Court Opinion

ID: 9914868
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-03 16:03:26.729846+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:14:50.317794
License: Public Domain

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
                             FOURTH DISTRICT

                          GEOFFREY CARLO,
                             Appellant,

                                    v.

                          STATE OF FLORIDA,
                               Appellee.

                            No. 4D2022-2040

                            [January 3, 2024]

   Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit,
Broward County; Elizabeth A. Scherer, Judge; L.T. Case No. 21-
5447CF10A.

  Michael D. Gelety of The Law Offices of Michael D. Gelety, Fort
Lauderdale, for appellant.

  Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Richard Valuntas,
Senior Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

GERBER, J.

    The defendant, after being convicted of cocaine possession, appeals
from the circuit court’s order denying his dispositive motion to suppress
the cocaine which police officers discovered in his pants’ pocket after the
officers had effectuated a warrantless arrest of the defendant for the
misdemeanor crime of disorderly conduct. The defendant primarily argues
that, to effectuate the warrantless arrest for a misdemeanor crime such as
disorderly conduct, the elements of that crime must have occurred in the
officers’ presence, which did not occur in this case. Therefore, the
defendant argues, his arrest was illegal, and the officers’ subsequent
search of his pants’ pocket incident to his arrest also was illegal.

   We agree with the defendant’s argument. Thus, we are compelled to
vacate the defendant’s conviction and sentence, reverse the circuit court’s
order denying the defendant’s motion to suppress, and remand for the
circuit court to enter an order granting the defendant’s motion to
suppress.
   We present this opinion in four parts:
   1) the motion to suppress hearing;
   2) the circuit court’s ruling and the defendant’s plea agreement;
   3) the parties’ arguments on appeal; and
   4) our review.

                  1. The Motion to Suppress Hearing

  The circuit court’s evidentiary hearing on the defendant’s motion to
suppress revealed the following undisputed facts.

   A patrol officer working the midnight shift received a high-priority radio
call, alerting him of multiple reports about a man who allegedly had a knife
and was threatening people at a multi-story apartment building.

    Within five minutes, the officer arrived at the apartment building. The
officer saw what he described as “a small group of people … a handful of
people” in the parking lot. The officer asked where the subject was.
Someone pointed to the top of a set of stairs to the second floor, where the
defendant was standing next to a woman. The defendant and the woman
were by themselves. The officer did not see a weapon in the defendant’s
hands. However, based on the information which had been described in
the radio call, the officer drew his firearm in the defendant’s direction.

   Because the officer was alone, he did not think it was safe for him to
approach the defendant or have the defendant come down the stairs. So
while waiting for backup officers to arrive, the officer told the defendant to
show his hands. Although the defendant did not reach for anything, the
defendant did not show his hands. The officer repeated the command
numerous times, during which the defendant became agitated.

   A few minutes later, backup officers arrived. One officer directed the
woman to descend the stairs. She did so without incident. A senior officer
then arrived. The senior officer had heard on a radio call that the
defendant had both a gun and a knife. Thus, after arriving at the scene,
the senior officer asked the defendant if he had a gun. The defendant
responded that he had a gun in his waistband. The senior officer
commanded the defendant to put his hands up and descend the stairs.

   The defendant did so. When the defendant got to the bottom of the
stairs, the senior officer removed the gun from the defendant’s waistband.
The senior officer did not observe the defendant possessing a knife. The
senior officer handcuffed the defendant, took the defendant to a nearby
courtyard away from the bystanders, and had the defendant sit in a chair.

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According to the senior officer, he was only detaining the defendant at that
point to get the defendant secured, make sure the defendant posed no
other threat, and find out why the defendant was agitated.

   The defendant told the senior officer that “somebody [had been]
screwing with his sister, these people keep breaking into the house … and
he [had come] over there to let them all know not to screw with his sister.”
During that conversation, the defendant also said he possessed a
concealed carry permit which had allowed him to carry the gun found in
his waistband. The senior officer had another officer check the permit’s
validity. The check confirmed the defendant’s permit was valid.

   Nevertheless, the senior officer arrested the defendant for disorderly
conduct, based on witness statements about the defendant’s conduct
before officers arrived, and based on the defendant’s statements after
being detained. The senior officer then searched the defendant incident to
the arrest, and discovered a bag of cocaine in the defendant’s pants’
pocket.

   Upon the state’s review of the case, the state did not charge the
defendant with disorderly conduct. Instead, the state charged the
defendant only with cocaine possession.

