State of Florida v. Clarence E. Johnson

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL
FIRST DISTRICT, STATE OF FLORIDA
STATE OF FLORIDA, NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO
FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND
Appellant, DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED
v. CASE NO. 1D15-5289
CLARENCE E. JOHNSON,
Appellee.
_____________________________/
Opinion filed January 31, 2017.
An appeal from the Circuit Court for Leon County.
Kevin J. Carroll, Judge.
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Thomas H. Duffy, Assistant Attorney
General, Tallahassee, for Appellant.
David W. Collins, Monticello, for Appellee.
WINSOR, J.
Facing what it accurately called “a highly unique factual scenario,” the trial
court suppressed evidence officers found in Clarence Johnson’s car. This is the
State’s appeal. Finding no Fourth Amendment violation on the particular facts we
face, we reverse.
I.
Because “the totality of the circumstances controls in cases involving the
Fourth Amendment,” State v. Baez, 894 So. 2d 115, 117 (Fla. 2004), we begin with
a detailed look at the facts.
Police officers went to Johnson’s house to execute an arrest warrant on
charges not relevant here. Johnson was not home when they arrived, but he pulled
into his driveway just as the officers were leaving. Before Johnson got out of his car,
one of the officers approached and told him the news. Johnson’s child was asleep in
the car, and Johnson asked if the officers could arrest him beyond the child’s sight.
The officers accommodated that request, and Johnson got out and walked behind the
car. There, Johnson was placed under arrest, handcuffed, and searched.
The officer searching Johnson found an unbound bundle of cash—some
$1,188—in Johnson’s pocket. The officer initially laid the cash on the trunk of
Johnson’s car but then “dumped” it through Johnson’s open driver-side door onto
the driver’s seat, concerned the cash might otherwise blow away.
Not long after, and while Johnson and the officers were still in the driveway,
Johnson’s friend showed up to take care of Johnson’s child and property. An officer
asked Johnson to choose between entrusting the friend with the cash and returning
the cash to Johnson’s pocket, where it would be inventoried at the jail. Johnson chose
the former, and an officer reached into Johnson’s still-open car door to retrieve the
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cash. As he reached inside, the officer noticed “just basically sitting there was a
white powdery substance” in a baggie. The officer recognized the substance as
cocaine and removed the baggie. The State charged Johnson with possession, and
Johnson moved to suppress the evidence.
II.
Johnson has not challenged the officers’ authority to arrest him or to search
him pursuant to that arrest. His complaint is with the officer’s intrusion into his car
to retrieve the cash—an intrusion Johnson contends required a warrant or probable
cause. The trial court granted the motion to suppress. It recounted the facts,
concluded that the “baggie was not in plain view,” and ultimately determined that
“this was a warrantless illegal search and seizure.”
On appeal, the State does not argue that the officers had authority to search
Johnson’s car for evidence; 1 its argument is that under the circumstances, the
officer’s intrusion into the car was to protect Johnson’s property, meaning no
warrant or probable cause was required. Accordingly, the State argues there was no
1
Nor does the State support the intrusion as a search incident to arrest. The
trial court’s observation that Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009), did not support
the officers’ actions is therefore beside the point. Indeed, Gant recognized that a
search incident to arrest is not the only way to justify the warrantless entry into an
automobile. See id. at 338, 346-47; see also United States v. Frasher, 632 F.3d 450,
455 (8th Cir. 2011) (“Frasher’s argument that the search was not proper under
Arizona v. Gant is misplaced because the search was not conducted incident to arrest,
but rather was an inventory search. . . . Gant acknowledges that a search of a vehicle
may still be allowed if it is shown that another warrant exception applies.”).
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Fourth Amendment violation. Furthermore, the State argues, even if there were a
violation, the exclusionary rule would not apply.
III.
“The ultimate standard set forth in the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness.”
Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 439 (1973). In a series of cases evaluating
reasonableness, the United States Supreme Court has recognized that some
“searches” are conducted in connection with police’s “community caretaking
functions, totally divorced from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of
evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute.” Id. at 441. In those
circumstances, an intrusion that might otherwise violate the Fourth Amendment can
be lawful.
In Cady, for example, a police officer was detained for drunk driving. Id. at
436. The officer’s service revolver was not on him, and other officers checked to see
if it was in his car—they feared if it was unsecured, it might wind up in the wrong
hands. Id. at 436-37, 443. While in the car, they found evidence of the officer’s
involvement in another crime. Id. at 437. The officer sought to suppress that
evidence based on the warrantless intrusion. See id. But because the intrusion was
to protect the public from an unsecured service revolver—not to look for evidence
of a crime—the Court held “that the search was not ‘unreasonable’ within the
meaning of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.” Id. at 448.
