Anderson v. State, No. 1D19-2572

303 So.3d 596

Karen ANDERSON, Appellant,

v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 1D19-2572

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

September 14, 2020

Karen Anderson, pro se, Appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Jennifer J. Moore, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.

Per Curiam.

Karen Anderson appeals an order summarily denying her motion for postconviction relief filed under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. For the reasons that follow, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.

Anderson is serving an eight-year prison term after a jury convicted her of trafficking in amphetamine. This Court per curiam affirmed her judgment and sentence on direct appeal. Anderson v. State , 241 So. 3d 95 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018).

In her motion for postconviction relief, Anderson asserted her attorney was ineffective for failing to file a motion to suppress evidence seized in violation of her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. She contended the traffic stop leading to her arrest was unconstitutionally prolonged in order to perform a dog-sniff search of the vehicle, and therefore the evidence obtained as a result of the search was inadmissible at trial.

As the factual basis for her motion, Anderson alleged that she was a passenger in a vehicle that was pulled over for running a stop sign. After initiating a driver's license check with dispatch, the officer who made the stop told the driver that he was not going to issue a citation for the infraction; instead, he would give the driver a warning after the information came back from dispatch. When the officer returned to the vehicle a third time, he informed the driver that his driver's license was valid and that he "was good to go" once the officer finished writing up the warning. Three minutes later, the officer told Anderson and the driver to get out of the vehicle. The K-9 unit then conducted a sniff search, which yielded incriminating evidence that led to Anderson's arrest.

The postconviction court denied Anderson's motion, concluding it was legally meritless and refuted by the record. The court first cited portions of the trial transcript to show that the dog sniff occurred while the officer was still working on the written warning. The court also relied on State v. Griffin , where this Court explained that "dog sniffs that occur within a short time following the completion of a traffic stop are not constitutionally prohibited if they constitute only de minimis intrusions on the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights." 949 So. 2d 309, 315 (Fla. 1st DCA 2007) (quoting U.S. v. Alexander , 448 F.3d 1014, 1016 (8th Cir. 2006) ). The court reasoned that, even assuming Anderson's version of events is accurate, "the stop was not conducted in an unreasonable manner, and the slight delay was not unreasonable." This appeal followed.

We review the summary denial of a motion for postconviction relief under rule 3.850 de novo, and we will affirm the lower court's order only where the claims are facially invalid or conclusively refuted by the record. Hill v. State , 258 So. 3d 577, 579 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018). To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a defendant must: (1) specifically identify the acts or omissions of counsel that fell below a standard of reasonably competent performance as measured by prevailing professional norms, and (2) show that there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different but for counsel's deficient performance. Martin-Godinez v. State , 290 So. 3d 144, 146 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019). Both prongs must be satisfied; if counsel's performance was not deficient under the first prong, then there is no need for a reviewing court to address prejudice under the second prong. Long v. State , 118 So. 3d 798, 805 (Fla. 2013). Counsel is not ineffective for failing to file a motion to suppress evidence if the motion would have lacked merit. Wilson v. State , 271 So. 3d 1237, 1238 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019).

In Rodriguez v. United States , 575 U.S. 348, 353, 135 S.Ct. 1609, 191 L.Ed.2d 492 (2015), the United States Supreme Court addressed "whether police routinely may extend an otherwise-completed traffic stop, absent reasonable suspicion, in order to conduct a dog sniff." The Supreme Court explained:

Like a Terry stop, the tolerable duration of police inquiries in the

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