Eric Brandon MORSE, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
*498 Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender, Steven A. Been, David A. Davis, and Phil Patterson, Asst. Public Defenders, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Bradley R. Bischoff, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
SHIVERS, Judge.
Appellant Morse challenges the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained by the police during a warrantless search of his motel residence. Because the evidence taken is the fruit of a warrantless search, and the facts do not support the state's reliance on any established exception such as consent, common authority, or abandonment, we are compelled to reverse the order because the evidence is inadmissible.
Appellant was charged by information in Case No. 90-4 with the burglary of a restaurant (Count One) in Destin, Florida, on December 27, 1989, in violation of section 810.02(1) and (3), Florida Statutes (1989), and with resisting or obstructing without violence an investigating officer (Count Two), on the same day, in violation of section 843.02, Florida Statutes (1989). By affidavits, he was charged with violations of probation and community control based on the arrest and charge relating to burglary of a structure and on the failure to remain confined at his approved residence, Destination Motel, Room 11, on December 29, 1989. On April 4, 1990, an evidentiary hearing was held on the charge of violation of community control and probation in Case Nos. 89-6 and 89-71 through 89-77. Defense counsel orally moved to suppress evidence based on 1) the warrantless seizure of tennis shoes from appellant's room on December 27, 1989, and 2) the warrantless search of appellant's room on December 29, 1989. The trial court denied the motions to suppress and found violations of community control and probation.
Proceedings relating to the burglary and resisting arrest charges were held on April 25, 1990, when the trial court considered an oral motion to suppress the same evidence covered at the violation hearing. The court considered the testimony presented at the violation hearing and heard testimony from appellant. The parties stipulated the motion to suppress is dispositive of Count One (burglary) in Case No. 90-4. After the motion was denied, appellant entered a plea of nolo contendere to both counts, specifically reserving the right to appeal the denial of the motion to suppress. On May 23, 1990, appellant was sentenced to five years in prison on Count One, and to one year in prison on Count Two, to run concurrently. The trial court entered orders as to the *499 violations of the conditions of probation and community control.
The issues on appeal involve the denial of the motion to suppress, the dispositiveness of that motion, and the finding of a violation of the conditions of community control. We find the motion to be dispositive of the burglary charge. Accordingly, we reverse the burglary conviction in Case No. 90-4, vacate the orders finding appellant to have violated the conditions of his supervision in Case Nos. 89-6 and 89-71 through 89-77, and remand for the trial court to reinstate appellant to community control.
FACTS
Deputy sheriffs investigating the burglary observed shoeprints in the sand on the western side of the restaurant leading, with gaps where the pavement was, to the Destination Motel, Room 11. Deputies Ron Gay and Greg Gaddis testified that on December 27, 1989, they knocked at Room 11 and appellant invited them in. After Gay saw a pair of tennis shoes on the floor of the room and picked them up, appellant agreed Gay could examine them. Gay testified that at that time, he believed the shoe size and tread pattern matched the prints leading from the restaurant to the motel room. After appellant denied them permission to look in the kitchen, the officers left with the shoes. Subsequently, it was determined the shoes matched the shoeprints leading from the burglary site.
Twenty or thirty minutes after the officers left appellant's room, Gay observed him leaving Room 11 and carrying something under his jacket. He followed appellant into a nearby wooded area. Seeing the officer, appellant threw down a jar of coins and ran off, ignoring Gay's shouted order to stop. The next day, December 28, 1989, Deputy William Collette twice went to the Destination Motel looking for appellant. Collette testified he had probably spoken to a man he believed was the "manager" of the motel. As to who was running the motel, appellant testified he had lived in Room 11 for about 1 1/2 months and had an agreement with "the manager, Dorothy," to pay semi-monthly rent. Appellant testified he was current in his rent in December 1989. Both Dorothy and her husband, Frank, are referred to as "manager" in the record, but the record contains no written rental agreement.