    The defendant filed a motion to suppress the cocaine. The motion cited
section 901.15(1), Florida Statutes (2021) (“A law enforcement officer may
arrest a person without a warrant when … [t]he person has committed a
felony or misdemeanor … in the presence of the officer.”) (emphasis added).
The motion argued that no element of disorderly conduct had occurred in
an officer’s presence. Thus, the motion argued, the police’s warrantless
arrest of the defendant for disorderly conduct was illegal, as was the
resulting search of his pants’ pocket incident to his arrest.

    At the hearing on the motion to suppress, the state responded that
when the officers had arrived at the scene, they had confirmed with the
people who had called 911 that the defendant had been acting irate,
brandishing a weapon, and behaving erratically. According to the state,
“[t]ips from known reliable informants such as an identifiable citizen who
observed criminal conduct and reports it, along with his own identity to
police, will almost invariably be found sufficient to justify police action.”
Thus, the state requested the circuit court to deny the defendant’s motion.

  In rebuttal, the defendant argued that, regardless of what the witnesses
may have reported to the police, section 901.15(1) permits a warrantless

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arrest for a misdemeanor only when the person has committed the
misdemeanor in an officer’s presence, which had not occurred here.

 2. The Circuit Court’s Ruling and the Defendant’s Plea Agreement

   After the hearing, the circuit court entered a written order denying the
defendant’s motion to suppress. The circuit court’s order reasoned:

          “Although an officer generally does not have the authority
      to arrest for a misdemeanor which occurs outside of his/her
      presence, they do have a broader authority to temporarily
      detain a person to investigate a reported misdemeanor and to
      determine whether a ‘notice to appear’ should be issued” when
      a citizen informant initiates a call. State v. Hilmer, 9 Fla. L.
      Weekly Supp. 34a (17th Jud. Cir. 2001). As noted in State v.
      Maynard, 783 So. 2d 226, 228 (Fla. 2001), “[I]f the caller
      qualifies as a citizen informant, then the information from the
      tip in this case would be considered at the high end of the
      reliability scale, sufficient by itself to justify a Terry stop.” In
      a specially concurring opinion in Maynard, Justice Wells
      opined: “I write to add that, for me, a factor to be considered
      regarding the motion to suppress was that the caller who
      described the person also described the weapon the person
      possessed ... a [deadly weapon]. Certainly, I would expect
      reasonable law enforcement to react by a stop and search
      because of the threat to community safety current events have
      demonstrated such a weapon poses.”

         The Court finds that because the callers were citizen
      informants who indicated that the Defendant “had a gun or
      knife,” the officers who responded were justified in conducting
      an investigatory stop. As a result, the warrantless arrest is
      admissible.

         The Court finds that as to the physical evidence, the
      cocaine was found on the Defendant’s person incident to a
      Terry stop, and as such, is admissible.

   The defendant later entered into an agreement with the state in which
the defendant would enter a no contest plea to the cocaine possession
charge, in exchange for which the state agreed the defendant’s motion to
suppress had been dispositive, and the defendant could preserve his right
to appeal the circuit court’s denial of that motion. The circuit court
approved those terms. Upon the defendant’s no contest plea, the circuit

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court withheld adjudication of the defendant’s guilt, and sentenced the
defendant to two years of drug offender probation.

                 3. The Parties’ Arguments on Appeal

    This appeal followed.   The defendant summarizes his argument as
follows:

          The warrantless misdemeanor arrest of [the defendant] for
      [d]isorderly conduct, was illegal and [u]nconstitutional, done
      without justification, in violation of the requirements of
      [section] 901.15(1)[, Florida Statutes (2021)]. The officers
      involved did not witness all of the actions and elements
      constituting disorderly conduct, and made a post-detention
      decision to execute such arrest based solely upon “utterances”
      made while in custody – utterances which clearly did not
      qualify as “fighting words” or false alarms such as yelling ‘fire’
      in a crowded theater.

         Additionally, the [circuit] [c]ourt’s [o]rder of denial
      mistakenly attempted to justify the warrantless arrest and
      subsequent search as justified by or incident to an
      “investigative stop,” a Terry [s]top.

         As this and other findings of fact are not supported in the
      record, they are not entitled to a presumption of correctness
      nor to any preferential consideration.

        The [o]rder denying [the defendant’s] [m]otion to [s]uppress
      must be reversed and the matter remanded for the
      suppression of the cocaine ….

   The state pertinently responds:

         [T]he police had probable cause to arrest [the defendant]
      for disorderly conduct in this case without a warrant. §
      901.15(1), Fla. Stat. The police responded to a dangerous
      situation, i.e., calls about a man with a gun or knife
      threatening and disturbing people. [The first officer on scene]
      testified that [the defendant] was argumentative and agitated
      …. [That officer] observed a small group of people gathered
      when he arrived …. After [the senior officer] arrived, he
      attempted to figure out why [the defendant] was so agitated
      and upset. [The defendant] claimed that someone was

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      “screwing with his sister,” “these people keep breaking into
      the house,” and “he was coming over there to let them all know
      not to screw with his sister.” …

         ….

