Case Name: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Adrian AVERY, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1988-08-03
Citations: 531 So. 2d 182
Docket Number: No. 87-0270
Parties: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Adrian AVERY, Appellee.
Judges: HERSEY, C.J., and DOWNEY, DELL, WALDEN and GUNTHER, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 531
Pages: 182–199

Head Matter:
STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Adrian AVERY, Appellee.
No. 87-0270.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
Aug. 3, 1988.
Rehearing En Banc Denied Oct. 12, 1988.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Amy L. Diem, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Jeffrey L. Anderson, Asst. Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

Opinion:
STONE, Judge.
This is an appeal from an order granting a motion to suppress. Avery, a bus passenger, consented to a search by the police of his luggage, which was found to contain cocaine. The trial court determined that the consent was coerced. Its order provided:
Officer Chris Fahey testified that he and Officer Turner, both of the West Palm Beach Police Department comprised a unit which checked the Trailways Bus Station looking for people who might be acting as couriers for drugs northbound. They along with a dog trained to sniff for drugs would visit the bus station on a random basis for the purpose of checking northbound buses.
On July 26, 1986 at approximately 8:10 p.m., they boarded a bus stopped in West Palm Beach bound for Dallas. They were not in uniform but their badges were prominently displayed and they wore windbreakers which designated the department.
They proceeded to the rear of the bus and began interviewing passengers in an effort to gain their consent to search their luggage.
Officer Turner's attention was drawn to Mr. AVERY because he appeared nervous and used his feet to push his tote bag under the seat. It is noted that Mr. AVERY is a large man. As a result of Mr. AVERY's actions, he was subjected to the officer's questioning.
Officer Turner testified that he obtained the oral consent of Mr. AVERY to look through his baggage that was underneath his seat. The officers were aware that their Department had a written consent to search form but that they didn't feel it was necessary to use such a form because it would take too much time and they couldn't do it for all passengers on board or something to that effect. Further testimony indicated that a consent form might be executed once a search had been completed and the suspect under arrest.
The prospect of being a seated passenger on a commercial public transportation vehicle and seeing police officers come on board with their badges prominently displayed checking each passenger is an intimidating and coercive situation in and of itself.
I find that if consent was given in this case it was coerced by the situation I have just described. Furthermore, I find that the Defendant's actions did not give rise to a founded suspicion which would justify his detention, Ingram v. State, 364 So.2d 821 (Fla. 5th [4th] DCA 1978); Robinson v. State, 388 So.2d 286 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980); Horvitz v. State, 433 So.2d 545 (Fla. 4th DCA 1983); Gorney v. State, 409 So.2d 220 (Fla. 4th DCA 1982).
This opinion is entered en banc because we consider the issue to be of exceptional importance. We conclude that the trial court erred in determining that the defendant's consent was coerced, and reverse.
Whether consent is voluntary is a question to be determined from the totality of the circumstances. See Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983); United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497, reh'g denied, 448 U.S. 908, 100 S.Ct. 3051, 65 L.Ed.2d 1138 (1980); Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973); Denehy v. State, 400 So.2d 1216 (Fla.1980).
In determining whether evidence may be excluded because it was obtained in the course of a warrantless search and seizure, we are obligated to follow the opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States. Art. I, § 12, Fla. Const.
In Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 497-98, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1324, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983), the Supreme Court discussed the concept of an encounter between an officer and an individual:
[L]aw enforcement officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment by merely approaching an individual on the street or in another public place, by asking him if he is willing to answer some questions, by putting questions to him if the person is willing to listen, or by offering in evidence in a criminal prosecution his voluntary answers to such questions. See Dunaway v. New York, supra, 442 U.S., at 210, n. 12, 99 S.Ct., at 2255, n. 12; Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S., at 31, 32-33, 88 S.Ct., at 1885-1886 (Harlan, J., concurring); id., at 34, 88 S.Ct., at 1886 (WHITE, J., concurring). Nor would the fact that the officer identifies himself as a police officer, without more, convert the encounter into a seizure requiring some level of objective justification. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 555, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1877, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980) (opinion of Stewart, J.). The person approached, however, need not answer any question put to him; indeed, he may decline to listen to the questions at all and may go on his way. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 32-33, 88 S.Ct., at 1885-1886 (Harlan, J., concurring); id., at 34, 88 S.Ct., at 1886 (WHITE, J., concurring). He may not be detained even momentarily without reasonable, objective grounds for doing so; and his refusal to listen or answer does not, without more, furnish those grounds. United States v. Mendenhall, supra, 446 U.S., at 556, 100 S.Ct., at 1878 (opinion of Stewart, J.). If there is no detention — no seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment — then no constitutional rights have been infringed.
