Ingraham v. State
| Decision Date | 08 March 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 2D00-2097.,2D00-2097. |
| Citation | 811 So.2d 770 |
| Parties | Kenneth INGRAHAM, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Frederick W. Vollrath, Special Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and John M. Klawikofsky, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
Kenneth Ingraham appeals his convictions of arson and burglary. We reverse because the search warrant for his apartment did not comport with the constitutional requirement that the items to be seized be set forth with particularity. U.S. Const. amend. IV; Art. I, § 12, Fla. Const. See also §§ 933.04, .05, Fla. Stat. (1999).
At approximately 5:43 a.m. on June 3, 1999, Tampa Fire Rescue received a call regarding a fire at the Palma Ceia Little League building, which was used for storage as well as housing a concession stand. City of Tampa police officer Troy Neal responded to the fire. He observed one civilian at the scene, and this man turned out to be Ingraham. Not long after Neal first observed Ingraham, Ingraham approached him and commented that it was a big fire. Ingraham pointed to some bleachers and said that he had been sitting there. Neal asked him if he had seen anyone who might have started the fire, and Ingraham responded that he had not. Neal asked Ingraham why he was there, and Ingraham stated that he had been out riding his bike on Bayshore Boulevard when he saw fire trucks and police cruisers with their sirens and lights on. He decided to follow them out of curiosity. It was later determined, however, that none of the fire or police vehicles that responded to the scene came down Bayshore Boulevard. Neal asked Ingraham for identification, and Ingraham produced a Florida identification card. A check of Ingraham's criminal history revealed burglaries, vandalizing of vending machines, and arsons.
Fire investigators determined that the fire had been intentionally set with a combustible liquid and that the point of entry was through a second floor window where part of a chain link fence protecting the window was missing. Investigators also discovered that a vending machine had been pried open. A black duffel bag was found under some dead palm fronds in a vegetated part of the baseball field and another bag as well as some baseball gloves were found under the scorekeeper's box behind home plate. The Little League president and some board members identified items in the duffel bag as items that were missing from the building. There were three well-preserved footprints in relative proximity to the duffel bag under the palm fronds, and plaster casts of them were taken.
The day after the fire, Officer Kurt Middleton contacted Officer Neal to advise him that he had encountered a man at the Palma Ceia Little League field at approximately 1:00 or 1:30 a.m. the morning of the fire. Middleton is a K-9 officer who takes his dog to that field for breaks. The man approached Middleton and commented that he had a good-looking dog. The man had something in his hand, and Middleton asked him to drop it. When the man dropped the item, which looked to be about two and a half to three feet long, it made a thud. Middleton thought it sounded like a heavy metal object. Middleton shined a flashlight on the man and saw that he was wearing dark clothing and fingerless gloves. Middleton was not able to converse with the man for very long because he received a call to which he had to respond. Middleton identified Ingraham from a photograph as the man he had encountered.
Officer Al Alcala prepared the search warrant for Ingraham's apartment, as well as the supporting affidavit. The warrant and the affidavit were reviewed by an assistant state attorney and then taken to a judge, who signed the warrant authorizing a search for "certain evidence relating to Arson and Burglary, to wit: Clothing, shoes, and other physical evidence relating to the Crime [sic] of Arson and Burglary." During the execution of the search warrant, officers seized a drill, a drill bit, an American flag, rolled coins and money wrappers, bolt cutters, a pry tool, black fingerless gloves, a red tool box, a batting glove, and a yellow legal pad with writing on it. As the search was concluding, Ingraham arrived at his apartment. The officers placed him under arrest and then asked for his consent to search, which he provided.1
Prior to trial, Ingraham filed a motion to suppress the items seized from his apartment. The motion argued in part that the search warrant was insufficient on its face because section 933.05, Florida Statutes (1999), requires that a search warrant must describe the items to be seized with particularity and none of the items seized were described in the warrant. The trial court denied the motion. Ingraham objected to the admission of the seized items at trial. We agree with his argument in this appeal that the trial court erred in denying the motion to suppress because the search warrant failed to describe the items to be seized with particularity. In fact, the warrant very nearly authorized a general search of Ingraham's apartment. "General searches have long been deemed to violate fundamental rights." Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 195, 48 S.Ct. 74, 72 L.Ed. 231 (1927). In Marron, the United States Supreme Court explained why the prohibition against general searches was so important as to be placed in the Constitution:
The practice had obtained in the colonies of issuing writs of assistance to the revenue officers, empowering them, in their discretion, to search suspected places for smuggled goods, which James Otis announced "the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty, and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law book;" since they placed "the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer."
Id. (quoting Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S....
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
McCauley v. State, 2D00-187.
...v. State, 803 So.2d 598, 609 (Fla.2001), cert. denied, 535 U.S. 1103, 122 S.Ct. 2308, 152 L.Ed.2d 1063 (2002); Ingraham v. State, 811 So.2d 770, 774 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002). The analysis of the above issues demonstrates that the search of the premises in this case was illegal. However, the State......
-
Moody v. State
...police activity ... the unlawful police action presumptively taints and renders involuntary any consent to search." Ingraham v. State, 811 So.2d 770, 774 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002) (alteration in original) (quoting Connor v. State, 803 So.2d 598, 609 (Fla. 2001) ). The State may rebut this presumpt......
-
Russ v. State, s. 5D14–1740
...search for "documents recording the extension of credit to Haya Bigloo" was constitutionally overbroad). In Ingraham v. State, 811 So.2d 770 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002), a search warrant authorizing police to search for "certain evidence relating to Arson and Burglary to wit: Clothing, shoes, and ot......