I.K. v. State

• Decision Date: 31 October 2018
• Docket Number: Case No. 2D16-2186
• Citation: 257 So.3d 1163
• Parties: I.K., Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

257 So.3d 1163

I.K., Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Case No. 2D16-2186

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

Opinion filed October 31, 2018

Howard L. Dimmig, II, Public Defender, and Mathew D. Bernstein, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Katie Salemi Ashby, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.

ATKINSON, Judge.

After an adjudicatory hearing, I.K. was found guilty of criminal mischief, in violation of section 806.13(1)(b)(1), Florida Statutes (2015), and resisting an officer without violence, in violation of section 843.02, Florida Statutes (2015). The court withheld adjudication of delinquency and placed I.K. on probation. I.K. appeals, challenging the denial of his motion for judgment of dismissal as to the latter charge of resisting an officer without violence.

A motion for judgment of dismissal, the purpose of which is to test the legal sufficiency of the State's evidence, is reviewed de novo. R.J.K. v. State, 928 So.2d 499, 502 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006) ; E.A.B. v. State, 851 So.2d 308, 310 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003). When the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the State, does not establish a prima facie case of the crime, then judgment of dismissal is proper. G.T.J. v. State, 994 So.2d 1182, 1184 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008) ; A.R. v. State, 127 So.3d 650, 653 (Fla. 4th DCA 2013).

At trial, two officers of the Tampa Police Department (the "Department") testified that they received a dispatch call to respond to a residence for a local pickup of I.K. for violation of probation. They explained that the dispatch call—variously described as a "VOP, Local Pickup," a "dispatch call to respond to the residence ... for a pickup," and "A Violation of

257 So.3d 1165

Probation Pickup"—was an internal practice of the Department by which officers from the Department check in on juveniles who are on probation. For example, when the terms of probation require the juvenile to be home at a certain time, officers will go to the juvenile's house to see if he is violating his probation. If the officers "don't make contact with that juvenile there," they place a local pickup for that juvenile. The officer puts that information into the Department's system "with radio, as a pickup, so that ... any law enforcement that comes into contact with him ... will know he violated that curfew order."

Based on the dispatch call they received, the officers went to I.K.'s house to arrest him. They found him hiding in a closet in the back bedroom. When leading him out of the apartment, he refused to walk down the stairs so the officers had to physically carry him. Once they got him in the patrol car, he kicked out a window. They had to use a special technique to restrain him.

Section 843.02 provides that resisting an officer in the lawful execution of any legal duty without offering or doing violence to the officer is a first-degree misdemeanor. To adjudicate I.K. delinquent for resisting an officer without violence, the State...