Jean v. State

• Docket Number: 6D23-1255
• Decision Date: 31 August 2023
• Parties: Jamari Jean, Appellant, v. State of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

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Jamari Jean, Appellant, v. State of Florida, Appellee.

No. 6D23-1255

Florida Court of Appeals, Sixth District

August 31, 2023

NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND DISPOSITION THEREOF IF TIMELY FILED

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Orange County. Patricia L Strowbridge, Judge. Lower Tribunal No. 2021-CF-004902-A-O

Matthew J. Metz, Public Defender, and Edward J. Weiss Assistant Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for Appellant.

Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Allison Leigh Morris, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.

MIZE J.

Appellant Jamari Jean ("Jean"), appeals his conviction for possession of a firearm or ammunition by a convicted felon.^[1] Jean asserts that the trial court erred when it denied his motion to suppress the firearm and ammunition found during the warrantless search of a locked fanny pack he was wearing when he was arrested. We agree and reverse his conviction.

Background and Procedural History

Orange County Sheriff's deputies obtained a warrant for Jean's arrest for one count of aggravated battery with a firearm and one count of aggravated assault with a firearm. To execute the warrant, the deputies surveilled Jean's home and waited for him to return so they could complete the arrest. As the deputies waited, Jean rode up to the house on a bicycle and dismounted the bicycle. Deputy Troy Tiegs ("Tiegs") then got out of his vehicle and saw Jean standing in front of the house's garage behind another vehicle that was in the driveway. Jean was wearing two bags, a backpack on his back and a fanny pack that was strapped to the front of his chest. When Jean saw Tiegs coming toward him, Jean began to walk away from Tiegs and into the garage. Both Tiegs and another deputy, Richard Stelter ("Stelter"), ordered Jean to stop walking and show his hands. Tiegs followed Jean into the garage, and because Tiegs was unable to see one of Jean's hands, Tiegs tackled Jean to the ground. Stelter joined Tiegs in the garage and the officers pushed Jean onto the floor so that he was laying on his stomach. Once on the floor, Stelter and Tiegs pulled Jean's hands out from under him and put him in handcuffs.

After Jean was handcuffed in the garage, the officers removed both bags from him. The fanny pack was given to Stelter, who took it outside of the garage and placed it on the hood of a car that was in the driveway. During this time and at all relevant times thereafter, Jean was eight to ten feet away from the fanny pack, handcuffed with his hands behind his back, surrounded by deputies, with multiple deputies between him and the fanny pack. Stelter stood at the hood with the fanny pack and had exclusive control over the fanny pack at all times after the officers removed it from Jean. Both Stelter and Tiegs testified that if Jean had attempted to reach the fanny pack, he would not have been able to do so.

The fanny pack had a keylock on it. Stelter testified that he did not know what was in the fanny pack and he could not see inside of it without opening it. Stelter manipulated, squeezed, and felt the locked fanny pack with his hands. Stelter testified at the hearing on the motion to suppress that when he felt the fanny pack with his hands, it "certainly" felt like there could be a firearm inside of it, but that he did not know for sure until he opened it.^[2] Stelter asked the other officers to search Jean for the key. Once the key was found on Jean, Stelter unlocked the fanny pack and found the firearm which Jean was ultimately convicted of possessing.

The only warrant the deputies obtained was the arrest warrant that they were executing. The deputies never sought or obtained a warrant to search Jean's locked fanny pack.

After the events described above, the State charged Jean with the crime of possession of a firearm or ammunition by a convicted felon. Jean pled not guilty and filed a motion to suppress the firearm and ammunition. After the trial court denied the motion, Jean changed his plea to nolo contendere but expressly reserved his right to appeal the denial of the motion to suppress, which both the State and the defense stipulated was dispositive of the charge. The trial court adjudicated Jean guilty, and this appeal followed.

