Donald Eldrenal JENKINS, Petitioner,
v.
STATE of Florida, Respondent.
Supreme Court of Florida.
*117 James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Carol J.Y. Wilson, Assistant Public Defender, Tenth Judicial Circuit, Bartow, FL, for Petitioner.
Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, Robert J. Krauss, Bureau Chief, and Katherine Coombs Cline, Assistant Attorneys General, Tampa, FL, for Respondent.
LEWIS, C.J.
This case is before the Court to review the decision of the Second District Court of Appeal in Jenkins v. State,
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
On January 15, 2003, Kellie Daniel, a narcotics officer for the Tampa Police Department, was working with a confidential informant (CI). The CI offered to call an individual identified only as "D" to order a quantity of cocaine. The CI informed Officer Daniel that he had previously ordered drugs from D and possessed a phone number for D; however, the CI provided Daniel with only a very imprecise description of D as a tall, black male. The CI presented Officer Daniel a phone number for D written on a piece of paper and then proceeded to use Daniel's cell phone to call that number. Officer Daniel heard only one side of the conversation[1] in which the CI placed an order for cocaine and then asked that D make the delivery at a gas station located at an intersection in an area of Tampa that is well known for drug activity. The CI advised Officer Daniel that D would be at the gas station in fifteen minutes, and he would be driving a "brown boxy 4-door Chevy."
Officer Daniel transported the CI to the designated gas station with the understanding that the CI would remove his hat when he identified D arriving at the designated location. Officer Daniel parked her vehicle across the street from the location, keeping the CI in view at all times. When Jenkins drove into the gas station, the CI ran across the street toward the police vehicle yelling, "That's him, that's him." Officer Daniel testified that Jenkins was driving a "[b]ox Chevy-ish car. It's like a brown boxy Chevy, a car like that."[2] Through a radio transmission, Officer Daniel notified the other officers at the scene that she observed an individual matching D's description, and that the CI had advised her that the individual in the boxy brown car was D. At that time, all officers approached the brown vehicle.
Officer Todd Rego ordered Jenkins out of the vehicle at gunpoint and placed him in handcuffs. As these events were unfolding, the CI was taken across the street, where he confirmed to officers that Jenkins was definitely the individual known to him as D. Officer Kevin Bonollo then searched the brown vehicle and found a cell phone, but no contraband. Bonollo then conducted a pat down of Jenkins which produced currency, but, again, no drugs were disclosed. According to Bonollo, Sergeant Graham then "gave me permission to look inside his [Jenkins'] clothing, pull his pants back, do what I need to do." Jenkins was wearing baggy blue jeans with a low-hanging waist, and this allowed Bonollo to see that Jenkins was wearing boxer type shorts as an undergarment. Bonollo proceeded to pull the top of the boxer-shorts away from Jenkins' waist area and he then observed that "inside his [Jenkins'] butt crack sticking up was a sandwich bag . . . and it was twisted. The dope, the crack cocaine was at the bottom."[3] Officer Bonollo removed the sandwich *119 bag, and Jenkins was arrested and charged with possession of cocaine and possession of cocaine with intent to sell.
Jenkins filed a motion to suppress all evidence discovered as a result of this stop and search, asserting that (1) the police lacked reasonable suspicion to detain him; (2) there was no basis to conduct a pat down for weapons, and the search which revealed the bag between his buttocks was unreasonable; (3) the police lacked probable cause to search the vehicle; and (4) the search violated section 901.211 of the Florida Statutes (2002), which governs strip searches.
During the hearing on the motion to suppress, Jenkins provided a description of the search that revealed the crack cocaine which differed from that presented by Officer Bonollo. According to Jenkins, Officer Bonollo "ordered me to pull down my pants and bend over, and that's when they went into my buttocks." Jenkins testified that the officers "grabbed me from each side, pulled me over and bent me down," and that his buttocks were completely naked during the search.
With regard to the CI, Officer Daniel testified that she had used the CI in prior "search warrant buys," and on three or four prior occasions she had utilized him in similar "page-outs"; i.e., circumstances in which the CI ordered a quantity of cocaine for delivery to a specified location. Officer Daniel reported that each of these "page-outs" had resulted in an arrest. Officer Daniel testified that on one other occasion an arrest did not occur because the individual who was allegedly delivering the drugs "got spooked[,] tossed [the CI] out of the car," and drove away.