Early on December 29, 1989, Collette questioned appellant at a police department substation. Around 1:30 or 1:45 A.M., after returning to the motel from talking to Collette, appellant was confronted by Frank (Dorothy's husband), to whom Deputy Collette had spoken the day before. Frank was intoxicated and blamed appellant for causing trouble around the motel. He gave appellant 30 minutes to pack and leave, upon a threat to call the police and have him arrested. Appellant testified he thought he had no choice other than to pack and leave immediately, and he did not believe he could contact his community control officer at such an early hour of the morning.
About 10-15 minutes after appellant left the police substation, Frank called Deputy Collette to inform him appellant was being evicted immediately for creating a disturbance and being behind in his payment of rent. Collette asked Frank not to evict him yet because Collette wanted to question appellant.
Collette then went to the motel, where Frank told Collette appellant had loaded his belongings into a girlfriend's car and had left. Collette accepted Frank's invitation to look in appellant's room. According to the testimony, his purpose for going into Room 11 was to look for evidence of the burglary. He saw two cable converter boxes, one of which had the same serial number as a box issued by the cable television company to the burglarized restaurant. Collette acknowledged it would have been simple to ask Frank to secure Room 11 while a search warrant was obtained, but Collette did not have probable cause to believe items from the burglary would be in the room. Collette said he did not think he necessarily had probable cause for a search warrant, but he thought he had probable cause for an arrest. He testified he thought the tenancy had been terminated *500 and that appellant had vacated the room, with no intent to live there anymore.
In fact, appellant had taken certain of his items, including some of his clothes, a rug, and dry food. He testified it had taken 15-20 minutes for him to pack, but he had not been able to remove everything from the room because he was loading his belongings into a small car. The items remaining in the room included jeans, T-shirts, a jacket, drapery, sheers, a couch, and refrigerated food. Appellant intended to borrow a truck and return for the remainder of his personal property. No testimony was given as to whether the 30-minute deadline had expired when Frank led Deputy Collette into Room 11. The violation affidavits state appellant was arrested "on or about December 29, 1989, in Okaloosa County, Florida," but no evidence was presented at the hearing as to the circumstances or location of the arrest.
MOTION TO SUPPRESS
The facts are strikingly similar to those in Blanco v. State,
In reviewing the order denying appellant's motion to suppress evidence, we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to sustain the trial court's ruling. Watts v. State,
An officer cannot always assume an invitation to enter a room is necessarily authorized by the rightful occupant. Stoner v. California,
In Sheff,
Warrantless searches are per se unreasonable unless conducted within an established exception such as personal consent, abandonment, or consent by a third party with common authority over the premises. Engle v. State,
The state relies on several "abandonment" decisions to argue appellant had relinquished his interest in the property and no longer had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the premises at the time of the search. "Strict property concepts" such as the statutory notice requirement are not necessarily dispositive of the illegality of a search if an abandonment occurred, even if the former resident retains the lawful right of possession. See Bloodworth v. State,
However, Florida law governing the duration and termination of a tenancy is relevant to the question whether appellant retained a legitimate privacy interest, for Fourth Amendment purposes, with respect to the remaining personal belongings in Room 11. See Rakas v. Illinois,
We find United States v. Rahme,
The defendant in Paty v. State,
When Frank and Deputy Collete entered Room 11, it should have been immediately evident appellant had left some of his belongings there. We find no intent on appellant's part to relinquish his control over the room prior to removing his personal items such as clothing and furnishings. Accordingly, the warrantless search here cannot be justified on the basis of the abandonment exception. See Salamy v. State,
The state contends alternatively that the warrantless search is saved by Deputy Collette's good-faith belief Frank lawfully consented for him to enter appellant's room, based on Frank's remarks that he had evicted appellant, and his invitation to enter the room. See, e.g., Sledge,
We believe the Leon exception is inapplicable where, as here, an officer claims only that he made a reasonable but mistaken interpretation of the scope of his search authority under a particular valid statute. See 1 La Fave, Search and Seizure § 1.3(g) (2d ed. 1987) and § 1.3(h) (1991 Supp.). Collette testified he knew Frank had given appellant only 30 minutes' verbal notice to leave. Under the particular and unusual facts of this case, we find no reason to expand the good-faith exception in the context of a warrantless search. See United States v. Milian-Rodriguez,
The state contends that Illinois v. Rodriguez,
Rodriguez holds that, even where the invitation to enter and search premises is explicit and based on assertions of apparent consent, "the surrounding circumstances could conceivably be such that a reasonable person would doubt its truth and not act upon it without further inquiry." See
Arguendo, if the entry and search were based on a mistake of fact alone, the search still would be unlawful. That is because "Rodriguez thus applies to situations in which an officer would have had valid consent to search if the facts were as he reasonably believed them to be." United States v. Whitfield,
The record demonstrates Deputy Collette operated under a mistake of law as well, his apparent belief appellant could be evicted upon 30 minutes' verbal notice. Nothing in Rodriguez or in the instant record persuades us that the officer's good-faith reliance was objectively reasonable, with regard to either Frank's contention that appellant had completely moved out, or to the belief that the "instant" eviction authorized Frank to consent to the warrantless search of appellant's room by the police. See Blanco. Accordingly, the state failed to meet the burden of establishing that Frank had common authority, see Rodriguez, or joint access or control for most purposes. Matlock; Blanco.
