Brown v. State, 89-00798
| Decision Date | 10 April 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 89-00798,89-00798 |
| Citation | 577 So.2d 708,16 Fla. L. Weekly 1016 |
| Parties | 16 Fla. L. Weekly 1016 Alton BROWN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Debra J. Sutton of Debra J. Sutton, P.A., Bartow, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Michele Taylor, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tampa, for appellee.
The defendant, Alton Brown, pled no contest to possession of cocaine and cannabis, reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress narcotics found during a stop for an alleged parking violation. He argues that the stop was illegal because the supposed violation was simply a pretext to justify a search for drugs. We agree.
At the hearing on the motion, only arresting Officer Cuicci testified. He stated that Brown was sitting in his parked car at 6:20 p.m. in an area where officers were conducting what he described as a "narcotics raid." It should be noted, however, that this was not a true drug raid. The officers did not have any specific information about particular drug transactions that day. They were merely approaching people on the street who they thought were "possibly selling narcotics." Officer Cuicci testified that Brown's vehicle was illegally parked; that is, it was on the wrong side of the street facing the wrong direction. Otherwise, however, Brown was doing nothing suspicious.
The officer approached Brown and asked him to identify himself. When Brown did not, Cuicci directed him to exit his car. As Brown opened the car door, the officer observed three bags of marijuana in the driver's door pocket. Brown apparently began to walk away from Cuicci toward two other officers standing nearby. Cuicci directed them to take Brown into custody. A subsequent search revealed cocaine in the armrest of the car. Brown was not given a traffic citation or charged with any traffic offense.
First, we hold that this was a stop rather than a consensual encounter. Although Officer Cuicci needed no founded suspicion to approach and talk to Brown, once he directed Brown to exit the car, the encounter became a stop since Brown was no longer free to leave. See State v. Simons, 549 So.2d 785 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989).
Having determined that the officer's command that Brown get out of his car converted the encounter into a stop, we turn to Brown's second contention--that the stop was illegal because it was pretextual. The state argues that the officer properly stopped Brown for illegal parking. We disagree....
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