The trial court denied the motion to suppress, concluding that under the facts presented, the officers had probable cause to search both Jenkins and the vehicle. The trial court concluded that exigent circumstances existed to justify a warrantless search by virtue of the mobility of his vehicle and "the small quantity and the small amount of time that the police had in order to take custody of him." The trial court also stated that "what is typically called a strip search" did not occur in this case.[4] Jenkins subsequently pled guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to sell or deliver and specifically reserved his right to appeal the denial of the motion to suppress.
The Second District Court of Appeal affirmed. See Jenkins v. State,
The Second District next held that the scope and manner of the search were reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. See id. at 26. According to the Second *120 District, although the search of Jenkins may have invaded his privacy, it was "less invasive than a strip search in which some or all of the subject's clothing is removed. . . . In determining the reasonableness of the search, it is of course important that no private part of Jenkins' body was exposed to public view." Id.[5] The Second District further noted that the officers engaged in a more intrusive search only after initial efforts to locate narcotics on Jenkins or in his vehicle were unsuccessful. See id. The officers had probable cause to believe that Jenkins arrived at the gas station to sell narcotics, and the Second District concluded that the officers "were justified in conducting the further search of Jenkins' person to prevent the disposal of the cocaine." Id.
The Second District then addressed whether the search violated section 901.211 of the Florida Statutes and concluded that pulling the waist area of the boxer shorts by Officer Bonello qualified as a "strip search" under the statute. See id. at 28. The Second District concluded that the search of Jenkins violated the provision of section 901.211 requiring that "[e]ach strip search . . . be performed . . . on premises where the search cannot be observed by persons not physically conducting or observing the search," and also the provision that requires written authorization from the supervising officer on duty before conducting a strip search. Id. at 29 & n. 2 (quoting § 901.211(3), Fla. Stat.).
With regard to application of the exclusionary rule to the evidence discovered during the search in violation of the statute, the Second District first noted that the exclusionary rule is a remedy for constitutional violations. Therefore, whether to apply the rule when a state statute is violated "is a matter of statutory interpretation""[t]he question is . . . whether a particular statutory scheme authorizeseither expressly or by implicationthe exclusion of evidence for a statutory violation." Id. at 30. The Second District held that the exclusionary rule does not apply to violations of section 901.211 because "the legislature explicitly addressed the issue of remedies in section 901.211(6) but failed to make any mention of the exclusion of evidence as a remedy." Id. at 32.
The Second District recognized that the exclusionary rule had previously been applied upon the violation of certain statutes that were silent concerning this remedy. The Second District referred to State v. Johnson,
The Second District certified conflict between its decision here and D.F. v. State, *121
ANALYSIS
When this Court has accepted jurisdiction in a case to resolve a legal conflict, "we may, in our discretion, consider other issues properly raised and argued." Savoie v. State,
The Existence of Probable Cause
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and section 12 of Florida's Declaration of Rights guarantee citizens the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The Florida Constitution now expressly provides that the right shall be construed in conformity with the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court. See art. I, § 12, Fla. Const. Items obtained in violation of the Florida constitutional protection are excluded from evidence if such items would be excluded pursuant to the jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court. See id.
The United States Supreme Court has held that an arrest is unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment if it is not supported by probable cause. See Michigan v. Summers,
The substance of all the definitions of probable cause is a reasonable ground for belief of guilt. And this means less than evidence which would justify condemnation or conviction, [but] more than bare suspicion: Probable cause exists where the facts and circumstances within their (the officers') knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been or is being committed.
Brinegar v. United States,
The process does not deal with hard certainties, but with probabilities. Long before the law of probabilities was articulated as such, practical people formulated certain common-sense conclusions *122 about human behavior; jurors as factfinders are permitted to do the same and so are law enforcement officers. Finally, the evidence thus collected must be seen and weighed not in terms of library analysis by scholars, but as understood by those versed in the field of law enforcement.
. . . [P]robable cause is a fluid concept turning on the assessment of probabilities in particular factual contexts not readily, or even usefully, reduced to a neat set of legal rules.