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Similarly, in Harris v. United States, the Supreme Court found no Fourth
Amendment violation when an officer discovered evidence while securing a
defendant’s car. 390 U.S. 234, 236 (1968). The defendant was in custody; his car
was impounded. Id. at 235. An officer had opened a car door to roll up an open
window, and he found evidence (a robbery victim’s registration card) laying “face
up on the metal stripping over which the door closes.” Id. at 235-36. Under the
particular circumstances of that case, “the discovery of the card was not the result of
a search of the car, but of a measure taken to protect the car while it was in police
custody.” Id. at 236. “Nothing in the Fourth Amendment requires the police to obtain
a warrant in these narrow circumstances.” Id.; see also Cooper v. California, 386
U.S. 58, 61-62 (1967) (finding search of vehicle for safety of custodians not
unreasonable).
This court applied these same principles in State v. Oglesby, 397 So. 2d 714
(Fla. 1st DCA 1981). Lawrence Oglesby, a corrections officer, suffered a medical
emergency and was rushed to the hospital. Id. at 714. Another officer went to put
some of Oglesby’s personal items in his car, where the officer discovered a gun. Id.
Other officers then removed the gun, along with bullets, mace, a knife, and a radio;
they removed them for safekeeping because the car was in an area accessible to
inmates. Id. It turned out the radio was stolen property, so Oglesby was charged with
theft. Id. at 715. The trial court suppressed the evidence, concluding that the officers
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found the radio through an illegal search. Id. But this court reversed because the
“good faith action of taking into custody for storage and safekeeping” the radio and
other items “was not constitutionally unreasonable under the reasoning of Cady v.
Dombrowski and Harris v. United States.” Id. (citations omitted); see also Cobb v.
State, 378 So. 2d 82, 83 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979) (finding no unlawful intrusion, noting
the undisputed fact “that the officer opened the door, not in order to search the car
or even to look into it, but rather only in the process of securing the vehicle against
theft, vandals and the elements during the time that it was to be left unattended on
the public streets while its owner was in jail”).
Consistent with these cases, the officer’s intrusion into Clarence Johnson’s
car was not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. It is undisputed that the
officer reached into Clarence Johnson’s open car door to retrieve Johnson’s cash for
safekeeping, not to search for evidence of a crime. 2 The limited intrusion “was no
more than a routine and good faith attempt, in the exercise of reasonable caution, to
safeguard the defendant’s own property.” Cobb, 378 So. 2d at 83.
2
Even if the officer’s intent was disputed, the Supreme Court has made it clear
that an “officer’s subjective motivation is irrelevant.” Brigham City v. Stuart, 547
U.S. 398, 404 (2006). “An action is ‘reasonable’ under the Fourth Amendment,
regardless of the individual officer’s state of mind, ‘as long as the circumstances,
viewed objectively, justify [the] action.’” Id. (quoting Scott v. United States, 436
U.S. 128, 138 (1978)).
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Because the officer’s reach into the car did not violate the Fourth Amendment,
the only remaining question is whether the officer’s seizure of the cocaine once
inside the car was lawful. “Objects falling in the plain view of an officer who has a
right to be in the position to have that view are subject to seizure and may be
introduced in evidence.” State v. Cash, 275 So. 2d 605, 606 (Fla. 1st DCA 1973);
accord Harris, 390 U.S. at 236. The trial court found that the officer who reached
into the car to recover the money “observed a baggie located at the back of the
driver’s seat toward the driver’s door.” This finding is consistent with both the
hearing testimony and Johnson’s representation in his motion to suppress. The
officer necessarily would have had a clear view of the driver’s seat when he reached
in to retrieve cash from the driver’s seat. Accordingly, if the officer had a right to
reach into the car (and we hold he did), he had a right to seize the cocaine.3
The trial court therefore should not have suppressed the evidence.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
OSTERHAUS, J., CONCURS; LEWIS, J., CONCURS IN RESULT WITHOUT
OPINION.
3
The trial court’s order also found that “[t]he baggie was not in plain view
and had not been seen initially when the money was placed into the vehicle for
unknown reasons,” and we must accept all fact findings supported by competent,
substantial evidence, Vaughn v. State, 176 So. 3d 354, 355-56 (Fla. 1st DCA 2015).
To the extent the trial court meant the baggie was not in plain view from outside the
vehicle—or to the officer who dumped the cash into the vehicle—it is supported by
the record. If the baggie was at the back of the driver’s seat and toward the door (as
the trial court found), it would not necessarily be in plain view to someone passing
by, or to an officer tossing cash inside.
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