          Although [the defendant] legally possessed a concealed
      firearm at the scene, he admitted that “he was coming over
      there to let them all know not to screw with his sister.” … The
      evidence presented below, weighed in a manner most
      favorable to sustaining the [circuit] court’s ruling, showed that
      [the defendant] affected the peace and quiet of the neighbors
      who witnessed his acts (as well as the police) and that such
      conduct constituted a breach of the peace or disorderly
      conduct.

                              4. Our Review

   Our review of an order on a motion to suppress is mixed, by “deferring
to the trial court’s factual determinations but reviewing de novo its
application of the law to the facts of the case.” State v. T.M., 248 So. 3d
172, 173 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018).           Here, the circuit court’s factual
determinations are undisputed. Thus, we consider only whether the
circuit court properly applied the law to the facts of this case.

    We conclude the circuit court did not properly apply the law to the facts
of this case.

    Section 901.15, Florida Statutes (2021), pertinently states: “A law
enforcement officer may arrest a person without a warrant when … [t]he
person has committed a felony or misdemeanor … in the presence of the
officer.” § 901.15(1), Fla. Stat. (2021) (emphasis added). But see §
901.15(9)(a)-(b), Fla. Stat. (2021) (allowing a warrantless arrest where
probable cause exists to believe that a person has committed “[a]ny battery
upon another person, as defined in s. 784.03” [or] “[a]n act of criminal
mischief or a graffiti-related offense as described in s. 806.13.”).

  We recently interpreted section 901.15(1) in Jing v. State, 316 So. 3d
724 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021), as follows:

         To comply with the statute, the “arresting officer must have
      a substantial reason at the time of [the] warrantless
      misdemeanor arrest to believe from [the officer’s] observation
      and evidence at the point of arrest that the person was then

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      and there committing a misdemeanor in [the officer’s]
      presence.” State v. McCormack, 517 So. 2d 73, 74 (Fla. 3d
      DCA 1987) (quoting State v. Yunker, 402 So. 2d 591, 593 (Fla.
      5th DCA 1981)) (emphasis added).

          To make a warrantless arrest for a misdemeanor, all
      elements of the offense must occur in the police officer’s
      presence or have been personally observed by a fellow law
      enforcement officer. See Malone v. Howell, 140 Fla. 693, 192
      So. 224, 226 (1939) (“An arrest without a warrant for a
      misdemeanor, to be lawful, can only be made where the
      offense was committed in the presence of the officer -- that is
      it must have been within the presence or view of the officer in
      such a manner as to be actually detected by the officer by the
      use of one of [the officer’s] senses.”); State v. Lord, 150 So. 3d
      260, 262 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014) (explaining the “fellow officer
      rule” that permits an officer to perform a warrantless arrest
      for a misdemeanor offense “when the arresting officer has
      been provided information from a fellow officer sufficient to
      satisfy” the requirements of section 901.15(1), Florida
      Statutes).

Jing, 316 So. 3d at 730.

   Section 901.15(1)’s “misdemeanor presence” requirement applies to
warrantless arrests for disorderly conduct, which was the initial charge in
this case and led the senior officer to perform a search incident to arrest
and thereby discover the defendant’s possession of cocaine. Baymon v.
State, 933 So. 2d 1269, 1270 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006).

    Baymon is virtually on point and favors the defendant here. In Baymon,
a deputy testified that he responded to a call about a neighborhood
disturbance. Id. When the deputy arrived, the defendant walked toward
the deputy “aggressively with [the defendant’s] hands in the air.” Id. The
defendant then put his hands in his pockets and continued approaching.
Id. The deputy threatened to use force if the defendant did not stop and
show his hands. Id. The deputy then detained the defendant, who agreed
to sit in the back of the patrol car. Id. After the deputy took a statement
from the neighbor who had called the police about the defendant’s prior
irate and loud conduct, the deputy arrested the defendant for disorderly
conduct. Id. Searches incident to the arrest revealed a baggie of cocaine
and a baggie of marijuana. Id. The defendant was charged with
possession of the drugs, as well as disorderly conduct. Id. The defendant
filed a motion to suppress the drugs, which the circuit court denied. Id.

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The defendant then pled to the charges, specifically reserving his right to
appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. Id. The circuit court and the
state both agreed that the motion was dispositive. Id.

