K.W. v. State

328 So.3d 1022

K.W., Appellant,

v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 2D19-3927

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

June 23, 2021

Howard L. Dimmig, II, Public Defender, and Blair Allen, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Jeffrey H. Siegel, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.

SLEET, Judge.

K.W. challenges the disposition order in which the trial court withheld adjudication after finding him guilty of the delinquent act of possession of marijuana. K.W. entered a no contest plea and reserved the right to appeal the denial of his dispositive motion to suppress. Because the State failed to establish the necessary reasonable suspicion to detain K.W. and the necessary probable cause to arrest him, the trial court erred in denying K.W.'s motion to suppress, and we reverse.

The State's delinquency petition alleged that K.W. possessed marijuana in violation of section 893.13(6)(b), Florida Statutes (2019). K.W. filed a motion seeking to suppress the contents of a cigar wrapper containing a green leafy substance that was found on his person and any admissions he made.

At the hearing on the motion, Bonnie Anderson testified that on April 18, 2019, at around 1 a.m., an alarm went off inside her home. Because the alarm was attached to a front window, it could only go off on the inside if the screen was opened. She viewed video surveillance of her house and saw three juveniles on bicycles, but she did not recognize anyone in the video, nor did she articulate anything more than that they were sitting on their bicycles. The video did not capture anyone touching the screen that made the alarm go off. She then called the police, and when the sheriff's deputy arrived, she showed him the video. Although she did not recognize anyone, she nonetheless provided the deputy with the address of a juvenile she suspected could be involved. She did not provide the name of the juvenile she suspected, nor did she state that any of the juveniles on the video resembled the juvenile whose address she provided. She did not even provide a detailed description of the individuals she saw. Rather, the information she relayed to law enforcement was that they were "young adults on bikes."

The deputy testified that in the video, he observed three juveniles on bicycles at the end of Anderson's driveway. Based on his observation of the individuals in the video, he relayed a general physical description and general clothing description to other responding units. He could not gauge the height of the individuals from the video, nor could he make out any facial features. He recalled that prior to arriving at Anderson's residence, he observed a bicycle on the side of the road. He later learned it was in front of the house with the same address as the one provided by Anderson. He relayed this information to the responding units as well. The deputy did not observe any individuals near the bicycle when he initially saw it. He also did not testify as to whether it was the same bicycle he observed in the video. The deputy admitted that he has previously seen other kids in the neighborhood at nighttime and that they were sometimes on bicycles. He responded to the suspect address after other deputies had already arrived. He testified that he was confident that the three juveniles the deputies encountered there were the same three juveniles he had observed in Anderson's security video.

A second deputy was dispatched to the address provided by the responding deputy. She did not articulate how she made contact with K.W.; rather, she simply stated that she had responded to the suspect address to investigate the burglary and made contact with K.W., who was with two other individuals. When she spoke to K.W., he did not initially identify himself as K.W. and instead provided a different name and date of birth. At some point during the interaction, the deputy looked him up on her computer and determined that his name was actually K.W. K.W. admitted that was his name and told her that he provided a false name because he was on probation. She then took him into custody. She did not arrest him for trespassing or attempted burglary but rather for providing a false name. She then searched him and found marijuana on his person.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court denied the dispositive motion to suppress. K.W. subsequently entered a no contest plea, reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. The trial court withheld adjudication and placed K.W. on twelve months' juvenile probation. On appeal, K.W. argues that law enforcement lacked both the reasonable suspicion necessary to detain him and the probable cause required to arrest him. We agree.

There are essentially three levels of police-citizen encounters. The first level is considered a consensual encounter and involves only minimal police contact. During a consensual encounter a citizen may either voluntarily comply with a police officer's requests or choose to ignore them. Because the citizen is free to leave during a consensual encounter, constitutional safeguards are not invoked.

The second level of police-citizen encounters involves an investigatory stop .... At this level, a police officer may reasonably detain a citizen temporarily if the officer has a reasonable suspicion that a person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. ...

... [T]he third level of police-citizen encounters involves an arrest which must be supported by probable cause that a crime has been or is being committed.

Popple v. State , 626 So. 2d 185, 186 (Fla. 1993) (citations omitted).

It is the State's burden to establish that police had the necessary reasonable suspicion to detain and the necessary probable cause to arrest an individual. See Robinson v. State , 976 So. 2d 1229, 1233 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008) ("[T]he State has the burden to prove that the officer had probable cause, and the proof must be more than the ‘naked subjective statement of a police officer who has a "feeling" based on "experience" that the accosted citizen is committing a crime.’ " (quoting Coney v. State , 820 So. 2d 1012, 1014 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002) )); cf. Florida v. Royer , 460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983) ("It is the State's burden to demonstrate that the seizure it seeks to justify on the basis of a reasonable suspicion was sufficiently limited in scope and duration to satisfy the conditions of an investigative seizure."). Here, the State did not meet its burden with regard to either.

As to reasonable suspicion, it is not clear from the arresting deputy's testimony when or if her "contact" with K.W. transformed from a consensual encounter into an investigatory stop during which K.W. was not free to walk away, but in any event, at no time during the encounter did the deputy have the required reasonable suspicion to detain him.

"To support an investigatory detention, an officer ‘must have a well-founded, articulable suspicion that a person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime.’ " Fields v. State , 292 So. 3d 889, 893 (Fla. 2d DCA 2020) (quoting Thomasset v. State , 761 So. 2d 383, 385 (Fla. 2d DCA 2000) ). Here, there were two potential bases for the arresting deputy's suspicion that K.W. might have...