Illinois v. Gates,
If, for example, a particular informant is known for the unusual reliability of his predictions of certain types of criminal activities in a locality, his failure, in a particular case, to thoroughly set forth the basis of his knowledge surely should not serve as an absolute bar to a finding of probable cause based on his tip. Likewise, if an unquestionably honest citizen comes forward with a report of criminal activity which if fabricated would subject him to criminal liability we have found rigorous scrutiny of the basis of his knowledge unnecessary.
Id. at 233-34,
to predict [a suspect's] future behavior, because it demonstrate[s] inside information a special familiarity with [the suspect's] affairs. . . . Because only a small number of people are generally privy to an individual's itinerary, it is reasonable for police to believe that a person with access to such information is likely to also have access to reliable information about that individual's illegal activities.
Alabama v. White,
This Court has previously applied the totality of the circumstances criteria to determine whether a tip from a confidential informant was sufficient to establish probable cause. In State v. Butler,
[A]t about 11:30 p.m. on April 25, 1992, Officer Putnam was contacted by a known confidential police informant. Putnam had used information from this informant on at least twenty occasions since February 1, 1992, and sixty to seventy percent of these tips had resulted in felony arrests. The informant told Putnam that a black male, about 5' 10" tall, wearing a black jacket, white t-shirt, and blue jeans, was selling powdered cocaine on the sidewalk in front of *123 726 West Beaver Street, a location known to Putnam to be part of an area with a high volume of street level drug sales. Putnam had seized crack cocaine two months earlier at this exact location. The informant told Putnam that the described drug seller wrapped cocaine inside rolled-up one-dollar bills and placed them in his pants pocket, ready to sell.
Within fifteen minutes of receiving this tip, Putnam and another officer saw Butler standing on the sidewalk in front of 726 West Beaver Street, Butler's clothes and appearance exactly matched the description given by the informant, and Putnam noted that the only other person located in the vicinity did not meet this description. Putnam then approached Butler who initially turned as if to walk away, but then stopped. Putnam patted Butler down on the outside of his clothing and felt a large, soft bulge in Butler's left front pants' pocket, which he believed to be money. Putnam asked Butler about the bulge, and Butler responded that it was twenty-eight one-dollar bills. Putnam then reached into Butler's pocket and retrieved the folded money (i.e., twenty-seven or twenty-eight bills), but found no cocaine. However, when Putnam reached into the pocket again, he retrieved another folded dollar bill which contained powdered cocaine as the informant had described. Putnam then formally took Butler into custody.
Id. at 1124-25. Under these facts, we held that probable cause existed for law enforcement to take the defendant into custody:
In this case, we have an informant whose veracity (i.e., credibility and reliability) is unquestioned. Officer Putnam had used information from this informant at least 20 times, and 60 to 70% of the tips resulted in felony arrests. As the district court acknowledged, the informant's reliability is "fairly well established." . . .
As the district court correctly notes, the informant's tip did not contain the precise basis of his knowledge. However, the informant's tip did provide an abundance of overall detail. The informant told the police the following information about Butler: his height (5' 10"), race (African-American), type of clothing (black jacket, white t-shirt, and blue jeans), location (on the sidewalk in front of 726 Beaver Street), type of drugs sold (cocaine), location of drugs sold (pants pocket), and method of delivery (rolled-up one-dollar bills). . . . [A] sufficient basis of personal knowledge may be inferred from the wealth of detail that the informant provided.
In addition . . . it is possible to infer personal knowledge from the detail of the informant's description of the manner of packaging of the drugs and their exact location on Butler's person. . . . Further, any weakness on this issue may be bolstered in part by the strong showing of the informant's prior veracity.
[W]e conclude that the seemingly innocent activity observed here could be used by the police to verify the informant's tip. Within minutes of receiving the tip, the police corroborated every item in the tip except the ultimate determination of whether Butler had any drugs on his person. . . . There were also other "circumstances within the Officer's knowledge" that, while perhaps not significant in isolation, appear to bolster a probable cause determination: the house in front of which Butler was standing was a house from which Putnam had seized crack cocaine two months earlier and was located in a "high drug area," and, upon arriving at the scene of the arrest, Putnam observed *124 Butler turn and attempt to walk up a set of stairs.
Id. at 1130-31 (citations omitted).