   On appeal, the Second District reversed. Our sister court reasoned:

          An officer is authorized to make a warrantless arrest for a
      misdemeanor only when it is committed in the officer’s
      presence. § 901.15(1), Fla. Stat. (2004); Nickell v. State, 722
      So. 2d 924 (Fla. 2d DCA 1998). In this case, [the deputy] did
      not observe conduct constituting the crime of disorderly
      conduct. Although the deputy observed [the defendant]
      yelling and screaming, there was nothing to suggest that [the
      defendant] was inciting an immediate breach of the peace or
      was yelling the equivalent of “fire” in a crowded movie theatre.
      See State v. Saunders, 339 So. 2d 641 (Fla. 1976) (limiting
      disorderly conduct statute, when applied purely to speech, to
      fighting words and false words that create a clear and present
      danger to others); see also Miller v. State, 780 So. 2d 197 (Fla.
      2d DCA 2001); C.P. v. State, 644 So. 2d 600 (Fla. 2d DCA
      1994). [The defendant’s] arrest was unlawful. Therefore, the
      law mandated suppression of the evidence seized in any
      search performed incident to that arrest. Wong Sun v. United
      States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S. Ct. 407, 9 L. Ed. 2d 441 (1963).

Baymon, 933 So. 2d at 1270.

   The instant case is virtually indistinguishable from Baymon. None of
the officers who had arrived at the scene personally observed the
defendant committing the crime of disorderly conduct as prohibited by
section 877.03, Florida Statutes (2021):

      Whoever commits such acts as are of a nature to corrupt the
      public morals, or outrage the sense of public decency, or affect
      the peace and quiet of persons who may witness them, or
      engages in brawling or fighting, or engages in such conduct
      as to constitute a breach of the peace or disorderly conduct,
      shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the second degree[.]

   Although the officers had observed “a small group of people … a handful
of people” in the apartment complex’s parking lot, had observed the
defendant acting “agitated,” and had heard the defendant’s “utterances”
explaining why he had become agitated, the officers did not personally
observe the defendant commit any of the foregoing elements constituting

                                     8
the crime of disorderly conduct. While the defendant may have been acting
in such a manner before the officers arrived at the scene, the defendant
was no longer acting in such a manner after the police arrived, i.e., in their
presence. Thus, none of the elements constituting the crime of disorderly
conduct occurred “in the presence of the officer[s]” to have permitted the
officers to have effectuated a warrantless arrest of the defendant for that
crime. § 901.15(1), Fla. Stat. (2021). That illegal arrest, in turn, tainted
the officers’ search of the defendant’s pants’ pocket incident to his arrest.
Thus, the circuit court should have granted the defendant’s motion to
suppress the cocaine which the officers found in his pants’ pocket.

   We also agree with the defendant’s argument that the circuit court’s
denial order mistakenly attempted to justify the search under Terry v.
Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868 (1968). In Terry, the United States
Supreme Court held:

         [W]here a police officer observes unusual conduct which
      leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience
      that criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with
      whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous,
      where in the course of investigating this behavior he identifies
      himself as a policeman and makes reasonable inquiries, and
      where nothing in the initial stages of the encounter serves to
      dispel his reasonable fear for his own or others’ safety, he is
      entitled for the protection of himself and others in the area to
      conduct a carefully limited search of the outer clothing of such
      persons in an attempt to discover weapons which might be
      used to assault him.

392 U.S. at 30, 88 S. Ct. at 1184-85.

   Here, after the senior officer arrived, the senior officer asked the
defendant if he had a gun. The defendant responded that he had a gun in
his waistband. The senior officer commanded the defendant to put his
hands up and descend the stairs. The defendant did so. When the
defendant got to the bottom of the stairs, the senior officer removed the
gun from the defendant’s waistband. The senior officer then learned that
the defendant had a valid permit to have carried the concealed firearm.
The senior officer did not observe the defendant possessing a knife.

   The senior officer did not testify that the subsequent search of the
defendant’s pants’ pocket was to locate the alleged knife which had been
the subject of the 911 calls, or because he reasonably believed the
defendant remained armed or dangerous, or because he had a reasonable

                                      9
fear for his or others’ safety. Rather, the senior officer testified that he
searched the defendant’s pants’ pocket merely incident to his arrest of the
defendant for disorderly conduct. Thus, the circuit court’s attempt to have
justified the search as a Terry stop was not supported by competent,
substantial evidence.

                                Conclusion

   Based on the foregoing, we vacate the defendant’s conviction and
sentence, reverse the circuit court’s order denying the defendant’s motion
to suppress, and remand for the circuit court to enter an order granting
the defendant’s motion to suppress. Although the defendant also has
requested us to direct the circuit court to dismiss the cocaine possession
charge, that request must be made to the circuit court in the first instance.

   Reversed and remanded with directions.

GROSS and CONNER, JJ., concur.

                            *        *         *

   Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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