers into the aircraft, but because of our conclusion here, a discussion of this issue becomes unnecessary.