We conclude that Butler controls the instant case, and that the officers here had probable cause to believe that Jenkins was involved in the commission a crime. Accordingly, the officers had probable cause to arrest. The facts elicited during the evidentiary hearing established that the CI, a known informant, had been used by Officer Daniel on "search warrant buys"; i.e., drug purchases utilized to establish the probable cause necessary to obtain search warrants, and also on three or four prior "page-outs," each of which resulted in an arrest.[6] Further, Officer Daniel testified that other officers had also utilized this CI with positive results. Although the CI here had not provided information to law enforcement on as many occasions as the CI in Butler, we nonetheless conclude that the CI here provided information leading to an arrest on a sufficient number of occasions to establish his reliability.
Further, the CI demonstrated that he had personal knowledge of the drug activities of Jenkins. As we have noted, the CI informed Daniel that he possessed the phone number of a person referred to as "D" who sold cocaine, and that the CI had previously purchased cocaine from D. The CI presented a phone number to Daniel which belonged to D. The CI then initiated a drug transaction with D in the presence of the police by contacting D on the cell phone of Officer Daniel. Officer Daniel observed that the line on her cell phone was activated (indicating that the CI was not simply pretending to order drugs). Officer Daniel heard the CI discuss the drug transaction and advise D to meet him at a specified gas station in an area of Tampa that is known for drug activity. The CI then advised Officer Daniel that D would arrive at the station in approximately fifteen minutes and further described the car he would be driving as a boxy brown four-door vehicle.
In conformity with the conduct predicted by the CI, a boxy, brown four-door vehicle subsequently arrived at the gas station. Although an event such as this standing alone may normally represent only an innocent detail, the fact that a described vehicle operated by a described person arrived at the exact gas station named by the CI in the precise time frame specified by the CI was properly utilized by law enforcement to verify the information provided. Moreover, the identity of Jenkins as the drug dealer known as D was confirmed when the CI ran across the street identifying Jenkins as D by shouting, "That's him, that's him." Thus, the officers in the instant case were able to corroborate every item of information provided by the CI except the ultimate determination of whether Jenkins actually had drugs on his person. Given the totality of the circumstances presented, we conclude that law enforcement had probable cause to believe that Jenkins arrived at the gas station with the intent to consummate a drug transaction.
Our recitation of these facts undermines the conclusion of the dissent that the only bases asserted to establish probable cause were that (1) the CI had participated in only three or four "page-outs" which led to *125 arrests, and (2) the CI only provided a vague description of D and a general description of the vehicle he drove. See dissenting op. at 131. The CI in this case did not merely allege to police officers that Jenkins was a drug dealer and that a drug deal might occur. Rather, the CI actually orchestrated a drug transaction with D in the presence of a law enforcement officer. As previously noted, the CI used the officer's telephone to call Jenkins, order drugs, and arrange a specific location for delivery of the drugs. Moreover, when Jenkins arrived at the specified location, the CI then expressly confirmed to Officer Daniel at the scene that Jenkins was in fact D, a drug dealer with whom the CI had previously conducted drug transactions. The presence of the CI at the gas station to confirm the identity of D prevented the possibility that "any black male driving a boxy, brown car could have been stopped and searched" based upon the information provided by the CI. See dissenting op. at 131. This intimate involvement of the CI with the drug transaction, and with law enforcement, causes us to conclude that the CI here was equally, if not more, reliable than the CI in Butler, who merely informed officers that the defendant was selling drugs in front of a specific address.
The presence of the CI at the scene further enhances the reliability of the information provided because he could be held accountable should the information ultimately prove to be false. See United States v. Valentine,
Given the totality of these circumstances present at the time of Jenkins' arrest, a number of which are not considered by the dissenting analysis, we conclude that after Jenkins was identified by the CI as D, it was completely reasonable for the officers to believe that Jenkins was engaged in the commission of a criminal offense. Accordingly, we conclude that the arrest of Jenkins was proper under the Fourth Amendment.
The Validity of the Search
The United States Supreme Court has held that searches incident to a lawful arrest are constitutionally permissible and reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Robinson,
The test of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is not capable of precise definition or mechanical application. In each case it requires a balancing of the need for the particular search against the invasion of personal rights that the search entails. Courts must consider the scope of the particular intrusion, the manner in which it is conducted, the justification for initiating it, and the place in which it is conducted.