Analysis

I. Standard of Review

"A trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress comes to the appellate court clothed with a presumption of correctness and the court must interpret the evidence and reasonable inferences and deductions derived therefrom in a manner most favorable to sustaining the trial court's ruling." Terry v. State, 668 So.2d 954, 958 (Fla. 1996). "Accordingly, the appellate courts defer to the trial court's factual findings so long as the findings are supported by competent, substantial evidence." Rodriguez v. State, 187 So.3d 841, 845 (Fla. 2015) (quoting State v. Hankerson, 65 So.3d 502, 506 (Fla. 2011) (internal quotations omitted)). However, we review "de novo the mixed questions of law and fact that arise in the application of the historical facts to the protections of the Fourth Amendment." Wyche v. State, 987 So.2d 23, 25 (Fla. 2008); see also Connor v. State, 803 So.2d 598, 608 (Fla. 2001).

II. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution^[3]

The most basic rule under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution "is that searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment-subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions." Smallwood v. State, 113 So.3d 724, 729-30 (Fla. 2013) (quoting Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 454-55 (1971) (internal quotations omitted)). "The exceptions are jealously and carefully drawn, and there must be a showing by those who seek exemption that the exigencies of the situation made that course imperative." Id. (internal quotations omitted). "The burden is on those seeking the exemption to show the need for it." Id.

"Among the exceptions to the warrant requirement is a search incident to a lawful arrest." Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 338 (2009). "The exception derives from interests in officer safety and evidence preservation that are typically implicated in arrest situations." Id. "[A] search incident to arrest only includes the arrestee's person and the area within his immediate control, i.e., the area into which he may reach to acquire a weapon or destroy evidence." Smallwood, 113 So.3d at 734 (citing Gant, 556 U.S. at 339). This limitation "ensures that the scope of a search incident to arrest is commensurate with its purposes of protecting arresting officers and safeguarding any evidence of the offense of arrest that an arrestee might conceal or destroy." Gant, 556 U.S. at 339.

Applying this limitation, the United States Supreme Court has stated that once "there is no possibility that an arrestee could reach into the area that law enforcement officers seek to search, both justifications for the search-incident-to-arrest exception are absent and the rule does not apply." Smallwood, 113 So.3d at 735 (quoting Gant, 556 U.S. at 339). Thus, where an arrestee has been secured by police officers and separated from the thing that the officers wish to search, neither of the rationales for the search incident to arrest exception apply and, accordingly, a search of that thing cannot be conducted as a search incident to arrest. Id.; Gant, 556 U.S. at 335 (stating that law enforcement are not authorized to conduct "a vehicle search incident to a recent occupant's arrest after the arrestee has been secured and cannot access the interior of the vehicle."); see also Harris v. State, 238 So.3d 396, 400 (Fla. 3d DCA 2018). The Third District Court of Appeal has specifically held that, in the case of a backpack carried by an arrestee at the time of arrest, once police officers have reduced the backpack to their exclusive control and there is no longer any danger of the arrestee gaining access to the backpack, the search of the backpack can no longer be justified as a search incident to arrest. Harris, 238 So.3d at 402; see also U.S. v. Davis, 997 F.3d 191, 200 (4th Cir. 2021) (holding that in the case of a backpack in the possession of an arrestee at the time of arrest, police officers could not search the backpack as a search incident to arrest where the arrestee was secured and could not access the backpack at the time of the search); U.S. v. Knapp, 917 F.3d 1161, 1169 (10th Cir. 2019) (holding that in the case of a purse carried by an arrestee at the time of arrest, police officers could not search the purse as a search incident to arrest where the arrestee had been secured and police officers had reduced the purse to their exclusive control by the time of the search).

In addition to searching an arrestee's person and the area within his immediate control, the United States Supreme Court has also held that "circumstances unique to the vehicle context justify a search incident to a lawful arrest when it is reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle." Gant 556 U.S at 335 (quoting Thornton v United States, 541 U.S. 615, 632 (2004) (Scalia, J, concurring in judgment) (internal quotations omitted)). However, neither the United States Supreme Court nor the Florida Supreme Court have ever applied this exception to searches of something other than a vehicle or containers located within a vehicle. Indeed, the United States Supreme Court stated that this exception applies in "circumstances unique to the vehicle context" and can "supply a basis for searching the passenger compartment of an arrestee's vehicle and any containers therein."^[4] Gant, 556 U.S. at 343-44 (emphasis added); see also H...