In this case, the defendant had not been "stopped" or "seized" as those terms are commonly understood. Nevertheless, if his consent to the search was "coerced," a motion to suppress should be granted, and the wrongfully obtained evidence excluded. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte.
Clearly, such evidence would not be suppressed if Avery had been similarly approached by these officers in an area of the bus station or platform rather than on the bus itself. See, e.g., Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983); United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497, reh'g denied, 448 U.S. 908, 100 S.Ct. 3051, 65 L.Ed.2d 1138 (1980); Rosa v. State, 508 So.2d 546 (Fla. 3d DCA), rev. denied, 515 So.2d 230 (Fla.1987); Elsleger v. State, 503 So.2d 1367 (Fla. 4th DCA), dismissed, 511 So.2d 298 (Fla.1987); State v. Champion, 383 So.2d 984 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980).
The state contends that Avery's consent was given in the course of an "encounter." See Florida v. Royer; United States v. Mendenhall; Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). It is undisputed that there is no "litmus-paper test" to be applied in distinguishing an "encounter" from a "seizure." Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. at 506, 103 S.Ct. at 1329. The test is whether a reasonable person would feel free to terminate the encounter, given the totality of the circumstances. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 557, 100 S.Ct. at 1879; Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 227, 93 S.Ct. at 2048. In I.N.S. v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 216-217, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 1762-63, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984), the Supreme Court explained:
Although we have yet to rule directly on whether mere questioning of an individual by a police official, without more, can amount to a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, our recent decision in Royer, supra, plainly implies that interrogation relating to one's identity or a request for identification by the police does not, by itself, constitute a Fourth Amendment seizure. In Royer, when Drug Enforcement Administration agents found that the respondent matched a drug courier profile, the agents approached the defendant and asked him for his airplane ticket and driver's license, which the agents then examined. A majority of the Court believed that the request and examination of the documents were "permissible in themselves." Id., at 501, 103 S.Ct., at 1326 (plurality opinion), see id., at 523, n. 3, 103 S.Ct., at 1337-1338, n. 3 (opinion of REHNQUIST, J.). In contrast, a much different situation prevailed in Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979), when two policemen physically detained the defendant to determine his identity, after the defendant refused the officers' request to identify himself. The Court held that absent some reasonable suspicion of misconduct, the detention of the defendant to determine his identity violated the defendant's Fourth Amendment right to be free from an unreasonable seizure. Id., at 52, 99 S.Ct. at 2641.
What is apparent from Royer and Brown is that police questioning, by itself, is unlikely to result in a Fourth Amendment violation. While most citizens will respond to a police request, the fact that people do so, and do so without being told they are free not to respond, hardly eliminates the consensual nature of the response. Cf. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 231-234, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2049-2051, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973). Unless the circumstances of the encounter are so intimidating as to demonstrate that a reasonable person would have believed he was not free to leave if he had not responded, one cannot say that the questioning resulted in a detention under the Fourth Amendment. But if the persons [sic] refuses to answer and the police take additional steps — such as those taken in Brown — to obtain an answer, then the Fourth Amendment imposes some minimal level of objective justification to validate the detention or seizure. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S., at 554, 100 S.Ct., at 1877; see Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S., at 21, 88 S.Ct., at 1879.
