Glover v. State
| Decision Date | 07 March 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 5D01-3555.,5D01-3555. |
| Citation | 843 So.2d 919 |
| Parties | Roosevelt GLOVER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
James B. Gibson, Public Defender, and Susan A. Fagan, Assistant Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for Appellant.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Tammy L. Jaques, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.
The defendant below, Roosevelt Glover ["Glover"], was charged by information with possession of cocaine with intent to sell or deliver. He filed a motion to suppress any statements he made to law enforcement, any observations made by law enforcement regarding him, any information or objects obtained by law enforcement from him, and the eighteen pieces of cocaine found on him. Subsequent to a hearing on the motion to suppress, the motion was denied by the trial court. Glover pled nolo contendere and was adjudicated guilty by the trial court. He now appeals the final order of judgment and sentence, contending that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress. We affirm.
Officer Chris Myers ["Myers"], a thirteen-year veteran and Uniform Drug Unit member of the Orlando Police Department, testified at the hearing on the motion to suppress. Myers stated that he has over 250 hours of formal training in drug enforcement and has made between 1000 and 2000 narcotics-related arrests. Myers was assigned to the Drug Unit and was patrolling for illegal drug activity on June 28, 2001, in an unmarked vehicle, when he observed Glover from about ten to fifteen yards away about to place an unidentified object into the hand of an unknown female. When Glover saw him, he immediately drew his hand back and put the object in his mouth instead of in the hand of the female. The female then began to walk away. Myers did not observe any money changing hands, but his suspicions were aroused as a result of his training and experience with drug enforcement. Myers noted that it is very common for drug dealers to place drugs in their mouth at the sight of police, and he recognized Glover as a known drug dealer. Myers also noted that the place he observed Glover was an open field where drug dealers were known to congregate. He had personally arrested dozens of people for drug violations in that same location. Myers said that he approached Glover while another officer contacted the female. The other officer informed Myers that he found a crack pipe in the female's possession, so Myers asked Glover what had transpired between him and the female. Glover told Myers he was merely talking to the female and denied giving her anything or putting anything in his mouth.
Based on what Myers had observed, he testified he believed Glover was lying and that he had been engaged in a drug transaction. He proceeded to conduct a pat-down search of Glover. Myers did not ask Glover for permission to search him. Myers testified that during the search he discovered "a round hard object in the pocket of [Glover's] briefs which was not part of the human body," which, based on his experience, he knew to be cocaine. Myers asked Glover to remove the object. When he refused, Myers handcuffed Glover and removed the object, a piece of plastic wrap which contained eighteen pieces of crack cocaine. Myers arrested Glover.
On direct examination, Myers was asked why he searched Glover. Myers replied:
When I initially saw the defendant, he was engaged in what I believed to be based on my experience and training and knowledge of him in this area in the sale of crack cocaine or delivery of crack cocaine, upon seeing the police he put this object which was small enough and consistent with the size of a piece of crack cocaine in his mouth which is what drug dealers commonly do. They either throw it down or put it in his [sic] mouth. He liked to put it in his mouth. The person who was standing next to [Glover], who I believed to be the buyer, immediately walked away and threw down the crack pipe and then when I confronted [Glover] with what I saw, he denied it all. He didn't tell me I was eating a piece of candy. He didn't come up with any kind of story about what he had in his hand or put in his mouth. He just said that it didn't happen. That led me to believe that it wasn't a piece of candy, it wasn't a legitimate object, and if he was selling this illegal substance, he probably had more on him.
Based on Myers' and Smith's testimony, the trial court concluded Myers had probable cause to conduct a warrantless arrest and search of Glover, and denied the motion to suppress.
As with almost all suppression cases, there are authorities on either side of the issue arising out of similar facts. The trial court referred to several such cases in its order denying Glover's motion to suppress. The first is Knox v. State, 689 So.2d 1224 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997), in which this court affirmed the trial court's denial of Knox's motion to suppress. In Knox, law enforcement officers observed Knox for two hours. Over the course of that time, they witnessed him engage in several transactions with several different vehicles. He was seen passing something which the officers could not see to occupants inside each vehicle, and upon the vehicles driving away, the officers witnessed Knox with cash in his hands. However, the court concluded "from the totality of the circumstances that the officers' observation of Knox's conduct during the two-hour surveillance established sufficient probable cause for an experienced narcotics officer to believe that Knox was engaged in criminal conduct that justified a search for illegal drugs." Id. at 1225.
Also cited in the trial court's order is Williams v. State, 717 So.2d 1109 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998), where this court again affirmed a trial court's denial of a motion to suppress, based on the...
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