*504 DISPOSITIVENESS OF STIPULATION
The stipulation between the parties provides "the Motion to Suppress, heard April 4 and 25, 1990, is dispositive of the issues in Count I, Burglary ..." In the trial court, defense counsel sought to suppress evidence based on two separate incidents of alleged Fourth Amendment violation: 1) the December 29, 1990, search already discussed, and 2) the December 27, 1990, warrantless seizure of tennis shoes. On appeal, appellant argues only that suppression of the fruit of the December 29 search, the cable converter box, is dispositive of the burglary charge.
With the cable box suppressed, the evidence against appellant would be as follows: 1) the morning after the burglary, shoeprints led from the site of the crime to Room 11; 2) shoes found in Room 11 match those shoeprints; and 3) a few minutes after he was interviewed by deputies, appellant ran from Deputy Gay and threw down a jar of coins not shown to be related to the burglary. We find this evidence is insufficient to avoid a judgment of acquittal.
Neither presence at the scene of a crime nor presence coupled with flight or other equivocal conduct is sufficient of itself to establish guilt. Agee v. State,
VIOLATION OF CONDITIONS
The community control officer filed affidavits charging appellant with two violations of conditions of probation and community control: 1) the December 29, 1989, arrest and charge relating to the burglary, and 2) the failure to remain confined at his approved residence on December 29, 1989, "as evidenced by his arrest on December 29, 1989." The trial court's orders likewise found violations of both community control and probation in Case Nos. 89-6 and 89-71 through 89-77. Appellant asserts, and we agree, that only the alleged violations of community control, not of probation, should have been considered. That is because he had been placed on community control for two years in each of the above cases, with three years' probation to follow, and was still on community control at the time of the alleged violations.
The exclusionary rule applies in revocation proceedings, so that suppression of the fruit of the December 29 search and discharge of the burglary conviction eliminates the first alleged violation of community control. See State v. Cross,
As to the second violation, the affidavit implies the arrest occurred somewhere other than the approved residence, *505 but no evidence was presented at the hearing as to the circumstances of appellant's arrest. The only non-hearsay evidence presented at the violation hearing, that appellant was not at his residence at any point on December 29, 1989, other than his own testimony, is Deputy Collette's testimony that he entered the room and found a cable converter box. That testimony is the fruit of the warrantless search and should not have been considered. Appellant's testimony is that he felt he had no choice other than to pack up and leave immediately. Since that evidence does not establish a willful violation of the conditions of community control, vacation of the revocation order is proper. See Yancey v. State,
The state argues the evidence shows appellant was away from home without permission on December 27, 1989. However, violation of community control by being away from home on December 27 was not charged in the affidavit of violation. For that reason, the violation cannot be sustained based on proof of a violation that was not charged. See Harrington v. State,
Accordingly, as a result of the reversal of the burglary conviction, the orders finding appellant in violation of community control and probation, and the sentences based on that violation, are vacated, and the cause is remanded for reinstatement of the order placing appellant on community control.
REVERSED and REMANDED, with directions.
MINER, J., concurs.
BOOTH, J., dissents.