Law enforcement officers are not restricted from boarding buses or other public transportation with the permission of the operator. Being lawfully present, they are free to communicate with the passengers. The location where an encounter takes place — whether on a bus, in a terminal, or in a room — is certainly a factor that the trial court should consider in weighing a motion to suppress. See I.N.S. v. Delgado; Florida v. Royer; United States v. Mendenhall. But the determination of whether there has been a seizure, or merely an encounter which a reasonable person would feel free to terminate, remains a question of fact to be determined from the totality of the circumstances. See I.N.S. v. Delgado; Florida v. Royer; United States v. Mendenhall; Schneckloth v. Bustamonte; Jacobson v. State, 476 So.2d 1282 (Fla.1985); Martin v. State, 411 So.2d 169 (Fla.1982); Denehy v. State, 400 So.2d 1216 (Fla.1980); Rosa v. State, 508 So.2d 546 (Fla. 3d DCA), rev. denied, 515 So.2d 230 (Fla.1987); Palmer v. State, 467 So.2d 1063 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985); State v. Grant, 392 So.2d 1362 (Fla. 4th DCA), rev. denied, 402 So.2d 610 (Fla.1981).
A person's consent to a search is not per se involuntary because obtained by law enforcement officers on board a commercial carrier such as a bus or other similar forms of transportation. State v. Schwartzbach, 513 So.2d 756 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987). Generally, physical surroundings alone, or even the fact that a defendant has been taken into custody, is not sufficient to constitute coercion and vitiate consent. Cf. I.N.S. v. Delgado; United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 96 S.Ct. 820, 46 L.Ed.2d 598, reh'g denied, 424 U.S. 979, 96 S.Ct. 1488, 47 L.Ed.2d 750 (1976). In Watson, the defendant had been arrested immediately before consenting to a search of his car. The Supreme Court reversed a decision of the Court of Appeals which had directed that the evidence be suppressed because the defendant's prior arrest was, by itself, coercive, and because of a lack of proof that defendant knew that he could withhold his consent to the search. The Supreme Court emphasized the applicability of the Schneckloth requirement that the defendant demonstrate that his consent to search "was not his own 'essentially free and unconstrained choice' because his 'will ha[d] been overborne and his capacity for self-determination critically impaired.' Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 225, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2047, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973)." Watson, 423 U.S. at 424, 96 S.Ct. at 828.
In Delgado, the Supreme Court held that the I.N.S. had neither detained nor seized employees who were questioned during "factory surveys" seeking to locate illegal aliens, notwithstanding that the exits were "guarded" by some agents, while other agents, armed and with walkie talkies, disbursed systematically throughout the factories to question employees. Those employees giving unsatisfactory responses to the agents' questions were then asked to voluntarily produce immigration papers. The Supreme Court noted that the Court of Appeals had followed the opinion written by Justice Stewart in Mendenhall in concluding that a reasonable worker would have believed that he was not free to leave. The court, following Royer and Menden-hall, determined that there was no basis for distinguishing the questioning that occurred at the guarded exits from that which occurred inside the factory. It concluded that there had been no seizures, and that these surveys were permissible encounters, despite a psychological environment in which the alien worker might be thought to be afraid that he or she was not free to leave. The majority opinion noted that the Supreme Court has been cautious in defining the limits imposed by the Fourth Amendment, "given the diversity" of potential encounters between officers and citizens. The opinion reiterated the standard adopted in Terry v. Ohio, that "[o]nly when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has restrained the liberty of a citizen may we conclude that a 'seizure' has occurred." Delgado, 466 U.S. at 215, 104 S.Ct. at 1762.
We note that even the random stopping of motor vehicles at roadblocks without cause has been found to pass constitutional muster when the detention procedure is designed to meet minimum standards. See United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116 (1976); State v. Jones, 483 So.2d 433 (Fla.1986).
We recognize that the ruling of the trial court on a motion to suppress comes to the appellate court with a presumption of correctness. McNamara v. State, 357 So.2d 410 (Fla.1978). However, that burden is overcome in this case by the showing that there was no evidence of misconduct. See State v. Champion, 383 So.2d 984 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980). See also State v. Grant, 392 So.2d 1362 (Fla. 4th DCA), rev. denied, 402 So.2d 610 (Fla.1981).
The order granting the motion to suppress in this case was not a resolution of the facts based upon a consideration of the totality of the circumstances. Rather, it is worded as a determination of law that consent to a luggage search by a passenger in a vehicle used for public transportation is "coerced" where the police board the vehicle solely for the purpose of randomly seeking such consent from the passengers.