Bell v. Wolfish,
In this case, Jenkins contends that the scope and the manner of the search that occurred here were both unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. He contends that the police disrobed him in a public place to recover drugs. Applying the four elements enunciated in Wolfish, we disagree that this search of Jenkins violated the Fourth Amendment. First, as noted by the trial court, Jenkins was not "strip searched" in the manner in which that term is commonly understood, nor in the manner Jenkins claims. According to the testimony of the law enforcement officers, Jenkins was not required or forced to lower his trousers and boxer shorts in public while the officers conducted a search.[7] Rather, a single officer merely pulled the boxer shorts away from his body at the waist area and looked inside to discover the cocaine. Further, even though this search did occur at a public place, a gas station which Officer Daniel admitted was conducting business,[8] there *127 is no indication that any private body parts or the buttock area became publicly exposed. Additionally, the officers did not touch Jenkins' buttocks; rather, the bag containing drugs was simply removed from his boxer shorts.[9]Cf. Amaechi v. West,
The dissent suggests that this search was unnecessarily and unreasonably demeaning to Jenkins and an egregious violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. See dissenting op. at 132, 133-34. However, the trial court credited the testimony of law enforcement over that of Jenkins, and we are not permitted to second guess the credibility assessments of the trial court. See generally Ornelas,
Based upon these findings, in our view nothing equivalent to a strip search occurred in the instant case. Rather, the search here qualifies as a "reach-in" search, where the suspect remains clothed during the search and the suspect's genitals are not visible to onlookers. See United States v. Williams,
Finally, the record reflects that law enforcement proceeded to look in the boxer shorts only after an initial frisk and search of Jenkins' person and his vehicle failed to reveal drugs. Based upon the tip provided *128 by the CI, which had been verified by Jenkins arriving at the gas station at the time and in a vehicle described by the CI, and the identification of Jenkins as D, a drug dealer, the officers had probable cause to believe that Jenkins arrived at the station for the purpose of selling cocaine to a buyer. When the initial searches of the vehicle and person did not reveal contraband, it was only then that the supervisor gave Bonollo permission to "look inside his clothing, pull his pants back." It is not unknown or in any way unusual that drug dealers frequently hide contraband in their undergarments in an attempt to evade discovery of the unlawful substances during routine searches.[12] Therefore, we conclude that Officer Bonollo was justified when, with the approval of his supervisor, he pulled back the waist area of the boxer shorts to look for drugs.
In light of the foregoing, we conclude that under the balancing test announced by the United States Supreme Court in Wolfish, and the four factors that we must consider in evaluating the reasonableness of a search, the very limited intrusion into Jenkins' clothing was clearly outweighed by the need for law enforcement to retrieve the contraband before it could be discarded or destroyed by Jenkins. Therefore, we hold that this search incident to this arrest was not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
Section 901.211 and the Exclusionary Rule
Under federal case law, when it is determined that a search has not violated the Fourth Amendment, the issue of whether the evidence discovered in violation of a statute is subject to suppression is to be determined based upon legislative intent. The Supreme Court in United States v. Giordano,
In Davis v. State,
It is under this precedent that we address whether the exclusionary rule is a remedy for a violation of the strip-search statute presented here. The statute provides:
(1) As used in this section, the term "strip search" means having an arrested person remove or arrange some or all of his or her clothing so as to permit a visual or manual inspection of the genitals; buttocks; anus; breasts, in the case of a female; or undergarments of such person.
(2) No person arrested for a traffic, regulatory, or misdemeanor offense, except in a case which is violent in nature, which involves a weapon, or which involves a controlled substance, shall be strip searched unless:
(a) There is probable cause to believe that the individual is concealing a weapon, a controlled substance, or stolen property; or
(b) A judge at first appearance has found that the person arrested cannot be released either on recognizance or bond and therefore shall be incarcerated in the county jail.
(3) Each strip search shall be performed by a person of the same gender as the arrested person and on premises where the search cannot be observed by persons not physically conducting or observing the search pursuant to this section. Any observer shall be of the same gender as the arrested person.
(4) Any body cavity search must be performed under sanitary conditions.
(5) No law enforcement officer shall order a strip search within the agency or facility without obtaining the written authorization of the supervising officer on duty.
