Opinion ID: 44042
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Migut’s Declaratory Judgment Claim

Text: 11 Migut also appeals the district court’s order denying Migut’s summary judgment motion and granting sua sponte summary judgment to Deputy Sheriff Flynn and State Attorney Krischer on Migut’s claim for declaratory relief. In the district court, Migut sought a declaratory judgment stating that “on the public street, or in any other public place, Florida Statute § 934.03 does not afford an officer of the law a legal right not to have his conversations with a citizen recorded while conducting an investigatory traffic stop.” The district court denied declaratory relief, stating that “[i]f the [Florida] legislature had intended that citizens could be allowed to tape record police officers’ conversations, they could have said so.” We conclude that the district court properly denied Migut’s request for declaratory relief. First, § 934.03 is unambiguous and does not include an exception for a private individual who records a police officer without the officer’s consent. See § 934.03 (prohibiting some interception conduct and allowing other interception conduct). Second, Migut points to no United States Supreme Court, Eleventh Circuit, or Florida state court decision holding that the communications of police officers conducting traffic stops are not protected by § 934.03. Indeed, the only Florida decision addressing this issue actually concluded that it was reasonable for the police officer to believe a violation of § 934.03(1)(a) 12 occurred when the suspect had recorded a conversation with another officer without that officer’s consent. See Keen, 384 So.2d at 287. Third, communications in public places are not necessarily excluded from § 934.03 (except when the public place is a public meeting). See Brandin, 669 So.2d at 281 (“We cannot agree with the state’s assertion that conversations occurring in public areas can never be made with an expectation of privacy. Common experience teaches that the opposite may often be true.”). Thus, just because a traffic stop takes place on a public street does not mean that the police officer’s communication is not protected under § 934.03. Fourth, the communication does not have to be private to be protected. See Stevenson, 667 So.2d at 412 (“Where both elements are present, [§ 934.03] has been violated whether the intercepted communication is private in nature or not.”). Thus, the fact that the police officer’s communication occurred during a traffic stop on a public street does not necessarily mean that it is not protected under § 934.03. Finally, whether a particular communication is protected under § 934.03(1)(a) is an intensely fact-specific inquiry, and we are not prepared to hold that the Florida legislature intended to exclude from the protections of § 934.03 all citizen communications with all police officers during all traffic stops on a public street. 13