Opinion ID: 1940539
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: lightbourne, popple, and reasonable suspicion

Text: The majority concludes that this case is controlled by Lightbourne v. State, 438 So.2d 380 (Fla.1983). I disagree. This Court in Lightbourne did not decide whether an officer's act of retaining a driver's license to run a warrants check constitutes a Fourth Amendment seizure that must be supported by a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Instead, the Court determined that a permissive encounter did not become a detention when the defendant voluntarily relinquish[ed] his driver's license. Id. at 388. The issue here, in contrast, is whether the encounter became a detention when the officer retained the license after examining it, not when Baez relinquished it. Further, in Lightbourne we declined to address whether a person asked by an officer for his driver's license in reality, rather than theory, ... is not free to leave. Id. at 388. The Court focused only on whether the officer acted prudently without assessing the nature of the police-citizen encounter. Subsequently, in Popple, the Court set out the levels of police-citizen interactions and the degree of suspicion of criminal activity needed at each level. Significantly, Popple placed the issue of when an individual is detained squarely before us via conflict of decisions on the issue in the district courts, rather than as one of numerous issues raised in a capital case as in Lightbourne. Connecting United States Supreme Court precedent and Florida's stop and frisk law, we stated: There are essentially three levels of police-citizen encounters. The first level is considered a consensual encounter and involves only minimal police contact. During a consensual encounter a citizen may either voluntarily comply with a police officer's requests or choose to ignore them. Because the citizen is free to leave during a consensual encounter, constitutional safeguards are not invoked. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980). The second level of police-citizen encounters involves an investigatory stop as enunciated in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). At this level, a police officer may reasonably detain a citizen temporarily if the officer has a reasonable suspicion that a person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. § 901.151, Fla. Stat. (1991). In order not to violate a citizen's Fourth Amendment rights, an investigatory stop requires a well-founded, articulable suspicion of criminal activity. Mere suspicion is not enough to support a stop. Carter v. State, 454 So.2d 739 (Fla. 2d DCA 1984). While not involved in the instant case, the third level of police-citizen encounters involves an arrest which must be supported by probable cause that a crime has been or is being committed. Henry v. United States, 361 U.S. 98, 80 S.Ct. 168, 4 L.Ed.2d 134 (1959); § 901.15 Fla.Stat. (1991). Popple, 626 So.2d at 186. This Court articulated the standard for distinguishing detentions from mere police-citizen encounters: Although there is no litmus-paper test for distinguishing a consensual encounter from a seizure, a significant identifying characteristic of a consensual encounter is that the officer cannot hinder or restrict the person's freedom to leave or freedom to refuse to answer inquiries, and the person may not be detained without a well-founded and articulable suspicion of criminal activity. This Court has consistently held that a person is seized if, under the circumstances, a reasonable person would conclude that he or she is not free to end the encounter and depart. Id. at 187-88 (citation omitted) (emphasis supplied). The Court stated that whether characterized as a request or an order, an officer's direction to an individual can constitute a show of authority that a reasonable person would not feel free to refuse. See id. at 187. The Court further held that an officer's observation of the defendant sitting in a legally parked car making furtive movements at 12:55 p.m. did not create reasonable suspicion to justify a detention that was initiated by the officer telling Popple to exit his vehicle. See id. at 186-88. The majority in this case does not mention Popple. In his concurring opinion, Justice Wells discusses Popple only to distinguish its facts. He correctly points out that Baez exited his car without being asked. I agree with the Fourth District that Baez was not detained at that point. Rather, Baez was detained for Fourth Amendment purposes when, after he complied with the officer's request to produce identification, the officer took his license to his patrol car and used it to conduct the warrants check. See Baez, 814 So.2d at 1153. In a Fourth District decision following Baez, which he authored, Judge Klein elaborated on his reasoning as to why a police officer's retention of a driver's license turns a consensual encounter into a detention for Fourth Amendment purposes: I, for one, despite my law school education, had no idea there was such a thing as a consensual encounter until I became a judge. Because police officers are, in our society, charged with maintaining order and enforcing the law, it would never have occurred to me that I could insist on the return of my license before the officer was finished with it. Nor would it occur to any other person unversed in search and seizure law. As Professor LaFave has written, [i]t is nothing more than fiction to say that all of these subjects have consented to the confrontation. Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure  A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment, § 9.3(a), at 95-96 (3d ed.1996). In addition to the cases we relied on in Baez, appellant has cited several recent cases from other states in which the courts have refused to go along with this charade. Salt Lake City v. Ray, 998 P.2d 274 (Utah Ct.App.2000); Piggott v. Commonwealth, 34 Va.App. 45, 537 S.E.2d 618 (2000). As the court observed in State v. Daniel, 12 S.W.3d 420, 427 (Tenn.2000): Without his identification, Daniel was effectively immobilized. Abandoning one's identification is simply not a practical or realistic option for a reasonable person in modern society. [ Florida v. ] Royer, 460 U.S. [491] at 501-02, 103 S.Ct. [1319] at 1326 [75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983)]; United States v. Jordan, 294 U.S.App. D.C. 227, 958 F.2d 1085, 1087 (D.C.Cir.1992). Contary to the State's assertion, when an officer retains a person's identification for the purpose of running a computer check for outstanding warrants, no reasonable person would believe that he or she could simply terminate the encounter by asking the officer to return the identification. Perko v. State, 874 So.2d 666, 667 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004) (Klein, J., concurring specially). Although Justice Wells suggests that Baez made the wholly voluntary choice to remain because he never asked for his license back or attempted to leave, this is as much an indication of continued acquiescence to the officer's show of authority in obtaining the license as an indication that the defendant felt free to leave. Cf. Popple, 626 So.2d at 188 (stating that direction for [defendant] to exit his vehicle constituted a show of authority which restrained [the defendant's] freedom of movement because a reasonable person under the circumstances would believe that he should comply). Further, it is unrealistic to conclude that Baez might have walked or driven away without his license while the warrants check was ongoing. Operating a motor vehicle without having a driver's license in one's immediate possession is a traffic infraction under section 322.15, Florida Statutes (2003). Thus, under all the circumstances of this case, Baez was detained under the criteria set forth in Popple.