(6) Nothing in this section shall be construed as limiting any statutory or common-law right of any person for purposes of any civil action or injunctive relief.
§ 901.211, Fla. Stat. (2005). As noted in footnote one, the State disputes whether section 901.211 even applies to Jenkins because subsection (2) refers only to "traffic, regulatory, or misdemeanor offense[s]." § 901.211(2), Fla. Stat. However, *130 we need not address today whether this statute applies to felonies such as that with which Jenkins was charged. Regardless of which and whether certain offenses fall under the statute, it is clear that the plain language of section 901.211 does not expressly provide for exclusion of evidence as a remedy for a violation of the statute.[13] The only reference to remedies in the statute before us is located in subsection (6), and those remedies are civil and injunctive in nature. Therefore, we conclude that the exclusionary rule is not a remedy for a violation of section 901.211 unless a constitutional violation has also occurred.[14]
The dissent asserts that we should hold that the exclusionary rule applies to section 901.211 because "[t]he exclusion of the evidence in this case would further the goal of deterrence of further police misconduct, one of the major goals of the exclusionary rule." Dissenting op. at 134. While there is no doubt that application of the exclusionary rule to section 901.211 would deter violations of this statute indeed, this is the goal of the exclusionary rule, see Arizona v. Evans,
CONCLUSION
Based upon the foregoing, we approve the decision of the Second District that the police had probable cause to arrest Jenkins, that the search of Jenkins was valid under the Fourth Amendment, and that the exclusionary rule does not apply to violations of section 901.211 of the Florida *131 Statutes. We further disapprove the decision in D.F.
It is so ordered.
WELLS, ANSTEAD, CANTERO, and BELL, JJ., concur.
QUINCE, J., dissents with an opinion, in which PARIENTE, J., concurs.
QUINCE, J., dissenting.
I cannot agree with the majority that the search of Jenkins under the facts and circumstances of this case did not violate section 901.211, Florida Statutes (2003), and was not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. When using the "totality-of-the-circumstances approach," laid out by the United States Supreme Court, one looks at the veracity, reliability, and basis of knowledge of a confidential informant to determine whether probable cause exists. Illinois v. Gates,
The majority says that Butler controls, yet in Butler the police used the confidential informant "at least 20 times" with "60 to 70% of the tips resulting in felony arrests." State v. Butler,
Applying the United States Supreme Court's reasoning that probable cause "deal[s] with probabilities . . . on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act," it is possible to conclude that a reasonable person could find probable cause when a tip leads to someone who fits the information given. Illinois v. Gates,
Even if the police had sufficient probable cause to arrest Jenkins, the search was unreasonable. The majority is correct in applying the four factors enumerated by Bell v. Wolfish,
I find the scope and manner of the search to be egregious and invasive. The *132 Second District says that "[t]he search was less invasive than a strip search" and that "no private part of Jenkins' body was exposed to public view." Jenkins v. State,
Several courts in other jurisdictions have found similar searches conducted in public places to be unreasonable. In State v. Walker, No. 97APA09-1219,
Likewise in this case, the scope of the intrusion is unreasonable because of the nature of the search and where it was conducted. Officer Bonollo testified that he "opened up the defendant's boxer shorts and inside his butt crack . . . [he] could see the top of the plastic [sandwich bag sticking up] about two inches." Jenkins,
Moreover, the location where the police performed the search is problematic. The majority agrees with the Second District that because no body parts were exposed, the fact that the search occurred at a public location is irrelevant. However, other courts have held that strip searches are impermissible in a public place unless there are conditions that make it impossible to move the accused to a private location.[15] The police searched Jenkins at a gas station situated on a busy intersection rather than taking him to a private location or police station to strip search him. Jenkins,
In Paulino v. State,
I also question the justification for the search, the last factor articulated by the United States Supreme Court in Wolfish. Searches incident to an arrest are constitutionally allowed and are reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Robinson,
However, one has to balance "the need for the particular search against the invasion of personal rights that the search entails." Wolfish,
The majority also concludes that exclusion of the evidence is not a proper remedy for a violation of section 901.211. I disagree and believe that the Fourth District in D.F. v. State,
PARIENTE, J., concurs.
