Leisure v. State
| Decision Date | 09 September 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. AM-240,AM-240 |
| Citation | 437 So.2d 751 |
| Parties | David Ray LEISURE, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Neal R. Lewis, Miami, and Richard Hersch, Miami, for appellant.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Barbara Ann Butler, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jacksonville, for appellee.
In this criminal appeal we resume jurisdiction to determine whether appellant's judgment and sentence for burglary and grand theft should be reversed because of an alleged error committed by the trial court in denying appellant's motion to suppress certain tangible evidence seized by the police. When we first considered this appeal, we rejected the State's contention that appellant had waived his right to appeal the suppression issue and relinquished jurisdiction to the trial court with directions to hold a hearing to determine whether the ruling on the motion to suppress was dispositive of the case and whether appellant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the area searched. On remand, the trial court found, based on a stipulation entered into between appellant and the State, that the ruling on the motion to suppress was dispositive of the case and that appellant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the area searched. With these findings now before us, we address the merits of the suppression issue.
The relevant facts are as follows. Appellant was arrested along with Anthony James and charged with committing a burglary which had occurred just moments before. Appellant stood silent, admitting no involvement in the burglary. James, on the other hand, confessed to his involvement in the burglary and also provided information implicating appellant in another burglary. James advised the police that, while at appellant's apartment, appellant had displayed to him a stash of loot including jewelry, dental gold, a movie projector, and a stamp collection which appellant boasted he had stolen from a house he had previously burglarized. James further advised the police that appellant shared his apartment with his girlfriend--James' sister--and that by prearranged plan, appellant's girlfriend would destroy the stash of loot if appellant did not immediately return after finishing their present criminal escapade, which had resulted in their arrest. Fearing that appellant's girlfriend would carry out the prearranged plan and destroy the evidence of appellant's misdeeds, the police seized appellant's apartment, which was then occupied by his girlfriend, until a warrant to search the apartment was obtained some four hours later. At that time, the apartment was searched and a considerable amount of stolen property was uncovered.
On appeal, appellant contends that the police lacked probable cause to search his apartment because the information provided by James, which was the basis for the search, failed to meet the two-pronged Aguilar-Spinelli test of reliability. Appellant further asserts that even if probable cause existed, the search was still unlawful because the facts did not present exigent circumstances justifying the warrantless seizure.
Addressing first the probable cause issue, we note that the United States Supreme Court in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983), abandoned the two-pronged Aguilar-Spinelli test for determining the existence of probable cause based on an informant's tip. In its stead, the Supreme Court adopted a totality of the circumstances analysis. In reaching this decision, the court noted that:
The "two-pronged test" directs analysis into two largely independent channels--the informant's "veracity" or "reliability" and his "basis of knowledge." [footnotes omitted] There are persuasive arguments against according these two elements such independent status. Instead, they are better understood as relevant considerations in the totality of circumstances analysis that traditionally has guided probable cause...
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Bellamy v. State
...(risk of destruction of drugs); McNairy v. Texas, 835 S.W.2d 101 (Tex.Crim.App.1991) (risk of destruction of drugs); Leisure v. Florida, 437 So.2d 751 (Fla.App.1983) (risk of destruction of evidence of burglary), cert. denied, 449 So.2d 264 (1984); North Carolina v. Tripp, 52 N.C.App. 244, ......
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State v. Augustyn
...applying a test as to (1) the informant's reliability or veracity and (2) the informant's basis of knowledge. See Leisure v. State, 437 So.2d 751, 753 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983). This test was earlier stated in Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964), at a time when ea......
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Weber v. State, 85-2271
...that the confession was not dispositive. In Leisure v. State, 429 So.2d 434, 437 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983), appeal after remand, 437 So.2d 751 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983), the court implied a finding of dispositiveness but distinguished cases involving confessions as they are nondispositive as a matter o......
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Rios v. State, 85-121
...to the other, or by some other indicia of reliability. 462 U.S. at 233, 103 S.Ct. at 2329, 79 L.Ed.2d at 545. See also Leisure v. State, 437 So.2d 751 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983). In the case here under review the "tip" was not anonymous. In fact, the informant was shown to have sworn before a circ......