Opinion ID: 72530
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Relevance of the Arresting Officer’s

Text: Subjective Belief in the Arrestee’s Guilt to the Existence of Probable Cause We now turn to plaintiffs’ argument that Florida law requires an arresting officer to believe subjectively in the guilt of an arrestee in order to have probable cause for the arrest. Under this view of the law, the Rankins contend that a reasonable jury could have concluded that Deputy Evans did not subjectively believe in Rankin’s guilt and, thus, that he did not have probable cause to arrest Rankin. They further argue that such an arrest would have exceeded state authority, thus violating Rankin’s Fourth Amendment rights and rendering 15 defendants liable for that violation pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Defendants counter that no such subjective belief requirement exists under Florida law. We conclude that neither Florida nor federal law requires that a police officer actually have a subjective belief in the guilt of the person arrested. This Circuit has concluded that the standard for determining the existence of probable cause is the same under both Florida and federal law -- whether “‘a reasonable man would have believed [probable cause existed] had he known all of the facts known by the officer.’” United States v. Ullrich, 580 F.2d 765, 769 (5th Cir. 1978) (quoting State v. Outten, 206 So. 2d 392, 397 (Fla. 1968)).10 See also United States v. McDonald, 606 F.2d 552, 553 n.1 (5th Cir. 1979) (per curiam) (stating that “Florida’s standard of probable cause for a lawful arrest is the same as that required by the Fourth Amendment”); Wright v. State, 418 So. 2d 1087, 1094 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982) (concluding that the Florida standard for probable cause is no more restrictive than the federal standard and is in effect a mirror image of that standard). Furthermore, prior to its adoption of the proposition that the state and federal probable cause standards are identical, this Circuit explicitly rejected the idea that the subjective belief of the arresting officer is relevant to the determination of whether probable cause exists. See United 10 All decisions issued by the former Fifth Circuit prior to October 1, 1981, have been adopted as binding precedent for the Eleventh Circuit. Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc). 16 States v. Clark, 559 F.2d 420, 425 (5th Cir.) (stating that “even if the officers felt that probable cause was lacking, an objective standard would still be applicable”), cert. denied, 98 S. Ct. 516 (1977); United States v. Resnick, 455 F.2d 1127, 1132 (5th Cir. 1972) (concluding that probable cause existed and “the scope of the Fourth Amendment is not determined by the subjective conclusion of the law enforcement officer”).11 Finally, relying 11 We here address plaintiffs’ citation of several decisions which they contend establish that an officer must subjectively believe that a crime has been committed and that the suspect committed it in order for probable cause to exist. See Spicy v. City of Miami, 280 So. 2d 419, 421 (Fla. 1973) (stating that an officer “must have . . . ‘substantial reason’ and must ‘believe’ from observation and evidence at the point of arrest” that the person was guilty); Osborne v. State, 100 So. 365, 366 (Fla. 1924) (officer has probable cause to arrest “any person whom such officer has reasonable ground to believe, and does believe, has committed any felony”); City of Hialeah v. Rehm, 455 So. 2d 458, 461 (Fla. 3d DCA 1984) (reversing a directed verdict in favor of defendant on false arrest and imprisonment claims, because “jury issues were presented as to a) whether, when he placed [the suspect] under arrest, [the arresting officer] in fact himself believed that the offense . . . had been committed . . . ; and b) whether, if so, there was a reasonable basis for that belief in the circumstances he observed”); Donner v. Heatherington, 399 So. 2d 1011, 1012 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981) (same). We note that Osborne and Spicy were decided prior to the Eleventh Circuit authority described in the text above which rejects the proposition that there is a subjective element to a probable cause analysis. We must therefore presume that this Circuit considered Osborne and Spicy in the decisions which collectively rejected that proposition. We are bound by this precedent because “a prior decision of the circuit (panel or en banc) [cannot] be overruled by a panel but only by the court sitting en banc.” Bonner, 661 F.2d at 1209. Both Donner and Rehm, which are state appellate-level decisions decided after the referenced Eleventh Circuit authority, cite Spicy as their sole authority for the proposition that there is a subjective element to the state probable cause analysis. Donner, 399 So. 2d at 1012; Rehm, 455 So. 2d at 461. As noted, this Circuit has concluded that Spicy does not stand for the proposition for which plaintiffs cite it. 17 on its own precedent dating back to 1973, the Supreme Court recently stated: “Subjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis.”12 Whren v. United However, even if we were not so bound, we would not conclude that the cases cited by plaintiffs establish that there is a subjective element to the probable cause analysis under Florida law. Our research indicates that no other Florida appellate jurisdiction has joined the Third District’s adoption of an explicit two-part probable cause analysis requiring an officer subjectively to believe that probable cause exists and have a reasonable basis for that subjective belief. The other jurisdictions appear to rely on an objective standard: probable cause exists when ”the totality of the facts and circumstances within the officer’s knowledge would cause a reasonable person to believe that an offense has been committed and that the defendant is the one who committed it.” Revels v. State, 666 So. 2d 213, 215 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995); see also Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Comm’n v. Dockery, 676 So. 2d 471, 474 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996); Millets v. State, 660 So. 2d 789, 791 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995); LeGrand v. Dean, 564 So. 2d 510, 512 (Fla. 5th DCA 1990). But see LeGrand, 564 So. 2d at 513 (Griffin, J., specially concurring) (citing Donner and Spicy for the proposition that an officer must “actually have a belief that a crime was committed and that the people he proposes to arrest perpetrated the crime”). Finally, the Florida Supreme Court again defined the test for probable cause in objective terms after Donner. See Blanco v. State, 452 So. 2d 520, 523 (Fla. 1984) (“The probable cause standard for a law enforcement officer to make a legal arrest is whether the officer has reasonable grounds to believe the person has committed a felony.”), cert. denied, 105 S. Ct. 940 (1985). Thus, Donner and Rehm do not represent any significant shift in Florida law that would affect this Circuit’s conclusion that the subjective belief of the arresting officer plays no role in a probable cause analysis under either Florida or federal law. 12 The Court also stated: “Not only have we never held, outside the context of inventory search or administrative inspection . . . , that an officer’s motive invalidates objectively justifiable behavior under the Fourth Amendment; but we have repeatedly held and asserted the contrary.” Whren, 116 S. Ct. at 1774; see also United States v. Villamonte-Marquez, 103 S. Ct. 2573, 2577 n.3 (1983) (rejecting the contention that an ulterior motive might strip officers of their legal justification for an otherwise lawful warrantless boarding of a ship); Scott v. United States, 98 S. Ct. 1717, 1723 (1978) (rejecting the contention that the Fourth Amendment required the exclusion of certain wiretap evidence and and accepting the government’s 18 States, 116 S. Ct. 1769, 1774 (1996). Thus, when this Circuit concluded that state and federal probable cause standards are identical, it was clearly established under federal law that there was no subjective belief requirement. No subjective belief requirement exists under either state or federal law.13