NOTES
Notes
[1] Officer Daniel, however, testified during the hearing on the motion to suppress that she saw D's number register on her phone as the CI dialed, and she further noted that the line was activated when the CI spoke on the phone. After Jenkins was taken into custody, the cell phone retrieved from Jenkins' car registered the receipt of a call from Officer Daniel's cell phone number at the pertinent time.
[2] During the evidentiary hearing, it was revealed that Jenkins was actually driving a Pontiac; however, another responding officer, Keven Bonollo, described the vehicle as a "larger, older model brown 4-door."
[3] The Criminal Report Affidavit signed by Officer Daniel indicates that 5.9 grams of rock cocaine was recovered from Jenkins.
[4] This statement led the Second District Court of Appeal to conclude that "the trial court credited the testimony of the officers concerning the manner in which the search was performed and discredited Jenkins' testimony." Jenkins v. State,
[5] In reaching this determination, the Second District specifically noted that its review of whether the search was reasonable would be based upon the "historical facts found to exist by the trial court." Id. at 26 (citing Ornelas v. United States,
[6] Although on one occasion, the CI's tip did not result in an arrest because the suspect became "spooked" and drove off, we agree with the decision of the Second District that this does not substantially undermine the reliability of the CI. See Jenkins,
[7] In analyzing the facts of this case, we recognize that as a reviewing court we review "findings of historical fact only for clear error." Ornelas,
[8] Although somewhat unclear from the hearing on the motion to suppress and the opinion of the district court, Jenkins appears to have been moved before the search. During the evidentiary hearing, Jenkins testified that the officers moved him away from the gas station before conducting the search, stating "[Officer Bonollo] asked me to the back of the car. They moved me from the Texaco and go to the RX and made me come to the side of the back of the truck and ordered me to pull down my pants and bend over." This statement was corroborated by another officer who testified that "[e]veryone was moved from the Texaco across the street to Rosalita drug store. That's where everything took place." However, Officers Daniel and Bonollo provided no testimony with regard to a movement of Jenkins prior to the search. Thus, the record is somewhat unclear with regard to whether Jenkins was moved before he was searched.
[9] Officer Bonollo testified, "I didn't put my hand in his buttocks. It was a pretty large sandwich baggie, like you put a sandwich in and it was sticking out. So I went inside his boxers, correct, but I didn't go inside his buttocks."
[10] This type of public search is permissible "if police take steps commensurate with the circumstances to diminish the potential invasion of the suspect's privacy." Williams,
[11] Thus, the instant case is clearly distinguishable from Paulino v. State,
[12] See, e.g., United States v. Cofield,
[13] Cf. § 934.01(2), Fla. Stat. (2006) ("In order to protect effectively the privacy of wire and oral communications, to protect the integrity of court and administrative proceedings, and to prevent the obstruction of intrastate commerce, it is necessary for the Legislature to define the circumstances and conditions under which the interception of wire and oral communications may be authorized and to prohibit any unauthorized interception of such communications and the use of the contents thereof in evidence in courts and administrative proceedings." (emphasis supplied)).
[14] Below, the Second District correctly noted that this Court has held that the exclusionary rule applies to certain statutes which are silent as to remedy for their violation. See, e.g., State v. Johnson,
[15] See, e.g., United States v. Bazy, Nos. 94-40018-01-SAC, 94-40018-02-SAC,
[16] In Paulino, a confidential informant told a police detective that the defendant possessed drugs, the manner in which he concealed the drugs, and the defendant's location. Police arrived at the defendant's location, a well lit car wash, lifted up the defendant's shorts, spread his buttocks and retrieved the drugs. Although twelve police officers were present, no attempt was made to transfer the defendant to a police facility prior to the search. Id. at 310-12.
[17] The Eighth Circuit stated the officers "decided not to search [the defendant] while on the street because they were concerned about his privacy. Instead, they took [him] into custody, placed him in a squad car, and drove him several blocks to the police department's Fourth Precinct building." Id. at 975.
[18] Even though Chimel involved a search conducted in a person's home, it is still applicable here because the United States Supreme Court discussed the need to search the "person" and did not restrict its analysis to a search of dwellings.
[19] The Court of Appeals of Maryland reasoned that "[d]uring the transportation of Paulino from the scene of the arrest to the station or to a more private location, the police had the ability to secure Paulino to prevent his destruction or disposal of the contraband found on his person." Paulino,