Ordinarily, where there is no antecedent police misconduct, a consent to search need only be shown by a preponderance of the evidence. See generally Denehy v. State, 400 So.2d 1216 (Fla.1980); Alvarez v. State, 515 So.2d 286 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987); Elsleger v. State, 503 So.2d 1367 (Fla. 4th DCA), dismissed, 511 So.2d 298 (Fla.1987); State v. Blan, 489 So.2d 865 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986); State v. Fuksman, 468 So.2d 1067 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985). See also Rodriguez v. State, 519 So.2d 1079 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988); Acosta v. State, 519 So.2d 658, 661 n. 2 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988). However, the issue in this case is not what standard of proof to apply in determining the voluntariness of the consent to search, but whether the consent is the result of coercion per se under these circumstances.
The suppression of this otherwise admissible proof is not the result of any act of misconduct or improper communication by the authorities. The officers boarded the bus at the terminal. Their attention was drawn to Avery. They advised him of their purpose in questioning and seeking the cooperation of the passengers. They asked him if he would consent to the search of his luggage, and advised him that he could refuse. The defendant was not stopped, restrained nor otherwise detained. There were no weapons involved, and no inappropriate nor intimidating conduct or language was used. The defendant was not asked to move, nor was he physically prevented from moving. His ticket and license were not confiscated.
It is not argued that the trial court's decision was based on weighing credibility. The trial court did not dispute the state's evidence. The suppression was not based on the officer's failure to impart any warnings or furnish any information to the defendant. The order assumes that Avery consented to the search and focuses on the "coercion" which the court deemed inherent in such a situation.
This court has previously affirmed orders denying motions to suppress evidence uncovered in a search conducted with the consent of bus passengers. See Hunter v. State, 518 So.2d 304 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987); Bostick v. State, 510 So.2d 321 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987); Snider v. State, 501 So.2d 609 (Fla. 4th DCA 1986); Rodriguez v. State, 494 So.2d 496 (Fla. 4th DCA 1986). One need not be unsympathetic to the concerns of the experienced trial judge, or to those expressed by judges of this court in the concurring and dissenting opinions in Bostick, Snider, and Hunter, as well as those similarly expressed in State v. Schwartzbach, 513 So.2d 756 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987), Alvarez v. State, 515 So.2d 286 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987), and State v. Carroll, 510 So.2d 1133 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987), to recognize that trial courts should not apply a bright line standard in determining whether consent was coerced. Cf. State v. Schwartzbach.
We certify the following question to the supreme court as one of great public importance:
MAY EVIDENCE, OBTAINED AS A RESULT OF DEFENDANT'S CONSENT TO SEARCH, BE SUPPRESSED BY THE TRIAL COURT AS "COERCED" UPON THE SOLE GROUND THAT THE OFFICER(S) BOARDED A BUS (OR OTHER PUBLIC TRANSPORT) AND RANDOMLY SOUGHT CONSENT FROM PASSENGERS?
We therefore reverse and remand for further proceedings.
HERSEY, C.J., and DOWNEY, DELL, WALDEN and GUNTHER, JJ., concur.
LETTS, J., concurs specially with opinion.
GLICKSTEIN, J., concurs with certified question and dissents with opinion.
ANSTEAD, J., dissents with opinion.
. This appeal may also appropriately be considered en banc in order to maintain uniformity in this court's decisions to the extent that any language in Hunter v. State, 518 So.2d 304 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987), and Alvarez v. State, 515 So.2d 286 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987), may be inconsistent with this opinion.
. The dissent inquires whether the majority perceives no difference bétween consent given before and after boarding. There is obviously a factual difference which the trial court may consider in weighing the totality of the circumstances. The issue before this court is not whether the judges individually approve of the procedure in question, but whether it constitutes per se, coercion. A passenger on a crowded bus is not, as a matter of law, necessarily more threatened, or less free to say anything, or nothing, to the officer, than is the same individual, alone, on a station platform, in a hallway, in a room, or on a country road. For example, in Rodriguez v. State, 519 So.2d 1079 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988), the denial of a motion to suppress was affirmed where, after a highway traffic stop, an officer, on mere suspicion, sought and received valid consent to search the trunk.